The Video Games You Should Play This Weekend – May 1

I have about 76 hours logged in Saros and am two Trophies away from the Platinum. I saw credits and wrote Game Informer‘s Saros review at about the 40 hour mark. I share those stats to emphasize how much I enjoyed and continue to enjoy Housemarque’s new rogue shooter. Usually, when it comes to reviewing a game with a definable conclusion, we move on when we’re done. Even if we like a game, we often simply don’t have time to continue to play it. We’ve got to get to the next big game, after all.

But I can’t seem to stop playing Saros.

I suspect even if I am able to get the Platinum trophy (I don’t know that I will be able to get Untouchable – we’ll see), I will probably keep playing just to fill out all the various progress bars and max out the skill tree. I don’t want to stop. Even if you’re intimidated by the genre, or if Returnal seemed too hard, I insist you give Saros a try. It is undeniably a challenging game, but Saros is much more manageable that Returnal (which I also love, to be clear). Its ending is attainable, even if your first few attempts on the initial boss feel hopeless. Stick with it! In fact here are some tips to help you along. Here’s an interview with the development team, too. They offer some tips at the end of that, so that will also help you be successful. It’s the current front-runner for my game of the year, and it may be yours, too.

Like great comic-based fighters that have come before, like Marvel vs. Capcom or Injustice, Invincible VS comes out swinging and wonderfully captures the characters and tone of the universe it’s playing in. In this case, that’s an especially bloody set of throwdowns between rival superheroes Under the hood, Quarter Up has crafted a deep and rewarding tag-team fighting game system that feels intense, challenging, and nuanced. But if you’re mostly here to see Mark punch his mean dad, you can bump down the difficulty and have a grand old time seeing the action play out. It’s rare that we get a brand-new entry in the fighting game genre that isn’t a sequel to something that has come before, and rarer still that the result is something this impressive. But Invincible VS is one of those times, and our early matches have been a blast.

Head here to read Game Informer‘s Invincible VS review.

Players looking for their next cooperative robot-cowboy undead-killing shooter have much to celebrate with the early access release of Far Far West. Yes, the thematic backdrop is quirky, but the action and style of play here recalls great titles like Deep Rock Galactic and Helldivers. While playable solo, the real fun is meeting up with some buddies, picking a mission, and taking a flying train out into the desert to shoot some swarms of skeletons and spectral crows while galloping about on a mechanical horse. Customizing your robot, trying out build tweaks, and experimenting with spell combinations are all part of the package here. Evil Raptor are still early on with this title, but the whole thing is giving off fun vibes, and buzz is already building over on Steam.

I rolled credits on Vampire Crawlers just in time to get my review for it posted this morning, but trust that I still have lots of dungeon crawling in my future. Yes, it offers plenty to do after seeing credits, with lots of unlocks still to go, but even if it didn’t, I’d still be playing. That’s because the core gameplay – building a card deck on the fly while engaging in fast, frenetic, casino-like combat remains a simple but effective blast. With so many crawlers to select, cards to utilize, and other run modifiers, no two dungeon crawls feel the same, ensuring every go feels brand new. Plus, because of its more laid-back nature, requiring less strategy than a contemporaries like Slay The Spire 2, for example, Vampire Crawlers is the perfect game to play on the couch with the latest episode of The Boys on, or while watching Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End the umpteenth time. I’m considering picking it up on Switch for this very reason. 

Read more of my thoughts in the Game Informer Vampire Crawlers review.