The short week is over and you’ve already reached another weekend — or perhaps have finally made it to another weekend, depending on how much you hate your job. Because we love ours, we’ve decided to make this week’s Weekend Guide all about the games we’ve had the pleasure of reviewing recently.
From the “Crappy Masterpiece” that is Star Wars Outlaws to the unfairly maligned Dustborn, we’ve gotten to spend some time with games that may not be flawless but are certainly worth returning to — which is what we intend to do over the next couple of days.
I cried at the end of Astro Bot. I recognize this isn’t indicative of much beyond my sentimentality, but I thought it was a crucial tidbit to underscore something else, something important about PlayStation’s excellent new platformer. It really is, more than anything else, a celebration of the consoles and games that shaped me, and likely many of you, too. It is so completely possessed with joy and teeming with the life of everything that PlayStation has meant to people over the years. It is also a brilliant platformer in its own right, stuffed full of ideas that make it seem like Asobi Team is just getting started in this utterly endearing franchise. For all its charms and wonders, however, there’s also a slightly melancholy feeling that Astro Bot, which secondarily serves as a kind of museum of PlayStation’s history, is putting that legacy and the spirit of innovation that defined it under glass to be gazed upon and appreciated as a relic of yesterday, rather than to infuse and electrify the games of today and tomorrow. — Moises Taveras
Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is a sequel I never expected. The original Space Marine, developed by Relic and released in 2011, was a fun, action-focused shooter, with just enough story and good ideas to keep you around until the credits rolled. A sequel seemed like a long shot, even if I and other players wanted one. Now, in 2024, we have Space Marine 2, which includes a similar, linear campaign as found in the first game, as well as a more robust multiplayer mode that might be the real reason to play this belated sequel. — Zack Zwiezen
Dustborn is kind of like the people-pleasing friend you know means well but runs ragged trying to accommodate so many people’s needs. Red Thread Games’ adventure/rhythm/beat-em-up hybrid has its strengths, and when it’s functioning as a socially conscious, modern version of a Telltale Games adventure, the lives of its merry band of superpowered misfits are genuinely engrossing. When it tries to be a below-average beat-em-up that trades relationship-building for some of the flimsiest action combat I’ve experienced this side of the Wii era, however, I’m less enthralled. — Kenneth Shepard
There’s no outfit in gaming with a stronger history of telling tales about picking fights with God than Square Enix. Literally or metaphorically, from Final Fantasy Legend/SaGa and Star Ocean to Xenogears and even some Final Fantasies, a foundational narrative in which our heroes push back against a cruel, manipulative creator is like a spinal cord holding up many a juggernaut of Japanese RPG canon. But another enduring Square Enix series, quietly running just as long as the others, takes the opposite approach, embracing the positive side of religion and mythology. These are games about unity, the healing powers of nature, and the virtuous pride brought from trusting in a benevolent higher power. No, not Dragon Quest; yes, you visit churches to save in those games, but then you go and hang out in pubs and gamble like an exhausted salaryman. No, I’m talking about Mana. — Lucas White
As a big Star Wars fan and video game lover, I’ve long dreamed of a game just like Star Wars Outlaws: a massive open-world action game set in the Star Wars universe that would let me rub shoulders with Jabba the Hutt while freely exploring every inch of a planet like Tatooine. It’s wild that it took this long to finally get a true open-world Star Wars game. And while it has some frustrating flaws, the experience Outlaws offers is worth it. — Zack Zwiezen
