The power-ups flesh out Astro’s move set which, on its own, is fairly simplistic. However, while his range of moves isn’t particularly deep, they’re executed excellently. Jumping, hovering, punching, and spinning all feels spot on thanks to tight, responsive controls. The true test of any 3D platformer is whether it feels fun to simply move around, and Astro passes handily. It feels great to hop around each stage, and Astro is often augmented with new abilities, so we never felt like he needs more moves.

They gradually fill up the desert crash site, turning this hub world into a bustling Sony museum. It’s not that the powers are cool, that it’s fun to blow into your controller, or that you get to meet Aloy. It’s that every inch of Astro Bot is designed to offer a fresh experience. It all fits together perfectly, with levels unfurling with surprising secrets that encourage exploration and always have an answer for a curious mind. Astro Bot might also be the most ASMR game ever with pitch perfect sound design that reacts to every single surface like no other game before. If you thought Playroom was a showcase for the DualSense, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Astro Bot from TeamASOBI took the most important round of applause of the night, and with the most precious award of the event, the Game of the Year. Arriving September 6, 2024, Astro Bot is a direct sequel to Astro’s Playroom and looks to bring all its colorful platforming and more to a full-fledged game. Astro Bot is only confirmed for PS5 so far but so were a hoard of other PlayStation exclusives now available on PC. Sony has made a point of expanding its player base and sales by bringing franchises such as The Last of Us, God of War, Spider-Man, and more to the platform. Astro Bot’s Digital Deluxe edition also has several exclusive items, including 10 more PSN avatars, a digital art gallery, and a digital soundtrack. It also lets you unlock Astro’s Yharnam Tourist outfit, Golden outfit, and two more Dual Speeder paint colors early (all the outfits and paint colors are available in the base game, too).

Astro Bot Vinyl Figure With Protector

My wife and I enjoyed It Takes Two but some of the one off I was glad to get rid of. My kid on the other hand hated how you kept learning new stuff only for it to be dropped and never return again, just like this review, and I was getting this for them for their birthday. I just watched the ACG review on YT and this game looks phenomenal, lots of things that remind me of the Mario games and lets be honest, there is not a better platformer out there to take notes from. Also F168 or lets say unique features this game has over the Mario series are way better graphics and for Playstation gamers all the Bots that remind you of well known games.

There’s so much to collect, levels to conquer, and secrets to discover that it actually feels weird that it’s not charged at the normal AAA premium. They even announced that the game will be receiving free DLC in the near future. If there’s one thing to criticize, it’s the exclusivity and the need to buy a PS5 to experience this masterpiece. Everyone should be able to experience this kind of fun, as with the amount of games there are, it’s only a few games that really go the distance. As a platformer, Astro Bot is definitely the best to come this year.

Astro Bot Is The Game You Buy A Ps5 For

Kill the enemy train and pop the hourglass open to get the second puzzle piece. The first puzzle piece in “Trapped In Time” appears before you even land in the hourglass. As you’re flying in on your DualSense ship, you’ll pass some coin containers and then a large sand dune on your left. On this sand dune, you’ll see a golden snake with a familiar glow emerge as you get close. Hit the snake with your ship and it’ll release the puzzle piece ahead of you.

Proceed through the level from bot #1, taking the spiral platform, defeating the snake, and continuing your climb. Once you drain the blue hourglass and bust through the ceiling, head over to the right of the new platform, past the circular gray disk with the lever on top. Drop off the side and walk through the sand waterfall here, defeating the two pink enemies. You’ll find yourself in a small cave that has a bot at the back. There are seven bots in “Trapped In Time.” You’ll find the first two before you go inside the cave section of the level, the next three inside the cave, and the final two once you leave the cave.

None of that affects Astro Bot’s quality as a game but it does limit its successfulness as a nostalgia piece. Although it does rally at the end, with a wonderful on-rails section that is more reminiscent of the tone in Astro’s Playroom. Perhaps there is some sort of museum archive if you 100% the game but for the vast majority of players, they’ll have no idea who most of the characters are. If we don’t know then we’re sure more casual gamers are going to be even more lost, especially as so many of them look like generic anime characters. What’s most impressive, on a technical level, is the game’s use of force feedback. Surprisingly, the haptic feedback on the shoulder buttons, which was so impressive in Astro’s Playroom, isn’t emphasised but the audio and rumble design is the best we’ve ever seen in a video game.

To do so, players will need to find and crash into the floating planet with the Christmas hat. Players will be able to find a Puzzle Piece floating around in space in the Tentacle System, Serpent Starway, Camo Cosmos, and Feather Cluster galaxies. Crash Site serves as a kind of hub world, in which players can find 35 Bots and 11 Puzzle Pieces. Like many of PlayStation’s limited edition DualSense controllers, the Astro Bot DualSense is based on one of its many franchises, specifically 2024’s Game of the Year, Astro Bot. The controller features a white and blue trim that perfectly matches the Dual Speeder in-game, as well as a smiling set of eyes on the touchpad. Sony just never seemed to have an answer to Nintendo’s Mario or Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog.

Astro Bot feels like it’s showing off at times, but never in a way that pats itself on its back. [newline]It’s ceaselessly cute and clever, and feels more like a little kid delighted to show you their toy collection than a braggart displaying their trophies. The only ability that doesn’t work as cleanly as others is the one used in an underwater level. Meant to mimic a dolphin-like dive ability, the controls used for this one never feel as intuitive as those for other abilities. In this level, I found it unusually tricky, albeit not exactly difficult, to collect all the secrets. A few of them demanded a deft diving ability the backpack is meant to offer, but it doesn’t have the same accuracy of other abilities in the game, which led me to whiff on some sections in a way that was unique to this level. It was manageable, but if any secret levels–which tend to be some of the game’s hardest–also use this mechanic, I expect them to become some of the game’s few frustrations.