It’s 9PM, and all I want to do is sleep. I barely have the energy to speak, let alone play video games. But I have a job, and it’s reviewing Astro Bot on its release date, so I made a deal with myself to only play two levels, then go to bed…
Five hours later, my face was red from smiling. I was convinced I could build, then run through, a brick wall. That’s kind of the way Astro Bot will make you feel
Astro Botout now on PlayStation 5, is a collect-a-thon platformer. You play as the robot Astro who ventures into space in his PS5-shaped mothership with 300 of his friends — some of them simple bots, others robot-ified versions of popular video game characters . Suddenly, he is attacked by an unsubtle-as-hell Xbox-green alien monster that tosses his ship and scatters its parts and his 300 friends to the far corners of the universe.
Astro Bot is full of standard platformer tropes, but it brings awe in their presentation. As you explore the galaxies to find your fellow robots and unlock new parts of the game, you’ll encounter many familiar elements, only to see them executed in unique and fun ways. Almost every platformer has an ability that allows you to shoot at longer distances, but none of them allow you to do it by strapping a bulldog to your back.
The different levels that Astro explores have the themes you’d expect. There is a jungle planet, a volcanic planet, and the worlds of pirates, ghosts, and gardeners. Some worlds require special powers to navigate, and those, too, are fairly standard in function if not in form. The monkey power-up lets you scale walls, while the mouse’s ability shrinks you to access small spaces. There is even one Super Mario Sunshine-esque FLUDD power that uses fluid to move Astro around.
I was convinced I could build, then run through, a brick wall. That’s kind of the way Astro Bot will make you feel
The developers at Team Asobi didn’t reinvent the platforming wheel here, but like any good platformer, it’s the unique ways of using powers that make them special. Instead of water, that FLUDD power-up absorbs green goo then spits it out to create grass platforms. I giggled like a toddler using it to defeat a special enemy by literally sucking his green, messy brain.
A power-up — which I won’t describe beyond saying this really cute because figuring it out is a big part of the fun of it — truly getting the essence of Astro Bot. When I first found it, I didn’t really understand it. It seems useless; I felt stupid for being stupid in what had been, up to that point, an incredibly simple game. And unlike most of my pickups, the game won’t help me. Astro Bot usually shows a little tutorial box for how to use it, but this time, it just left me hanging. Gaming feels like it’s talking to its developers without the ability to speak directly, and it feels like communication is broken.
But then I remembered that communication between player and developer is not only what to do but what to do feeling And suddenly, it’s like they’re hovering over my shoulder, holding back a laugh like a dear friend would while they wait for me to crack a joke. They deliberately withheld an explanation because they wanted me to experience the feeling of figuring it out for myself. They want me to laugh, as I suspect they did when designing it.
And when I finally got it, the shock of understanding was so strong that I laughed to myself with spontaneous sobs without saying out loud to anyone, “Astro Bot, I will die for you.”
There are so many moments that are exactly like that. I thought the bots you rescued were just currency used to advance to the next level, only to find out that in the game’s hub world, they’re your friends putting their bodies on the line to help you access more collectibles. Some unique PlayStation-themed bots – think one wearing Aloy’s red hair or Kratos’ beard – serve a more specialized purpose. When you rescue them, they can give you that character’s power and take you to a special level modeled on a game like Horizon Zero Dawn o Not on the mapso detailed that they will even include side quests from the original. And I dare you to feel something other than the warmest nostalgia during the final boss fight and credits sequence — I don’t know how much emotion a PlayStation Move controller can make me feel.
From my two-hour demo at Summer Game Fest earlier this year, I know Astro Bot is something special. It’s a simple, fun little platformer made in celebration of PlayStation’s past. And if that’s all, it’ll have a nice little pit stop on the 2024 game calendar as we head towards bigger, more anticipated releases like Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Echoes of Wisdomand Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
But Astro Bot is little more than a mascot platformer taken from the late ’90s and remade for modern audiences and hardware. It’s the kind of game that reminds us why video games exist in the first place: love. (Yes, I know that’s corny — but I’m serious.) Astro Bot shows the great love that motivates us to play, create, write, and share video games with our friends and family. Even this will keep you up past your bedtime.
