Astro Bot (Sony, PS5)
ONCE was the time when a console was judged by its marquee platform star - and as a gamer weaned on the golden age of the genre, I drew deep on Nintendo’s paps.
But there hasn’t been a proper 3D Mario since 2017, and after a revolving door of 90s heroes, Sony had seemingly given up on the genre, finding its groove instead with cinematic blockbusters. From Last of Us to God of War, PlayStation’s biggest hits have been a parade of grimmery - but Astro Bot turns that frown upside down for what’s quite possible the studio’s crowning achievement.
The perennial star of tech demos for new PlayStation hardware, the wee fella’s in the big leagues now with a full-fat love letter to Sony’s gaming history and masterclass of design.
More marketing lesson than plot, Astro cruises a galaxy of platforming genius in his DualSense-shaped spaceship, rescuing 300 bots over 50 levels that wallow in PlayStation’s 30-year history.
Though his basic abilities are jumping and punching, stages are often built around a unique ability that empowers our polished poppet with everything from rocket boosters and extendable boxing gloves to time-manipulation.
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Entire levels will riff on a Sony classic, with kid-friendly takes on Uncharted, Horizon and God of War as Astro cos-plays PlayStation legends.
Sony is as formative a brand for millennials as Nintendo was to me, and Astro Bot exhumes an entire graveyard’s worth of IP. Its brand reverence extends to a hub world that eventually groans with cutesy-pie dioramas of PlayStation’s back catalogue, from the well known (Uncharted, God of War) to the obscure (Devil Dice, anybody?), and with 169 characters to unearth, you gotta catch ‘em all.
Given Astro’s stock-in-trade is showcasing PlayStation tech, your DualSense gets the sweatiest of workouts - and it’s not just motion controls. You’ll feel every footstep and raindrop through the controller, while its microphone gets some well-earned lip service.
But controller gimmicks and nostalgia hits alone won’t cut it, and Astro Bot simply sparks with the kind of precision-engineered joy that should have Nintendo losing sleep. It all runs flawlessly: towering boss battles rival Pixar’s finest with nary a hiccup, while Kenneth CM Young’s score is a sugar rush of earworms.
Released when Sony shuttered their live service disaster Concord after a fortnight, Astro Bot is a reminder of the giddy joys to be found in a single-player adventure free from microtransactions, multiplayer malarkey and battle pass shenanigans.
A reminder of why I love games in the first place, Astro Bot is, pound for pound, one of the best games ever.
