With the fanbase that the Astro Bot IP has garnered over the course of the last decade or so, you wouldn’t expect it to have managed to do so without ever having seen a proper, full-fledged console release.
As its popularity has grown, however, so, too, has the demand for a more prominent presence for the IP in PlayStation’s first-party lineup- which now seems to be on the verge of coming true. After already having endeared itself to the masses with the incredible VR platformer Astro Bot Rescue Mission and the ever-so-delightful pack-in tech demo Astro’s Playroom, the franchise is ready to finally have its time in the sun. Enter: Astro Bot, a brand-new 3D platformer that sees the adorable robot mascot star in his own full-fledged console game for the first time. The results? Unsurprisingly charming.
Of course, anyone who will have played any of the two aforementioned games will have expected as much. In fact, there’s plenty that Astro Bot borrows from Astro’s Playroom in particular- such as the emphasis it places on PlayStation-related cameos, easter eggs, secrets, and more. Much like the free 2020 PS5 launch title, Astro Bot leans heavily on all things PlayStation, packing in everything from the most prominent and popular references to the deepest of cuts, lovingly plucked from across the entirety of PlayStation history.
That takes many different forms. As in Astro’s Playroom, many of the bots that you rescue throughout the game are robot versions of popular characters who have had important roles to play in the history of PlayStation, from beloved first-party icons like Ratchet, Jak, and Kratos to beloved third-party characters like Solid Snake, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, and many others. And that’s barely even scratching the surface. Of the 300 bots that are scattered throughout the many levels in the game, a whopping 150 are VIP bots, which is what the PlayStation characters are referred to as.
Astro Bot’s love and dedication for PlayStation also shines through in other ways- including the game’s core premise, which sees Astro having to find and rescue bots so together they can repair their mothership, which is basically just a giant PS5 flying through space. The ship parts that you find throughout intergalactic journey are, like in Astro’s Playroom, named after actual console parts, while Astro even has a smaller ship that he uses to transport himself around the galaxies that is shaped like a DualSense. There are even minigames and fun little interactions tucked away throughout the experience that will tug hard at your PlayStation nostalgia- but I’ll leave those unspoiled.
Oh, and speaking of the DualSense, Astro Bot is once again a spectacular advertisement of the controller’s unique capabilities, to the extent that it’s almost embarrassing how much better it is at that than most other games that have released for the console since it came out four years ago. From the changes in the haptic feedback based on the surfaces that you’re walking on to being able to use the DualSense’s gyro controls to control Astro’s ship in the beginning of levels, to abilities built around the motion controls and adaptive triggers, the game once again sets an incredibly high bar for how to properly utilize the DualSense. Very rarely have I played games where the DualSense’s features are used well enough for them to actually stand out as something that actively makes the gaming experience better. Funnily enough, Astro’s Playroom is high on that list- and it’s now not only been joined, but even surpassed by Astro Bot.
Visually, Astro Bot is unsurprisingly a treat to behold. Obviously, it’s not the technical masterpiece that Sony’s big blockbuster releases tend to be, but it still looks incredibly sharp, with its bright, colourful, and vivid art design being bolstered by top-notch tech. More importantly, the game runs with near-perfect frame rate. That’s an incredibly important thing in a platformer, and in my time with Astro Bot, I’ve had no complaints on this front. Meanwhile, just as good as the visuals and performance are the audio side of the experience, with a soundtrack that’s fill of songs that have buried their way into my brain and are refusing to leave.