Astro Bot - Incredible Reviews - Is This A Game of the Year Contender?

right um our next news story of the week um astrobot is out on PlayStation 5 and I'm delighted to see that the recognition for the game the critical uh reaction has just been absolutely stellar and it's great to see that there's almost like complete consensus that this is just an absolutely brilliant fantastic game created by a relatively small developer within Sony T SOI apparently 65 core Developers interesting interview at video games Chronicle where they went to actually visit uh the studio in Japan get an idea of the the ethos the mentality there this is just a success story on every level which we kind of need in the wake of the Concord dearle and um I've played only a small part of the game but you know essentially if you've played Astros playroom which was installed on your PlayStation 5 when you bought it it basically sets the scene for everything this game is and um highly recommend buying it John you did the review for us um I'm curious about your reaction to the reaction to the game oh I'm I'm very relieved and happy that people are also enjoying this as much as I did uh the reaction seems to be like shockingly overwhelmingly pos positive maybe not shockingly uh because it is freaking amazing I would say this is one of the best things that Sony's ever made uh I think I think it's the best platform game they've ever made I personally I I like this better than every ratchet Jack game combined I think this is better than all of them uh this is a this is a real one wonderful wonderful piece of gaming that just man I it's hard to even say like and that's the thing though is like even in the video there's so much stuff that I did not include in there for purposely not include because the it's the the joy of surprise is so high there's just so much stuff that happens that's often unexpected and you're just like wow I it really does have like just this unbelievable amount of creativity powering it where like they just came up with cool ideas for levels and every level every level is like this bespoke little nugget of an idea like it just feels like it's constantly shifting what's there uh and it's all based on these really solid core mechanics and everything plus a great visual presentation great soundtrack uh awesome physics display like all over the place uh it's just phenomenal stuff cool and um I've got some questions here from supporters let's start with this one from Allan the infamous Allen on the Discord oh hi guys where does astrobot stack up in the platforming pantheon better than Mario Sack Boy Crash Bandicoot Sonic Etc must be right up there for game of the year what do you reckon John oh wow it's I mean I like it more than than anything Sack Boy and Crash Bandicoot for sure sure uh as far as Mario and Sonic it doesn't quite top the best in in those series for me and the reason is is that both Mario and Sonic at their best they have a little bit more depth to the overall control system like Sonic's momentum system for instance and the way Mario can handle in those games allows for some real uh just engaging sort of like Mastery of the game play in a way astrobot doesn't quite go in that direction uh to me astrobot kind of reminds me of if I had to compare it to something it feels like this combination of Kirby and the Forgotten land mixed with which I absolutely loved mixed with Super Mario wonder I which is a pretty awesome combination I think so uh but yeah it's definitely very high on the overall list I would say it's one of one of the best Platformers I think I've ever played certainly in the 3D space uh and on top of that it's just the technical execution is is perfect basically yeah mhm I mean what can you say it does everything that they wanted it to do and does it exceptionally well with basically no flaws you managed to find one I'm sure there's like one or two others but it's I I captured a lot of hours of this game and that was the only one that registered and that's the only one my eyes caught where it's like oh it's a tiny little dip for a very short little time so otherwise it's perfect mhm Oliver what's your take on all of this on the game itself uh I played um a couple hours right before this direct recording and I really okay really really like it it's just a joy to play I love the levels I love all the little physicalized objects that you bump into that's really fantastic I love the haptic feedback that was great in asos's playroom but here it feels good and they're not trying to draw attention to it quite as much as they were in asos's play so it feels a little bit more natural the levels feel great to play I think they have done a good job kind of like you said with the reference to Kirby and the Forgotten land where the levels are pretty linear in driving but still three-dimensional but not to open but they still have secrets and they still have the the various Bots to to free and rescue um and that's very I think that's very important because like 3D Platformers to me I'm not super interested in super open-ended 3D Platformers these days but I do like 3D Platformers and I like ones that can be a bit more directed and show you something that's exciting and give you kind of like that that a bit more of that roller coaster kind of experience that's really what I like it feels kind of like to to draw analogies to other platforms it feels kind of somewhere between Super Mario 3D World and Super Mario Galaxy to me at least in terms of the openness of it I've not played nearly as much of it as John has of course but those are my initial Impressions um but yeah each level is just a delight really careful platforming um great artwork they use context sensitive actions but they don't use it in a way that's overwhelming or or gimmicky they kind of throw in a context sensitive or a a unique move at the beginning of a level you exploit it throughout the level then you move on which I think is probably the right approach I personally I think that it's it's got to be in the running for some kind of consideration for game of the year um it's it's a fantastic game I mean I can't wait to play more of it yeah absolutely I mean I I too have just played a couple of hours of it and uh what could I say it's very rare a game just constantly Delights you with new mechanics and and genuinely surprising things to do it's just basically A procession of amazingly great mad ideas being thrust at you time and time again and it's very rare that they just don't Delight you and so you know it's really interesting to actually see people talking about um oh you know okay it's about 12 hours of gaming here this you're missing the point completely you know would you rather have 12 12 hours of um you know fun excitement surprise or 12 or or 20 40 hours of basically doing the same thing over and over again it's it's there's just no cont no no contest here it's this is a completely different type of experience that you've just got to enjoy and I do think um going back to the Jew said stuff um it's really interesting how well it works um obviously you've got um audio coming from the screen been but the way they managed to localize it within the controller and add Pitch Perfect haptics to it yes um it just works time and time again and this is kind of like the Dual dream as it was sold to us when the uh PlayStation 5 was first announced and actually when it came out via Astro Astros playroom and here they've just refin the art time and time again you just get absolutely fantastic immersion and and Delight uh from from what's happening in the controller and it's so rare that it actually happens and actually you know talking about Concord it's another one of those games where the haptics are there but it actually in my opinion makes the game kind of a bit more of a chore to play because you're you're fighting the controller Astros is just constantly enhancing the experience and that's just absolutely magical and it's really interesting because you can actually Define you know in terms of it's interesting what you said in your review uh there John which is that um um it isn't actually pushing the state-ofthe-art in game visuals in any way but what you are getting is nonon Flawless performance imagination Joy coming at you time and time again and um you know it's it doesn't need to be using you know virtual Shadow Maps nanite or anything like that it's it's just perfectly designed based on their exist in technology it just works time and time again so what could I say I'm I'm really excited that people accepted that you know it's just a great time that's the bottom line anything to add to that John yeah so it was interesting like one thing about the visuals that they kind of mastered this art and this is something Nintendo's kind of pushed for with their lower spec Hardware even of what I would say is enough polygons where if you look at any object in the scene everything always looks rounded and perfected you never look at an object and see geee that could use like smoother edges or more details it's like everything is exactly as detailed as it needs to be and you just see the whole level across the map that you cross it just has this like it feels like it's a solid object that's just perfectly put together in a way that you're just moving through and that's that's actually where the technical like the chops really show is that they just did something that looks visually attractive but it feels so perfectly solid without any of like the weird sacrifices and limitations that we've been seeing more and more right we see so many games launching with like these 720p sub 720p input resolution smear anti-aliasing you know lots of like caveats all over the place and this is just like perfectly sharp and clean it looks visually attractive and it just runs exactly as it should uh and you also for the haptics thing I was I was just amazed at how like you can be running around and you actually can feel the the distinction between his Little Footsteps and like bumping into objects so feel like running through little like physics based objects uh you can actually sort of feel that distinction between bumping the objects and his Little Footsteps running around like the it's nuts that they're able to communicate that and it doesn't even draw attention to itself it's just there and if you actually think about it you just feel it it's just so impressive in that regard yeah yeah um I really hope people try it I think it's just what can I say it's definitely a game of the year Contender however John let's talk about a couple more supporter questions howdy jent this one's from groovy duck from John's review of astort I don't think he really said a singular negative thing about the game not counting the lonely frame rate frame time Spike by my impressions of astrobot without playing it yet it looks like John is still spot on but for the sake of content I for the of content I love that hash content I must ask you John what nitpicks do you have with astrobot it's like they say in school there's always room for improvement ah okay well I would say the HDR implementation isn't as robust as I would like it's bright and colorful but it doesn't have that massive separation between light and dark that I really love where you get those like super vibrant highlights sort of contrasted maybe that's tough to do when the colors are so bright as is in this game but I can't say I was blown away by the HDR it's like this is cromin HDR yeah I was gonna say I actually turned off the HDR within 10 minutes of playing it I did not like it it seemed quite muted to me even things like specular highlights like throughout the scene I wasn't getting that super bright did you turn on the bright mode I did turn on the bright mode it was not it was not nearly as bright to me as just playing it in SDR and also I noticed the blacks were slightly appeared slightly raised even so I I have to admit Oliver I noticed that this morning and do you see it right at the um splash screen the the Sony Studios that but that that's just the Sony Studios logo that has the blacks rays that high once it gets to the next logo it's back to black right that it's that specific video black to me it just did not look like I'm a game like this in HDR you know I'm expecting a lot of contrast a lot of vibrancy to that image or super bright specular I'm expecting those really bright highlights to be present in a lot of the scenes in the game you know maybe they're somewhere else again I did not play it for too long but it was not that satisfying to me and then I think I mean people can I've seen people talk about the overall look of the game I don't really think it's going for like that super SI look kind of like that that Knack 2 look so to speak it's going for something more in the lines of Mario Odyssey or maybe Kirby or something it's it's not quite going for that super high in CG look I've seen some people talk about that but I think it looks like clean and sharp and what it's trying to do it does very well so I don't think that's a critique necessarily it's just like it's a different approach that you may or may not like but in terms of a technical concern I mean I think the game runs super well feels super great to play I mean so far from what I've seen it's just that HDR I don't know what their internal HDR pipeline looks like but to me that was like maybe better in SDR at least for my taste but it's going to depend the person there okay so we had this particular question several times for 1040 stf but let's quickly address it now we've actually got the game in your opinion know what we could do about the PS5 Pro what are the chances that astrobot could reach 4K 120 on it um 4K 120 I think there's probably a CPU and a physics limitation there um unlocked frame rate possibly uh increased resolution increased perceived resolution um better anti-aliasing I guess it's it's you know you're going to be sort of just adding trimmings really because the nature of the game doesn't really lend itself to Supreme scalability uh what do you think John yeah I mean RT Reflections possibly that's probably yeah that's probably one area where they could Implement that you know just replace their screen space reflections with rt because their material properties are really great especially on metal and I feel like applying proper RT Reflections would actually look really really great there um and but yeah 120 I mean 120 would be a nice thing I would love to see it but like you say we don't really know what the load is on things like all the physics and whatnot so it's hard to say if they could actually get there um so yeah it's it's just it feels like it's very specifically designed to be what it is right now yeah and RT reflection is probably the one area where I think they could probably improve things in a way that would be like a an overall win without too D dramatically changing things yeah I mean there's no obvious deficiencies but like for sure I think in the Aztec level that opening shot where you get that kind of gold reflective wall and you look at the reflection there that's not not holding up incredibly well I mean there are definitely some areas where the screen space Reflections aren't quite delivering the level of reflective detail that you might want to see that would be certainly be very cool but I mean you know I mean even if it was just like the bare minimum and it was just bumping up that Dynamic res I don't think that'd be a travesty I think the game looks good as as it stands I don't think there's any particular area where they are clearly deficient in some way that could be improved by the PlayStation 5 Pro in my opinion