Prepare for a supersized area journey within the magic of PlayStation with the newest entry within the Astro Bot collection, celebrating PlayStation’s lengthy historical past. The PlayStation 5 mothership has been wrecked, and now ASTRO and his bot crew have been scattered everywhere in the galaxies.
It’s time! Time so that you can trip your trusty Twin Speeder throughout greater than 50 planets stuffed with wonders, pleasure, surprises, leisure, and hazard. Go on an journey with ASTRO, and reunite with PlayStation’s most iconic heroes. We obtained the chance to expertise a hands-on demo session of Astro Bot, so with out additional ado, right here is what to anticipate.
On this journey, you tackle the position of the stumpy lovely robotic ASTRO, happening and exploring planets to rescue his associates utilizing his spacecraft – a literal gigantic DualSense controller. The demo opens up 5 totally different planets for us to discover – boasting totally different targets, themes, terrains, and particular skills for ASTRO. One planet could possibly be you going through a larger-than-life boss, whereas others may need you discover a misplaced companion or scratch your mind to resolve a puzzle.
For fundamentals, the sport is a 3D platformer the place you run and bounce throughout terrains. Greater than that, ASTRO has little jetpack legs that enable him to levitate for a short while once you maintain down the bounce button. The map has loads of PlayStation cash to gather, enemies to battle, and treasure chests to hunt. The fiery jetpack legs can harm enemies and chests, in order that they aren’t only for present!
The primary planet we obtained to discover is fittingly summer-themed – a tropical island paying homage to a water park with lush bushes and vibrant colourful faculties of fishes swimming about within the swimming pools, making a joyful and leisurely ambiance. Right here, ASTRO can inflate like a pufferfish and slowly float up, permitting him to succeed in in any other case inaccessible areas. Manually canceling it or having its period run out will trigger him to deflate and land.
One other planet we explored is the economic world of Building Derby – made up of concrete, metal, and all issues mechanical. This time, ASTRO can choose up magnets to draw metals to make use of them as puzzle-solving instruments or offensive projectiles. Moreover, ASTRO may sprint to distant platforms or break by way of fragile glass utilizing a brief increase of jetpack on this planet.
Progressing, we arrived on the subsequent planet the place we should face a boss. On this planet, ASTRA acquired a pair of frog boxing gloves that shoot out tongues to hit enemies or keep on with excessive pillars to swing round like monkeys on a vine. After a collection of parkour challenges, we encounter the boss of this planet – a boxing octopus prepared to provide a jab, haymaker, and ship you a knockdown. It may well additionally summon smaller octopuses to pester you, which you’ll take full benefit of with the frog gloves’ retractable function – permitting you to seize 2 of the octopus’s tentacles to slingshot them to smash the octopus within the face. You can even present the octopus who’s the true heavyweight champion by unleashing speedy punches to the boss’s weak factors.
The final 2 ranges we skilled have been fairly a problem, actually pushed your reflexes and platforming expertise. The primary includes leaping on unstable icy surfaces whereas dodging spinning mace-like obstacles, the place timing jumps exactly and being conscious of the touchdown level. Overshooting it’ll lead to a startover, as there are not any checkpoints in these 2 ranges. The second is a time problem the place you’ll have to attain the purpose inside a restricted time. Astro Bot isn’t just all enjoyable and lightheartedness, as there are nonetheless challenges for these searching for for such experiences.
One other factor value highlighting is the superb DuelSense controller function integration. You possibly can swing the controller left and proper and ASTRO’s spaceship will transfer accordingly, virtually like we’re personally piloting the spacecraft. Some ranges additionally make the most of the Haptic Suggestions function effectively and also you would possibly even have to concentrate to vibration to sense hidden puzzle switches.
Verdict
Astro Bot is greatest described as a celebration of PlayStation, providing a enjoyable and neat expertise that boasts attention-grabbing ranges to discover and surprises available. Every world within the recreation is exclusive in its methods, whether or not puzzles, particular mechanics, or hidden secrets and techniques. We by no means felt any feeling of repetitiveness and whereas it’s a enjoyable title with its childlike fantasy visuals, there are nonetheless challenges.
The visuals are acquisitive too, with the summer time island leaving the deepest impression on us. It looks like we’re transported right into a waterpark, sliding down slides to dive into swimming pools. The extent of immersion is great; for instance, popping out of water will trigger the display screen to have droplets, giving a way of realism. Whereas we play the identical Bot all through, we additionally get to see varied others in vogue that pay homage to standard PlayStation franchises. Bot Kratos is cute!
All in all, Astro Bot is unexpectedly enjoyable and its gameplay, graphics, controls and every little thing else make for one of the promising action-adventure platformers this 12 months.
Astro Bot is about to launch solely for the PlayStation 5 on September 6, 2024. Pre-orders at the moment are out there by way of the official PlayStation web site.
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