For years now, Sony has been criticised for its supposedly samey first-party software program. You’ve most likely seen that meme circulating on social media, which exhibits a trio of timber from God of War, The Last of Us, and Days Gone. It’s nonsense, of course, how do you even make completely different trying timber? But it clearly represents an underlying sentiment: that PlayStation’s exclusives all feel and appear the identical, with overly severe storylines and hyper-realistic visuals.
This Christmas, although, there’ll be none of that – and should you’ve ever been important of the organisation’s output, it is a good alternative to place up and shut up. Astro Bot is main the best way, of course: an enthralling platformer with pin-point controls, vibrant visuals, and ear-worm audio. If it’s something like earlier entries, this might be straight out of the Nintendo playbook: whimsical, creative from start-to-finish, and above all else enjoyable.
We’ve already seen some corners of the online criticising the discharge’s value level, like platformers ought to inherently price lower than the newest first-person shooter or motion journey. While it’s finally as much as you the place you spend your hard-earned readies, it’s maybe value remembering there’s a purpose Sony’s grow to be identified for its Sad Dad Sims: they convey house the bacon, and justify their exorbitant funding ten-fold. If you need extra Astro Bot than angst, be certain the agency is aware of.
It’s not the one light-hearted recreation the corporate’s obtained cooking this Christmas, by the best way: LEGO Horizon Adventures could also be impressed by a franchise that subscribes to a extra acquainted Sony schematic, but it surely’s clear Guerrilla and its growth companions are having so much of enjoyable right here. Voice actress Ashly Burch is having the time of her life making protagonist Aloy as foolish as attainable, and even the graphics – made up solely of Denmark’s most well-known toy-based export – are delightfully light-hearted.
This is Sony focusing on households for as soon as, one thing it hasn’t actually finished because the Buzz years – one-off titles like Sackboy: A Big Adventure and maybe the odd Ratchet & Clank apart. It’s the sort of title that, as soon as once more, these fed up of PlayStation’s self-serious escapades needs to be lining up for; you’re not going to get a brand new Sly Cooper or Jak & Daxter should you don’t present up for these.
Obviously, we’re not encouraging you to cough up your money simply on the off-chance of it serving to to greenlight one thing else, however for all those that’ve misplaced curiosity in Sony’s output, this 12 months’s vacation lineup is clearly seeking to buck the development. This is a good alternative to place your cash the place your mouth is: should you really feel PlayStation’s first-party output has been getting stale and samey, then it’s genuinely obtained one thing completely different on the docket this time. But, on the finish of the day, there’ll solely be extra like this if these titles succeed.
Are you trying ahead to Sony’s first-party video games this vacation? Are you cheerful to see the platform holder push a special sort of title for a change? How do you assume the likes of Astro Bot and LEGO Horizon Adventures will carry out? Take your self much less severely within the feedback part under.