Video Gamers Podcast - [Replay] Amazing AstroBot - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Gaming hosts Josh and Ryan are back... well... not really. In honor of it winning Game of the Year, we're re-releasing our AstroBot episode during our end of year break. Feast your ears on this iconic episode as we gush over AstroBot, break down everything that makes it specials, and discuss if it has a chance to win Game of the Year (hint, it did!) We'll be back in 2025 with a brand new Most Anticipated Games Episode, but we hope you enjoy this blast from the past! Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. I am Astro Bot. I'm not going to sing anymore to save y'all's ears. Sorry about that. We are re-releasing our Astro Bot episode to celebrate it winning game of the year. Ryan and myself also picked Astro Bot for best game of the year. Sorry, Paul Blackmuth Wukong didn't quite make it, even though we know that was your favorite game of the year. But we are re-releasing this episode so you can live the hype, live the amazingness that is Astro Bot all over again. And we will be back at the new year to go over our most anticipated games of 2025. We hope you enjoy this episode. Hello, fellow gamers,

and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. The day has arrived. One of our most anticipated titles of the entire year that we didn't even know about until the end of May has arrived. Astro Bot has released. We've both beaten it. And we're here today to break it down with one of our classic gaming deep dives. Stick with us as we break down graphics, gameplay, fun factor, and more. And I've even heard rumor that some people are whispering Game of the Year contender. What? Game of the Year. Game of the Year. Game of the Year. We'll get to the bottom of all of that in this awesome episode. But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, he's the buster bulldog to my rocket,

the iron girdle to my loins, the super giant sponge robot thing to my puddle of water. It's Ryan. Dude, I will be your iron girdle any day of the week. You better believe it. And I'm so proud of you that the world knows who you are now. Because last episode, apparently they didn't. In the middle of summer, right? Oh, that's the only time. Absolutely. Oh, boy. That's real friendship right there, buddy.

Oh, man. All right. So listen, we are deep diving Astro Bot. We just brought this up in our latest Twig episode that we were playing this game. It is time. You and I have both beaten it, like I mentioned. I literally finished it this morning. I was up at like 5 a.m., dude. And I was like, well, I'm up. I might as well finish up Astro Bot. And then sure enough, it took me about two hours and I beat it right before I headed off to work.

So we are going to get into all things Astro Bot. This is the disclaimer that says, listen, we're going to cover a lot of aspects of this game. We are going to cover some of the abilities in the game. A few of the little secret things that you might come across. This game doesn't have any huge spoilers. It's not like there's some huge twist or something like that. But if you want

to go into this game completely blind, then you might want to come back to this episode later on. If you're the kind of person that's like, look, I just want to know what you guys think, and I'm going to pick it up and have fun with it. Hearing about an ability that you get in the game may not bother you, but we always like to respect people's

thoughts on that kind of stuff. So yes, we will talk about aspects of the game, but you know, we always like to respect people's, uh, you know, thoughts on, on that kind of stuff. So yes, we will talk about aspects of the game, but we're going to try not to like spoil or anything too crazy, but I don't really think there are any like major spoilers. No, I mean that.

Yeah. I mean, the basis of it is a pretty simple, um, rescue bots and that's about it. So, yeah. All right.

So, um, you know, top of the show. This is a great time to remind people that if you are a fan of the podcast, if you like what you hear, if this is your first time listening, number one, welcome. Thanks for checking us out. But number two, make sure you follow the show in your podcast app.

There is a follow button, a plus button, a subscribe button, something like that. Make sure you like that. Make sure you click that. That way you will get notified and get all of our new episodes direct to your ear holes every time we release one, which is every Monday and Thursday. So two times a week, you guys get to enjoy video game chat with me and Ryan. And on that same podcast app, there is very likely a way to review the show. You can rate us five stars on Apple and Spotify. If you're on Apple, you can leave us a written review, which we absolutely love to see. It is one of the reasons we love doing this show is to just hear people say, man, you guys make my commute to work easier or doing chores, you know, that kind of

thing. And there's a good chance that if you leave us a review, we're going to read it on the show like this one that comes in from loud Darbs all the way from Great Britain. And it's titled I'm in love. Oh, yeah. And it says, guys, I absolutely love you all and the show. I'm 37. So it's nice to also hear from gamers of a similar age who I can virtually reminisce with when you talk about the good old days. Found the show a few months ago and have binged my way through the episodes and have now subscribed to listen to the extras. I think my husband is starting to worry, but no, really, it is great. I've discovered games through you that I'd never heard of, which I now want to play,

or games I was maybe on the fence about, but now I'm more willing to give them a go. Keep it up, and I can't wait for more. Oh, and one final thing. Out of all of you, my gaming likes tend to fall more in line with Paul's tastes, so I've got to say it, Stardew and RimWorld are total goats well who's takes? I don't know what you're talking about I don't know man that guy must like weird games I think so I also want to say

I don't appreciate being included in 36, 37 that age range. Oh, you're in that age range. No, I identify as like a 22-year-old. Oh, wow. Really? You're that old?

Mentally, I'm like 17. I don't think I've ever aged today over 17. That sounds about right. Yeah, we're just going to leave it there. All right, Ryan. Astrobots. Yes. Astrobots.

Astrob Bot. Yes. I joked at the beginning of the show that this game was revealed at the PlayStation State of Play at the end of May. I know when we first saw it, we all went, whoa, what is this you famously love astro's playground which is the demo-ish type thing that came with ps5 yeah i believe it's playroom but like yeah it's it was um it was kind of like the introduction to the playstation kind of what they gave with the system and it was something that we uh we by uh i mean me and my son, just were obsessed with. So we absolutely loved it. And when we figured out that this game was coming out, we were beyond excited. And we're going to cover all that today.

Yeah, I remember seeing this game and instantly going, Oh, PlayStation exclusive? Like, what? Like, come on, man. Another one. I knew I'd be able to borrow, you know, your PlayStation for this. I do know that when we saw it, we were instantly impressed by Astro Bot. You know, it was one of those trailers that wasn't ho-hum for us. It was not a, well, this is interesting looking. I mean, I think we were just kind of all in right from the get-go

um and so knowing that and now that we've played it let's go back in time a little bit to when we kind of first saw those trailers like what were you hoping for like what did what did you hope that astrobot was going to be um before we actually got a chance to get our hands on it i was hoping that it was going to be everything Astro's Playroom was and more. It was one of those things where, okay, here's a little snippet. You know, you go around to Costco, and there's always samples everywhere, and there's a million different things you can try and taste. And you get that one, you're like, oh, okay, that's pretty you know what is that at which which freezer is this in yeah yeah where do i go

where can i go and get more of this please you know what what else on sale thank you very much you know so it was it was one of those that i was i was beyond excited i i i wanted more because i knew that i liked what was already there and they had a good base for it. And it was just, it was exciting to, to see what, uh, what a full game would be. And I can tell you that even if I hadn't played what the, the trailer and what it looked like in the hype behind it would have easily got me excited enough to play as well. Yeah, I think for me, when I saw this, it instantly gave me this weird nostalgia kick. Oh, yeah.

Where I kind of went, this is a 3D platformer that somebody just developed in 2024 that looks incredible. It looks like it's taking advantage of the full power of the PS5. We'll get into graphics and some of that stuff a little bit later. But I just remember being really blown away by the presentation of this game. But the fact that somebody made a game that was a 3D platformer, like the games of old, like the Super Mario 64, you know, or Banjo-K Kazooie and some of these like nostalgic games that you and I grew up with that really have kind of died off over the years. I mean, that's not to say that they don't exist,

but 3D platformers for a while were all the rage, you know, and then they kind of fell by the wayside a little bit. And then all of a sudden here comes Astro Bot just bursting into the 3D platformer world, if that world even exists anymore, and just kind of going like, well, I want to play this, man. It's like a piece of my childhood mixed with the future. That's what it's meant to be, and it's meant to get you to buy a dang PlayStation, bud. Well, they failed on that. I just borrowed yours, but it did work in getting me very hyped up for this game. So, all right, listen, let's get into the game itself. Like we like to do, we always pull a description of the game just straight from the developer so people understand what this game is

marketed as and what they kind of claim it to be. So, Ryan, why don't you start us off with the official game description? Absolutely. So so the description reads the ps5 mothership has been wrecked leaving astro and the bot crew scattered all over the galaxies time to ride your trusty dual speeder across more than 50 planets full of fun danger and surprises on your journey to make the most of astro's new powers and reunite with many iconic heroes from the PlayStation universe. Sold! I'm in! Yep.

100%. Yep. And I'll tell you, they do bring a lot of heroes from the PlayStation universe. Dude, I felt like an idiot because I don't know who like 80% of these characters were. So you rescue your little bot friends across the galaxy. That's kind of the main point of this game. You go through all these levels, you rescue your bot friends. And a lot of the bots are definite nods to PlayStation characters and famous characters from various PlayStation games and stuff like that. They don't come out and outright call them that character. don't know why but they don't so they give them a weird name like you know the explorer and then

it's nathan drake or something right yeah oh okay so yeah a lot of these i was just like dude i don't know who you are but welcome to the party man i found you let's go dude it's funny too because because some of them are characters that i totally forgot like are like playstation exclusive characters and you seem like wait that looks familiar i know oh that's from that one game you know and it just dude it's just nostalgia hit after nostalgia hit man it's got all that dopamine you know it triggers for sure it really does man um yeah i i i was very happy with the throwbacks the nods the uh cameos, the Easter eggs and all that kind of stuff that they put in this game. Okay, so Ryan, Astro Bot just released. You

picked it up on release day. Yes. If I remember right, the actual release of this was September 6th, if I have my date right on that, because it came out right before Space Marine is what it was. It releases, you rub it in that you picked it up and you were playing it. You sent me a screenshot of like the title screen. I instantly hated you for a little bit, but it was funny because in our minds, we were getting ready for Space Marine 2. And then all of a sudden you're playing Astro Bot and I declared publicly on air that I was more hyped for Astro Bot to play that game than it was for Space Marine 2, which kind of goes against everything that I am as a gamer, because everybody that has listened to the show for a while knows that I love chaos. I love shooters. I love everything that Space Marine 2

looks like it's going to be. But then all of a sudden, here we are just completely sucked into Astro Bot. And we pivoted. I mean, just instantly to, okay, well, we're playing this game and we're covering it. So what do you think it was about Astro Bot compared to Space Marine that made us pivot so hard and so fast dude i think everybody knows the value of a good pivot here we go pivot pivot pivot and i and i think i think this was a quality pivot because i just, I secretly, I felt the same, dude. Like, I'm looking at this and I know that I had the advantage of, I had true love and admiration for Astro's Playroom.

So, I already was in kind of the mold and in that world. And so, I was just beyond excited. It was something that I could play, something I could play with my son. And I was genuinely just looking forward to what they could create as a full game. Like, hey, let's put some time behind this. It's not just a release with the system. This is an actual game. People have to buy it. People are going to pay their money for it.

And they're going to have expectations. So let's deliver. And to see what they could do with those expectations, I was just so excited for that. And yeah, man, it was one of those that as amazing as Space Marine is and looked, I was definitely ready for a good platformer like Astro Bot. I think for me, it was the type of game that this was. We have played some heavy games lately. Heavy Rain, no pun intended. Black Myth Wukong. So we've had these kind of serious games that we have kind of played lately. And the mood of Astro Bot for me just hit at the right time. I wanted this cheerful, kind of happy, very fun action-based platformer type game to dive into before going straight into Space Marine 2.

And I think as gamers, we all kind of feel that. There's a lot of times where people are like, I'm just tired of all the games I play. And it's like, well, have you tried anything different? Play a different genre, play a different style of game that you wouldn't normally play, that kind of thing. So I think for me, it was very much just I wanted that kind of different experience compared to a lot of the other games that I have been playing and that we have covered on the show. It just seemed to hit the right spot in the right time for me. So I think that's where my hype level and this kind of sudden pivot going to Astro Bot over Space Marine 2 kind of came into play.

Yeah. Time is everything, brother. It does. And to be fair, I am super excited. Right after this recording, I am actually opening up Space Marine 2 for the first time. So I know we're diving into that. Buckle up, dude.

I'm pretty pumped for that first time. So I know we're diving into that. I'm pretty pumped for that one as well. I know. So we will be covering Space Marine 2 for people that are curious. That episode will come out in a couple of weeks, but yeah, we're getting into that one for sure. All right, Ryan. So I remember you kind of rubbing it in that you were playing Astro Bot. Me? No. Yeah, I know. I know. And then I remember you being like, dude, this game is sick. And then just sending me a couple of screenshots. And I could tell instantly that you were having fun with this game. But I always like to think about those first impressions of a game, right?

Sometimes first impressions can be everything. I know that there are games where we have jumped into them and the first impression sucks. And then it takes a while to get going. And then there's other games that start off really good. And it's like the developers just fell asleep and then the rest of the game is bad. So without spoiling anything about your overall thoughts of the game, give me your first impressions kind of just an hour or two in. So I guess like we said, the story itself is is kind of minimal there's not a lot to it you're you're traveling along in the galaxy some alien comes smacks you around scatters some bots all over the place you've got to go and you got to rescue all these bots that's how you start

so now you're you're going through and you start to go through these different kind of worlds and it was just it was a continuation of the playroom but with more depth and more detail and as it started to progress you just kind of yep it just kept checking the boxes there yep there's another one oh that's cool there's that and and uh i i just know initially i played with a smile on my face a bunch a bunch of uh like the times i kind of tried to recall just how i felt i'm just like yeah i was just smiling you know i'm cheesing the whole time i'm playing this dang game you know so it was it was uh one of those where you just felt good. I know you were saying something. You wanted something different, something. We've been playing heavy games.

This was that initial impression where you're happy. It's a happy, fun game right off the bat. I remember after I got your PlayStation and I was able to jump in on the first day, you said, I need you to let me know what you think after you play for an hour or two. Yeah. And I wrote it in our Discord server and I said, dude, this game is pure joy. Yep. And I'm sticking by that as far as my opening impression goes. It was, this might be one of the happiest, like joyful games that I think I've ever played or that I have played in a very, very long time. My wife likes these kinds of games. So she sat with me and was kind of watching me play it. And she was just, all she kept saying is, oh, that's so cute. Oh, that's cool. I didn't know

you could do that. And like, she just kept making these kind of like exclamations about stuff, but then I'm doing the exact same thing. You know, I'm like, Oh, look how cute he is. You know? And if you stop and like, don't move for a while, he takes a nap wherever he's at and he's got these cute little voice and you know, all this stuff. And so my initial impression was literally not to sound cheesy, but just joy. Yeah. You know, I just remember thinking like, dude, this is fun, man. This is exactly like what i was hoping for with a 3d platformer i mean i'll be honest i'm not a playstation owner i've got nothing against playstation it just you know i just didn't wind up getting one right now and so you know nothing in the whole like weird console

war thing that some people love getting into but i'm just not super invested in the playstation itself and the you know that like the whole spaceship is a PlayStation. So there's definitely some like homerism going on with this game or something like that. But it all just works, man. And the way they present it, they present it in such a good way that I just remember grinning and smiling and being like, I'm just, I'm a happy guy right now. All right. So there's our initial impressions.

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All right. We are back. Breaking down Astro Bot. Ryan, let's get into the actual game itself. I mean, we've talked about our hype level. We've talked about our initial impressions. I think we've kind of teased this game enough for people. We always like to get into some of just the heart of a game so that people can kind of say, hey, you know what? This sounds like it's for me. Or if you're like me and you don't own a PS5, but you want to know more about Astro Bot, we're going to kind of break it all down for you,

so you can kind of have a good idea of what this game is about, how it plays, what makes it special, and that kind of stuff. So I want to start with something that Paul, our former host Paul, used to tease me about, and you used to tease me about a little bit too, Ryan. And that's because I made a comment one time on a game for the first Hellblade where I said, this game has the best audio I've ever heard in my life for a video game. And I remember Paul laughing, and then he told you about it, and you laughed. But other than you saying how great this game was initially, you told me, you said, Josh, you're going to lose your mind over the audio in this game. It's the best audio I've ever heard.

And so I want to talk about that with people because I think I agree with you that this game has some of the best audio I have ever heard in a video game. And what the heck does that mean, right? Dude. Like when somebody says good audio, like, huh? What does that mean? It means like, because I got goosebumps right now thinking about it. That's how good the audio is. Just thinking. It really is.

You genuinely, I was so excited for Josh to play this game just so he could hear it. And I can't stress to you guys how much i actually kept saying dude just wait wait for the audio wait for the pills i kept telling him josh the pills wait for the pills wait for the metal like it's something that that this is a game to where when you hear stuff you not only hear it but you feel it you feel that sound and that's something we'll dive into deep with this but like the combination of of the audio and the audio through the controller and and the feedback you get within the controller it's it's par none like there's there's nothing i've ever experienced that's like this game which which is so wild on a kind of just standard

3D platformer that's like system-based to just exclusive PlayStation, you know? And to have something of that quality, like you can tell, like, why isn't every game this way? You know, why doesn't every game make me feel this way from an audio aspect? It is one of those things that is very hard to quantify to people. Number one, I completely forgot that the DualSense controller has a speaker built into it. So when I started playing this game, I have a very good sound system in my living room. I mean, I've spent up a lot of money on this thing. I'm pretty proud of it. And so I had this game cranked up, you know, to full room filling booming sound effects.

And then here I am holding this controller and I'm looking down and I'm hearing the little tink, tink, tink, tink, tink of my robot's feet going across metal while this funny sounding song and all these sound effects are happening in my living room. But the sound coming out of the controller was his feet like running across a little metal platform. Yeah. And it just caught me off guard. I remember looking down and being like, dude, that is freaking cool, man.

And then I'd run over like off the little metal platform onto the dirt. And then it would be like dirt feet sound effects right now. And I know everybody's like, well, dude, that's every video game. Right. But it's different when it's coming from a secondary source and it's different when it is every single thing in this game, dude. Yeah. Like that's the kicker. It it's not just footsteps it is the sound of water trickling it is wind blowing it is you know you mentioned pills like this game does this really neat thing and we'll get into that in the graphics part of this discussion where it will dump like a thousand gems like all over the ground and then you just run through this pile of gems but it's

like it sounds like you're running through gems. Yeah. Yeah. I've never ran through gems in my life. Right. But like, if that's how it was going to sound, it would,

it would be exactly like that. Even, even the, uh, and I know you can attest to this when it rains, your Astro bot pops open an umbrella and you just get this such a real, like pitter patter of, of water on plastic of like an umbrella that's just so it's

so it's like it's so hard to describe man it's crazy and i know that you know what i'm talking about and anyone that's played the game knows what we're talking about but it's just you have to experience it to really genuinely understand the difference between not only the audio coming from your speakers, whatever sound system you're running, but just what they can do with that little controller is just wild. It really is impressive to me. I forgot that that was a feature of the DualSense. And the way that this game uses the speaker in the DualSense to heighten the audio in this game is absolutely phenomenal. It is spectacular. It amplifies the immersion of this game to levels that are very, very hard to

describe to somebody like over a podcast. And it's not just the fact that it's mixed in, it's that it's coming from a secondary source, right? So your ears just pick these things out in like different ways. And the game does a phenomenal job with it. I'm with you. I mean, I think Hellblade and Astro Bot as crazy as those two games are, are at the top of my list as far as like the best audio I've ever heard in a game, man. The soundtrack for this game is bonkers. It's very silly, but it's very kind of upbeat and funny. It changes kind of from level to level and stuff like that to just absolutely top notch sound and audio design. I know we'll talk a little bit later about there's some people that think this might be a game of the year

contender. If it doesn't win game of the year, it's going to win best sound design, you know, like our audio design. I forget what the exact category they call it now, but man, what an impressive way to present your game to people for sure. Yes. So, okay. So, you know, I know there's people probably laughing like, wow, you guys really just gussed over the audio, but trust us, it matters. And it really does stand out in this game. The other thing that stands out in this game are the graphics. Now, when we talked about at the top of the show, hey, this trailer caught us by surprise. We were instantly hyped for it. Why? Because this game looks beautiful. It is colorful. It is polished. It has a lot of variety to the graphics in the

game, which I think is important for a game like this. I remember when we talked about our excitement for playing and when we saw the trailer, I believe the word we used was fluid as far as how the animations in this gameplay looks. I'm going to stand by that. I think that this game is insanely fluid in how it is presented from a graphical standpoint. I think it takes full advantage of the PS5 and uses it in ways

that I don't think a lot of other people have, to be honest. Everybody talks about frame rates and performance mode and that kind of stuff. And, oh, is this game going to push 60 frames a second and all that? Dude, ultra realism. I like ultra realism when it comes to graphics, but that does not a game make, you know, and Astro Bot is a very good example of here is a colorful. I don't want to call it cartoony because cartoony almost nowadays means like cell shaded or a certain art style. And it's not that, but this game to me is one of the most graphically pleasing games that I think I've played in a long time as well. And I think that ties into what we were just talking about with the audio and how this game is presented graphically. What did you think? I think it's a beautiful game. I love the different aspects that they use,

but what do you think about the graphics on this? It's not lazy animation. Like you can tell when things are, okay, we're just going to use this system and that's going to be the graphics of the game. This, they had their style and they just maximized it tenfold. They said, this is what we're going to make it look like, and we're going to do the absolute best we can.

And they did that. I went back to the crash site where your PlayStation is, and you can see all your bots, and you can do a bunch of exploring throughout there. I went to this back area, and I'm just wandering around. And I went into the snow, and the crunching through the snow and you see the snow separate i just ran around and spun fists and and just hit all the snow in this little area just to clear it out because of how good it looked like that's how wild it is is like it's not you know it's not ultra real that's not what it's meant to be and that's okay and and this works for what it is it works so well

they did such an amazing job and you can tell that these people are are you know these designers and the developers and stuff they they took everything they could to absolutely peek out the playstation for these graphics like the way they had it set up and designed it was it was unbelievable i loved it and i know i've been gushing over everything so far um it set up and designed it. It was unbelievable. I loved it. And I know I've been gushing over everything so far. It's true. And it's probably going to keep going, but it was just... Everything looked good. What can you say bad about it with the graphics? I really can't. And I am a graphics snob. I don't hide that. I love good graphics in a video game. And this game has it in spades. Dude, every single level is just alive. And it's alive with stuff that is neat to look at.

I don't remember exactly what level it was, but there's a little ledge that you can drop down on. I'm looking for a robot friend to rescue. I dropped down on this ledge and it's a teeny, teeny portion of an entire level. But I dropped down on this ledge and it's like, it's a teeny, teeny portion of an entire level, but I dropped down on this ledge and I see these tunnels with ants crawling through the tunnels. And it was just so cool to be like, I can't believe they put that here where nobody is ever going to see this. You know what I mean? Like it's just this one little ledge that just, I just happened to fall down on and here's these little ants just going about their work inside the ground. Every level is filled with that.

We talked about they dump piles of gems and little candy pellets and pills and stuff like that on you all the time. Those are so fun. It's like the snow where you just run through them, dude. I felt like a kid running through a leaf pile. Exactly. Yes. That's such a good comparison. I know that that sounds ridiculous but it's like that's what it was and i would just sit there and run circles dude yeah even on even on the astros playroom i would go in and uh there used to be all the little bots that were back then you know and and they'd circle around you

and you would just run through them and bump into them and you could hit them and they get mad at you it's just there's there's so many parts of it that are so interactive that it's just like we were saying before. You just smile. You keep doing all these things. You just keep getting that hit where you're just happy. Every part of it makes you happy, which is just there's not a lot of games that do that. It's very true. I will say, too, that there are some really cool uses of perspective in this

game where like for boss fights, for instance, the bosses look huge. This is not a 2d, you know, side scrolling platformer. It is a fully 3d platformer and they do some really neat things with the camera in this game as well to kind of create a sense of scale perspective move. Like it'll swing around behind you while you're sliding down like a ledge or something as well. So they absolutely nailed the presentation on this game. All right. I mean, a game ain't a game if it's not fun, right?

And what makes a game fun? Gameplay, right? I mean, this is one of those things where you can have the fanciest graphics and the fanciest sounds in the world, but if your game sucks, nobody's going to want to play it for very long. All right. So we're going to get into the gameplay part of Astro Bot. I don't want to get too crazy detailed in this because sometimes you just have to see it to understand it and you have to play it to feel it kind of thing but what are you doing in this game

ryan like what's a level look like you know you you you selected a level to play you fly down to that level what the heck are you doing in astrobot well i mean usually like right off the get you know you're you're already you're flying in on a playstation controller that's like a rocket ship kind of of f16 looking chip that you're coming into. So right off the bat, you're staring this and it's just every part of it, you know, from the very beginning is just feels good to play. So you get into a level and you got to start working through it right away. There's going to be enemies throughout.

There's slime guys that will shoot slime at you. There's other characters that will electrocute you when you get too close. There's characters that will come near you, and then they just shoot spikes out of their sides. And if you get too close, you'll pop and you have to battle and then as you progress through the levels you know you're just there's also so much and you talked about it with the ants there's so much depth to it to where you're going up you're going down you're going in areas you're coming out of them you're going around them there's no no land or level is just kind of flat straight through just a straight path everything has a bunch of different ways to go around it there's just there's so much you know and i'll keep saying a depth to this game that um it's hard to explain we keep saying you know you're gonna just have to play it and i think that's what it is you just you have to play this game yeah i will say that this game does follow the kind of tried and true formula for a 3D platformer

where your goal in every level is to find your stranded robot friends. Yeah. And usually, if I remember right, it's seven available guys in every level, the base levels. There are some secret levels and there's some like, I don't want to call them boss levels, but some optional, like really hard levels. Crazy levels. Yeah. Like where you get like one guy.

But the easier just main levels are there are seven lost robots. You progress through the level. Like you mentioned, there's a lot of enemies. There's a lot of platforming and elevators and bounce pads and, you know, everything that you could imagine being in a 3D platformer. And as you make your way through the level, you will hear, and again, this goes back to the audio design in this game, somebody crying for help. And it's like, oh, wait. And then you start looking around and there's a guy that's hanging

up on a tree. And you're like, well, how do I get up there? And then you start looking around and you see, oh, okay, well, if I run over here and then I run up this path, I can hop on this elevator. It'll take me over here. I'll jump on this jump pad and then I'll try to land on that guy in the tree and then you rescue him kind of thing. So that is the meat and potatoes of every level in this game is you make your way through, rescue your robot friends, make it to the end of the level, and then you escape with them on your PlayStation controller and then they all get to go back to your home planet. Now, that makes it seem very simple, and this game is anything but simple.

Yeah. Because almost every level in this game has some sort of twist or ability that you get when you start the level or mini boss fight at the end of the level that surprises you and catches you off guard to some new mechanic that you've never seen before, to all of a sudden you're underwater and you're swimming around in a water level. And it's like, what the heck, dude? Where did this come from? And this is where Astro Bot, to me, is absolutely masterful in its gameplay design, is it never throws the same thing at you for very long. Now, that's not to say that when you get an ability... So for instance,

I think very, very early on in the game, you get these frog gloves. And they showed this off in the trailer, so this is not a spoiler. But these frog gloves allow you to punch out. It's like punching gloves on little springs and you shoot them out and you can punch things really fast. You can use them to grab on to like almost slingshot yourself in certain areas and stuff like that. Sticky pads and stuff you can grab. Right. Yeah, exactly. So you're, you're, you know, you're playing this level, you're rescuing your friends and all of a sudden you find this treasure chest and it's got frog gloves in it. Well, that completely changes how you approach the rest of this level. And you realize, oh, I can grab onto things and I can pull it really hard. I can punch things. And so now that you have this ability, the game is throwing things at you so that you have to use that ability. And to me, this was what really made Astro Bot, in my opinion, is you get so many different abilities. I mean, you can become a balloon where you can fly really high and float around. You get frog gloves. You get monkey hands where you can chuck rocks and

smash the ground and stuff like that. You get rockets that you strap onto your back. You get a suit of armor to where your guy is almost invulnerable at that point. There are so many cool features, and I don't want to spoil them for everybody. But I do want to talk about a couple of them because they really, really stood out to me in those wow moments. The-huh the mouse suit dude do you remember okay so you get this little suit where you become a mouse but the coolest thing about the mouse is with the press of a button you shrink down like ant-man i mean out of like marvel you know like you just push the button and boom your dude instantly shrinks down to a teeny teeny size the world around you just grows like crazy talk about perspective it's instantaneous though dude it is the craziest thing i was just like i i could not believe that they pulled it off the

way that they pulled it off where you could transform so quickly and the world around you would respond so fast that it was mind-blowing to me and now you're running through these tiny little tunnels to get to these areas but then it's like oh here's a monster so you just press the trigger boom you're full size again you crush that monster and then you just shrink down instantly again like that level blew my mind is there is there another ability or another level that really caught you off guard or just made you kind of go, wow? That one was a big one for me, for sure. When we say you just shrink down and you go into a little mini room at one point.

You're walking along a wire and then you can go under the bed and there's coins under the bed. And you come back out and you got to crawl along a bookcase and then you can go under the bed, and there's coins under the bed. And you come back out, and you've got to crawl along a bookcase and then go through a tunnel. And then you get up, and then you've got to fight a big monster, and you've got to blow back up in size. So it's so cool to see how you do it. And this kind of goes back to the fluidity we're talking about. I was going to say, yes.

It's so hard to describe to people. It's so instant. And this is what i i found with i mean all of this game and then even the playroom is that everything just it it click it's so crisp like it's it just clicks like everything that you do happens it's responsive it's instant there's not any delay or drag or weirdness that kind of takes you out of the zone you are in this world and that's part of what the audio does to you you are so immersed into what you're doing that's that's

what you're focused on okay i'm a small mouse now i'm going through this room and i'm going to this other place like there's another part that i thought was so cool it's um not as impactful as that but you hop on to a fake controller um in in game and you you shoot throwing stars and you look in front of you and there's like five bamboo stalks and you got a character up to the side that's a bot and you're like oh i'm gonna rescue that guy and then you shoot your throwing star and it slices the bamboo shoot down and you're like oh okay you cut yourself a path to climb up to get him you know and you rescue him you're like well that was really really cool and then a little later in the map you get it again and then you use it to make like

a platform to climb up on these like spinning um kind of wheels and use them as steps so there's so many aspects of the game that do things like that that just just keep the immersion um it's just it's unreal man it's so hard to describe. It is one of those things. We'll move on here in just a second too. But I really want to drive this point home that we are so accustomed to games and perspectives and camera angles and stuff like that. But when we say at the press of a button, your character shrinks down to the size of a tiny mouse. And then at the press of a button, he grows back into his normal size and the world instantly changes perspective. Like to do that on the fly while you're running and jumping and to have it

respond the way that it does is not something that we witness in gaming very often. And that goes back to show you the level of development and the level of polish that this game has is honestly second to none. It's a very hard thing to describe to somebody, but we are lifelong gamers. And I mean, this one little aspect of this mouse level where I got this mouse suit and I could shrink and grow was mind-blowing to me because it's like, dude, nobody has done it like they have done it. I mean, yes, there's games where you grow and shrink, but it's like you kind of have to stop and then it does this animation where it's like, boop, boop, boop, boop, and now you're big.

It's not this instantaneous thing. Another one that I'll touch on very very very briefly is the time stop ability that you get oh yes dude that was so cool to me you basically freeze the level almost like time is still going but it's in like super slow motion and the uses of that ability in the spooky town yes yes in the levels and the way that you have to use it to, like, guys will be slinging, like, attacks at you until you realize if I stop time, I can now jump on their attacks to use as a stairway to get to the guy that's attacking me and now I can attack him or to slow down water so that you can jump across these platforms now, you know, and things like that.

It is, it's just masterful. I don't want to spoil everything for people because some of the discovery and some of the abilities that you get in this game are kind of what make it. But dude, I, I love the fact that they gave you these different abilities. They designed the level around it. It made every level unique and fun to me in that regard. So I absolutely love it. All right, listen, we're going to get into some of the level design and kind of a little bit more into that aspect and some of the difficulty in this game, because it's very up and down in my opinion, but we're going to take a short break and then we'll come back and talk about that. All right, we are back, man. I feel like I've just, I'm smiling, man. My face is getting tired

from smiling, talking about this game. Okay. So this game, we can go two hours, right? I know, right? So this game is not very long. I would say it's probably seven to eight hours. If I had to guess, I didn't look up the time to beat or anything like that, but I beat it in three days, a couple hour sessions each day. It is not an overly long game. It doesn't overstay its welcome. But the basic format for this game is it is broken down into these five different worlds. Because you're out in space, they're nebulas. And they kind of relate to different creatures. You've got like the gorilla one, the octopus one, the snake one, and stuff like that. Inside each nebula are a handful of worlds that you can choose to go to. And you kind of just start on one, but then it opens up two after that, and then that one

opens up two. And in each of these nebulas, there are, I'll call them hidden areas. They're not really hidden because you just have to kind of look and you'll see a little comet that's kind of streaking through the level as you fly your ship around. If you go and touch that comet with your ship, lo and behold, you get a little mini stage to play. And one of the things in this game that I found was that I thought most of the levels were kind of easy, right? Like as I'm playing, it's like, hey, cool. I got to find these guys. But you know, the platforming is not super

technical and hard. You die a couple of times to a guy that's spitting slime at you or something like that. Maybe you fall off a ledge. But like overall, I don't think this is a very difficult game. But there's always those hard levels and platformers, right? And so as I am starting to explore a little bit more and I've got my feet under me, I find this, I don't even remember which nebula I'm on, but I found the secret area. It's out. Oh, it was a comment, right? Or an asteroid field. And so I smashed my ship through it and all these little shapes sprinkle out. And I'm thinking, oh, this is just one of those cutesy little things that it lets you interact with. And then all of a sudden, like a stage appears and I'm like, oh, this is just one of those cutesy little things that it lets you interact with. And then all of a sudden, a stage appears. And I'm like, oh, this is cool. And it's called

the Lost Triangle stage. And I'm like, oh, what's this? So I run through it. I do a little thing. And now four little triangles scatter across this nebula. And I'm like, okay, well, I guess I'll go see what these are. Dude, this is where the game gets challenging. Okay. I am a glutton for punishment. I love difficulty. I like playing hard platformers and stuff like that. For people that may have heard or are worried about difficulty spikes or the ease of playing this game, the game itself, not super difficult. I think it's the right amount of challenge in that regard. Dude, these stupid shape levels levels that's what i'm going to call them because you get four different sets right you know there's four of the triangles

four of the circles four of the squares and four of the x's just to follow the playstation buttons my wife had to come check on me because she just kept hearing me going like no i was right at the end like or like dang it. No, I can't believe he got me again. So if you are a glutton for punishment like I am and you want challenge, these levels are where it is at. I think I legitimately yelled at one level. I attempted that level 40 times, dude, before I finally beat it. And the thing with these are you die at the very end there are no checkpoints if you die you start at the beginning of this level and so it starts to become one of these like i just have everything memorized like the timing and the and

the area and i i personally love that because that's the challenge for me. And where in the beginning of one of these levels, I would die within the first 30 seconds. And I go, dude, that's so hard. By the end of it, I'm flying through the first 30 seconds. I'm a master. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, at that point. So I just wanted to put it out there for people that are like me

that want some challenge and some difficulty. This game does offer it to you, but it offers it to you in that optional aspect. That's, that's cool. Yeah. I, I,

I didn't get a chance to play those. I know we were kind of playing through. And so I'm so excited to hear that. Cause, um, yeah, we beat it. We beat the final boss.

We went through all the levels and got, you know, most of the characters, um, or rescued most of the bots. But, um, to,

to hear that, to get it to that aspect and they will release i know i had talked about um how it lends itself to um speed trials and and running like that they are going to do a dlc i believe um that's going to come out free and in so many months i'm not sure when but i i did hear that that's gonna offer that but this seems like a good replacement until then because that's how i was on the playroom where i was doing time trials trying to run these levels and you you said at the beginning you're like dying right away or dying here there by the end dude you're like boom boom boom you're like neo you just sense everything and you know everything and and you're flying through so i'm super stoked to try that out

i'll have to take a another break from space marine i guess for astrobot for a little bit but i'm gonna make you play these levels because i want you to feel the pain that i felt but i also really want to hear your thoughts on them as well so oh man that was easy what yeah right dude it's weird because some of them i i actually would kind of almost blitz through after an attempt or two and then like i said there were other ones where it was 30 40 attempts dude before i freaking beat these stupid levels they're just for the challenge you get one guy at the end like a little robot friend is like a you know consolation prize i guess it's more just the saying i beat these levels yeah that is the reward there so all right ryan we've been gushing

over astrobot for almost 50 minutes now um is there anything in this game that you think doesn't work or is a you wished it had been better maybe it's a negative anything you know to kind of balance out all the the excitement and and gushing that we've been doing on Astro Bot? Well, so I will say, and I know you said as far as timeline on this game, six to nine hours or something like that. It's not a long game. There is a lot more you can do with it. Probably full playthrough time to where you're going to really rescue all the bots.

I think there's over 300. To beat the the game you probably need like 210 or something like that uh my biggest complaint with this game is that it's there's not more i want more dude like that's i this game i don't i honestly don't know what i could say other than not having time trial stuff where I could just do speed race levels and time trial levels type things. I genuinely think that this is one of the crisp and most designed audibly, gameplay-wise, visually. All of these things check every single box. And I just wish there was more of it. That's my biggest complaint is that, you know, I want more. More!

More! More! More! More! More! More! More! More! More! more more more more more yeah that's a good thing when the the downfall or the negative part of a game is just that it's over yeah i know right at that point i will say for me um i mean i definitely would love to play this game more there's a lot more for me to do on it my if i had to put a

negative on this game and this is personal, just gaming trends for me, I am not a game completionist. Um, I don't care about platinum trophies. I don't want to go back to this level to find the one little robot that I missed along my playthrough on that. So I would say for me, the replayability portion is probably not very high in my opinion. I could see that i i did have to actually go back to a couple worlds because i had missed most of the little robot buddies yeah in there and i didn't have enough of like you have to have 200 robots rescued to fight the main boss for the entire game and i was at like 190 and so then i was kind of like oh man i gotta

go back to these levels and hunt around and try to find 10 more guys and and like for somebody like me I don't like backtracking I want new stuff I want I want more levels that I've never seen before I don't necessarily want to go through the same level that I've already played and then try to find the one guy that's hidden around a corner because I just didn't happen to go explore over in that area it's a very minor complaint but i mean again you know it's hey what could this game do better if this game ever gets fan-made content like you know super mario did where people can make levels or something oh my goodness man a dlc where you just give me give me levels, man. Like I will be the happiest dude imaginable in that regard,

but I don't – it's not in my gaming DNA to want to go back and revisit levels that I've already played to try to find a guy, you know, or something like that. They do. I don't know if you saw. They do have – when you're replaying through a level, I don't think they have it in the first. I did see this, and it's actually a genius thing to do.

The birdhouse you saw? Yes. Okay, yeah. It costs you like 200 coins or something like that which is nothing and then it just it'll chirp and kind of guide you to where the characters are the bots that you missed or some something you know of of interest in that level which is nice when you're doing the you know the replay through a run trying to get more characters so that is one thing i think they kind of helped with that but it's totally fair what you said about the fact that they thought about that to help they kind of helped with that, but it's totally fair what you said about kind of the fact that they thought

about that to help somebody like me that doesn't want to comb every corner and just say, Hey, there's a guy in that direction, you know, and it, it's like radar. It beeps as you get closer and closer to a guy.

I thought that was masterful. And I really actually appreciated that. Cause I was like, it's like, they're seeing into my soul, man. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So here's the other thing. This game, when it came out,

came out to phenomenal reviews. We are gamers at heart. We are not experts. We do look at game reviews just like every other gamer out there and say, hey, is this game getting a ton of hype? Is it getting slam? I will say that's not everything. Some games get bad reviews and people love. Some games get great reviews and people don't like them. Every gamer is different in that regard. So review scores are more just like a pulse a lot of times for us. But when this game came out and the good reviews started pouring in, I mean, as of this recording, this game is sitting at a 94 on Metacritic, which is universal. That is a phenomenally high score for Metacritic. That's out of 128 critic reviews as well. So it's

not like there's like 10 reviews and they just happen to be good ones. The user score, which usually differs from the critics score for a lot of games is a 9.4. Yeah. This is like, you're telling me the gamers and critics agreed on this game that it's that good. And there's over 2,300 user scores for this game as well, sitting at a 9.4. So what I want to do before we get to rating this on our leaderboard and getting our scores for the game is ask you do you think that astrobot is a game of the year contender with the chance to possibly be the game of the year winner after playing it dude and i mean this with all like seriousness i i don't see how it can't be it it is so far and away one of the best design and developed games i've ever played ever that i don't see how it can't be up there. Obviously there's, there's really not much of a story.

And I, I'm a huge story guy. No, I know, you know, Paul, a former, former host was huge story guy as well.

Um, like that can totally make a game, but this is just the, the audio, the gameplay, the, the development, the,

the design, the graphics, everything about it is so top-notch you can tell they just did not cut any corners they they it was a pure passion project from beginning to end and they just did such a phenomenal job that they beyond a shadow of a doubt deserve all the credit they would get and they should get for this. And it better be up there. I will say that I am absolutely with you on this one. I'll be honest, dude. We have not played Space Marine 2 yet.

I have not anyway. I know you've played for a couple hours. But barring Space Marine 2 being one of the best games that I have played this year, I'm going to go out on a limb and say, I think Astro Bot will actually win game of the year. Dude, I'm with you. I think it will win. We have kind of been saying 2024 started off really hot. It came out on fire. It kind of cooled down. There were some games that we were very excited about, like Dragon's Dogma 2, Black Myth Wukong. Nothing wrong with those games necessarily, but not the Game of the Year contenders that I think we were hoping them to be. Now, Black Myth Wukong, I think, might be in the conversation for Game of the Year as far as

the nominee goes. Astro Bot, for me, is the lock for game of the year at this point. Like unless something else comes out, I know that sounds crazy, but it is that it is that much of a complete video game. The only downside to Astro Bot is that it is a PS exclusive. I don't know if that hurts it or not. I mean, God of War one game of the year when it came out, it was a PS exclusive. So I mean, if you were going to say, well, why wouldn't it win? The only reason I can think of is that it is just exclusive to one particular console and that's it.

But yeah, I mean, I would, I want to hear if you, what do you have negative to say about this game? If you've played it and you didn't like it, or you have something bad to say, hit us up on our socials, come to our discord, let us know. Cause I genuinely want to hear from anyone that doesn't like something about this game. I don't know what you could not like. Yeah. I mean, I I'll be honest. I don't know either. I mean, we, we kind of talked about the negative aspects, you know, it's one of the reasons we brought it up and I there's, there's not many. So, okay. Well you heard it here. I'm calling it game of the year winner. Ryan saying it's, it's up there. Maybe, Maybe winner? I don't know if you're planting your flag yet, Ryan. But I think, like I said,. People have heard us gush for an hour now over this game. We always rate games that we cover

on the show on our leaderboard. You can check that out at videogamerspod.com. It's broken down into our ratings. We still have Paul's ratings on there as well. If you want to find a game to play, this is a fantastic way to just scroll the list. You can then go and listen to an episode because if it's on the leaderboard, we have done an episode on it. All right, Ryan, where are you putting this on your leaderboard? I have a feeling I think I know where it's going to be, but I want to hear it. Make it official. Where are you putting this?

All right. So this is a game that I know, obviously, everybody knows we love this all right so this this is a game that i know obviously everybody knows we love this from from listening to this if you're listening this far into the episode you know that we love this game it's going to be really really really up there for us for me it was one that um like the way they develop this in the way the worlds were it felt as to where it was not a lot of platformers and a lot of other games it just it's kind of like that world's just there it's always going there's always things happening this game felt like it was waiting for you everything you did in this it felt like you

were the centerpiece you were the one there you were making everything move and everything revolved around you and so it was just it was otherworldly, next level, one of the best games I've honestly ever played, let alone this year. So I'm putting this bad boy at a 9.7. 9.7? 9.7. This is not only one of the best games of this year,

one of the best games I've ever played. Audio, visual, gameplay, everything, flawless. best games of this year one of the best games i've ever played audio visual gameplay everything flawless a 9-7 on your leaderboard ryan puts it at the third highest game on your leaderboard second only to red dead redemption 2 and god of war 2018 at 9.8 yep yep i don't i don't blame you yeah i don't blame you one bit um okay so for me i think this game is absolutely phenomenal dude i loved this game from the second i got to play it till the minute i put it down even the credit sequence in this game is well done like i mean why doesn't every game do that you play play the credits. Like, it's goofy. The credits are a level, you know? And it's like, oh, okay, that's really cool.

I said it before. I'll say it again. This game is pure joy to play. That's the best way I can describe it, man. I mean, I don't know another way to say, you know, this game is good. It's fun to play. It's, you know, oh, yeah, it's pretty. It sounds good. I mean, it's a joy. If you want a game that is going to make you smile and it's going to make you feel like a kid again, this game is it. I cannot think of another game in recent memory that has brought that feeling of discovery and joy and just happiness. You know, I mean, it's got this vibe to it that is just so refreshing and so good. Um, I am going to put this in a category of games where I only have two other games in this category. And that is Rocket League, which for me is one

of my all-time favorite games. It's probably my most played game and a game that I think was one of the most fun games that we have played this year, which is Helldivers 2. I am putting this at a 9.5. The only reason I will say this, the only reason that I do not have this game ranked higher is a lack of a story. Now, listen, I'm one of the first people that go, but this game isn't supposed to have a story. And I get it. And that is not a failing because they nailed what they're trying to do. The only reason this game is not higher for me is because it does not have that memorable story that I will go to bed thinking about, that I will be wondering, well, why did this character do this? Or what happened if I did that kind of thing? And I think that that is the only piece that is missing. It is not a fault of

the game because this game isn't intended to be that way. You know? So for me, 9.5, I mean, people that know me know rocket league is one of my favorite games ever. And it's sitting in the exact same rating as rocket league and hell divers too. To me, 9.5 is the highest game that we have rated in a very long time.

Dude. That tells you everything you need to know about Astro Bot. If you have a PlayStation and you have not picked this game up, we cannot encourage you enough to spend the money to play this game. I mean, it's a short game. I don't care. Honestly, it's worth every penny. It's got some replayability value. If you are a completionist in a platinum trophy hunter, this game will absolutely be up your alley. If you just want one of the best games to come out in a very long time, this is it as well. If you don't own a PS5, do like I did find a friend that has one and say, Hey dude, can I borrow your PS5 for like four or

five days? I promise I'll give it back give it back uh but man find a way to play this game i will say too you're lucky that my son is your biggest fan yeah because he did next time i see jackson dude i'm giving him a fist bump he did not know what to do with himself the next morning like after we've been playing we were grinding out astrobot for like four straight days and then all of a sudden the playstation's gone and in the morning before school you know we he gets up early like me and he just he's like wandering around he doesn't know what to do and he's and i was like he's like josh josh is gonna play right and i was like yeah yeah he's playing it right now and he's like all right cool you know and and so he was he was excited you were gonna check it out he's like

it's a good game dad and i'm like i know buddy and i know but yeah it was um it i can't stress it enough. Get this game because it's not only a game. It's an experience. It really is. You genuinely have to – to understand what we've talked about and gushed about for a whole hour here, you have to experience it yourself. It is a genuine like kind of once-in-a-generation type experience. Yeah, it really is.

Yep. So also tell Jackson, I said, thanks. And also I want to see him beat those lost shape levels. Oh, we're going to true test of how good he is. We're going to get on it for sure. Absolutely. All right. Well, I think that wraps up this episode.

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happy gaming. See ya! Bye.