Astro’s Playroom Review: The Biggest Surprise of 2020
The biggest gaming surprise in 2020 for me was just how good Astro’s Playroom is. Coming free with every Playstation 5, this adorable little 3D platformer is a delight to jump through. Taking place inside a PS5 console, Astro’s Playroom is a game about showing off everything the new Dualsense controller can do. But unlike a normal tech-demo, Playroom manages to deliver an immersive, infectiously happy collectathon that stands as one of the best experiences that PS5 has to offer. Here’s our Astro’s Playroom review!
The Adventure
Astro’s Playroom takes place over four distinctive worlds, each based on a different part of the PS5’s hardware. GPU Jungle tasks you with reaching the top of a mountain surrounded by a dense jungle. On the way you’ll meet platforms made from R2 and L2 buttons and hazards shaped like graphics cards. Cooling Springs sends you down water slides between semi-open swimming pools and icy landscapes. Each building is decorated with fans to fit the cooling system theme. These worlds are full of fun secrets and extra platforming challenges to discover. Each one leading to a collectable (usually a playstation peripheral) that you can fill up the Playstation Labo hub world with. This really gives you a worthwhile reward for your ingenuity in sniffing out every little secret.
New Friends
Along your way, Astro’s Playroom offers up charm around every corner, and it’s all thanks to the Astrobots themselves. As well as controlling one yourself, these little guys are the citizens of the worlds you’ll be exploring. As you travel through these worlds, you’ll find small groups off to the side of the beaten path. These little guys are cosplaying their favourite Playstation game characters just for you! There are dozens of these little groups of dressed up Astrobots, and it’s an incredibly cute sight to behold as you watch them laugh and play with their friends.
The Main Event
The real star of the show in Playroom is the new Dualsense controller. Every single mechanic outside of just plain jumping seems to have been designed with the Dualsense’s new features in mind. Fans are moved by blowing into the controller’s microphone, each pull of a cable is felt perfectly through the hyper-accurate vibration tech, and the tension of pulling a bow back ready to shoot is calibrated to a razor-fine edge. These new features go way beyond the gimmicky feeling that many feared they would fall victim to (looking at you PS4 touchpad!). Instead they end up making me really excited about what the new tech could bring to the long list of upcoming exclusives.
Minor Missteps
In each world of Astro’s Playroom are a couple of unique vehicle segments showing off the new Dualsense’s motion controls. And whilst the motion controls are responsive and accurate, a couple of the vehicle stages themselves take the momentum out of the levels completely. An excruciatingly slow spring-robot segment does not mesh well with the way that Astro’s Playroom usually plays; urging you to explore at your own pace. Additionally, a rocketship section dampens a lot of the fun that can be found in the other sections of Cooling Springs and SSD Speedway respectively which is so unfortunate when the rest of these levels are such a blast to play through.
The Verdict
Astro’s Playroom is an infectiously fun platformer that begs the player to explore its charming world. Whilst short, it provides almost constant fun throughout its 4 hour runtime. Astro’s Playroom is the biggest surprise of gaming for me in 2020, and proof that excellent games don’t always need to cost a fortune.
Gaming Exploits Final Score – 8.5/10
Astro’s Playroom is available now on PS5.
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