Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout Review – Ridiculous Revelry

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Developer: Mediatonic

Reviewed on: PC

Also on: PlayStation 4

With the finish line in sight, a hamburger makes a leap of faith through the slowly spinning windmill. Unfortunately, a milkshake waits behind the scenes and hurls the hapless hamburger out into the void, sending him back to an earlier checkpoint. Somewhere across the obstacle course, a gaggle of beans tilts a see-saw platform the wrong way, sending a dozen players off into the sky. Elsewhere, a unicorn in a tutu cheers. Embracing the ridiculous and the fun, Fall Guys is a party-game battle royale, and it’s something special. Clearly inspired by shows like MXC, Ninja Warrior, and WipeOut, Fall Guys leans into its high-impact insanity and inspires laughter every step of the way.

You and 59 other players take on a wide variety of mini-games to cut the field down to one lucky winner. Despite the winner-take-all endgame, you can form a team with up to four players, which allows you to group up with your buddies during team events, which is cool. Rounds are fast, and it’s no big deal if you lose. You can watch your friends play it out or head back to the lobby to join another game instantly. Many rounds are obstacle-laden races that have you tilting on seesaws, smashing into doors with your face, and outrunning slime. Team games like mini-soccer and ball-racing combine with other strange fare like breakaway walkways to mix up the experiences further. All stages are not created equal, and some of the games end up being filler (the memory game!) or frustrating, especially the team experiences. 

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The core gameplay of Fall Guys is an absolute blast. Slamming into a wall as a babbling little bean wearing a duck costume is as fun and as stupid as it sounds, and appreciating the wacky physics as you are pushed, prodded, and flung across the stages is highly enjoyable. Being the last one holding the flag (tail) or making it up the mountain to the crown for a victory is exhilarating and intense without being too stressful. Belting the soccer ball into the goal with a perfect dive feels wonderful, as does being the last bean standing when the collapsing hex platform drops. 

Even when you’re eliminated early, you don’t really lose; you’re sent back to the lobby with some currency to buy cosmetics. You can use this money to become a pineapple. Or a dinosaur. Chase your dreams, little bean. Watching the hours melt away is easy as you master each course and soak in the dumb fun. After you’ve memorized the position and behavior of every wrecking ball and spinning hazard, you can engage with another layer of gameplay by messing with other players, grabbing them and trying to get them stuck on walls, bump them off edges, or hold them in place. 

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Just learning how to jump on a balance beam or dive to break your fall are rewarding lessons, with each course having a generous amount of “advanced” play available after you figure out the best ways to tackle the standard goal. Of course, some of the best laughs are had when the perfect plans end up going horribly wrong as other beans interfere, intentionally or just by happenstance. It’s all in the name of feeling good at the end of the day, and witnessing the pileups of assorted beans when everyone tries to squeeze through the same door is downright hilarious.

A lack of variety is the greatest weakness in this otherwise excellent game. After a few hours of play, you will probably have seen it all, and maps start to feel stale despite the many emergent player-initiated hijinks. A few games, especially some of the three-team games like the egg-hoarding one, reward beating up on the losing team, which is an unpleasant (though surefire) way to win. While some degree of randomness is essential to the party-game experience, many of the team games can feel like you have no agency or impact on winning or losing at all, which doesn’t feel good.

Fall Guys doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s hard not to grin after a few rounds of delightful diversion. Whether by yourself or with friends, this refreshing and ridiculous game makes every triumph and failure into a celebration.

Score: 8.75

Summary: Little beans bring big amounts of fun.

Concept: Participate in a variety of obstacle courses and events as a goofy bean

Graphics: Stylish and a bit bizarre, the art style sells the experience

Sound: Playful emotes and the incessant chirping of other beans accompany the peppy soundtrack

Playability: Incredibly easy to pick up and play, but with plenty of room to master the tricks for each course

Entertainment: Fall Guys is a masterful mix of party and prowess, held back only by lack of variety and a few lackluster games.

Replay: Moderate

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Panzer Paladin Review – A Bit Too Retro

Publisher: Tribute Games

Developer: Tribute Games

Reviewed on: PC

Also on: Switch

Tribute Games has taken on a mission of revitalizing game styles from previous generations, and Panzer Paladin is a laudable success in that effort. The side-scrolling futuristic action game borrows most prominently from the Mega Man series in its structure, but other nods are also in place, from Blaster Master to Ghosts ‘n Goblins. With rollicking chiptunes and evocative pixel art, the developer hits all the right notes to feel like a modern throwback. But the retro structure and design can do more to harm than good, and Panzer Paladin has pulled a few of the wrong ideas into the present.

As a rescue android who pilots a towering paladin mech, you are Earth’s last line of defense against an onslaught of occult enemies, including mythological monsters drawn from the various world cultures, from Medusa to Anubis. You choose whether to jet off to Japan, Mexico, or any of several other themed locations, fighting through lengthy stages ahead of big boss encounters. After checking off all the baddies around the world, a floating space station opens up, including an unbroken string of several more levels and bosses on your path to victory. It’s a lot of content in an initial playthrough, though I question the decision to not allow a return to the world map once you begin the lengthy final gauntlet, unless you want to lose your progress in that end sequence.

This structure will be familiar to anyone who has enjoyed a Mega Man game in the past, but Tribute finds some twists to keep things interesting. Levels inevitably demand that you hop out of your mech for brief and vulnerable excursions on foot, where your diminutive android is dwarfed by her suddenly massive foes. It’s a fun variation, especially on levels where those sequences are kept brief. Longer stretches on foot are problematic and frustrating, especially as they often arise too long after a checkpoint.

You’re also always on the hunt for new weapons for your mechanized warrior, usually in the form of swords, spears, and hammers. These weapons degrade with use, but you’re rarely left wanting for options; any overflow moves into your inventory, and can be equipped at your leisure. Weapons can also be thrown in desperate situations, or detonated to trigger inherent spells trapped inside. One fun aspect of play is all about waiting for your weapon to be nearly broken, and then triggering its special effect by destroying it yourself, gaining everything from increased durability to a short-term ranged blast. These same weapons initially fuel your paladin’s health upgrades, though these max out pretty early in the game.

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I enjoy the focus on an ever-shifting arsenal, but the game does a frustratingly poor job explaining how it all works. You have no clear way to learn what all the different spells do without extensive experimentation. Gathering more weapons results in a higher “spirit burden,” but with minimal explanation about the connection between that number and the appearance of a mid-level boss in each level. Even the flow of breaking and equipping new weapons remained opaque for the first half of my initial playthrough until I dug into the pause menu to try and figure it out.

Levels are thoughtfully designed, with plenty of clever enemy placements to challenge your dexterity and observation skills. And while I appreciate the impressive length of each stage, I can’t say the same for the too-limited checkpoints – especially considering the preponderance of insta-death pits. It just isn’t fun to trace a careful path through 10 minutes of a level only for a single bad jump to force you to replay the whole section. That was never an enjoyable feature of side-scrolling action games back in the day, and that has not changed in the decades since.

The mostly melee-focused combat is straightforward and engaging. An arm-mounted shield lets you block some attacks if you watch its incoming trajectory, and a backdash button demands mastery as you confront the harder bosses. I like the sense of slowly diminishing health over the course of a level, and one final chance after your mech gives out, when you can try to finish off a section or boss on-foot in one last, desperate gamble.

Panzer Paladin also has a variety of extras, including a second run at the story mode with redesigned levels, speedrun and boss rush-style tournament modes, and even an option to design your own weapons. As throwback retro adventures go, it hits a lot of the right marks, even if some of those targets are ideas that might have been best left in the past. 

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Score: 7.75

Summary: Tribute Games crafts a worthy homage to the early Mega Man games, but some retro elements might better be left in the past.

Concept: Relive the glory days of side-scrolling action, this time as a pilot and her mech hunting down occult threats

Graphics: Throwback visuals recall 8-bit action, but the color palette is often strangely muted

Sound: A rocking chiptune score keeps the beat thumping, but the lengthy levels mean that musical tracks sometimes wear out their welcome on repeat

Playability: Multiple difficulty modes help cater the challenge to your tastes, but lengthy checkpoints and insta-death pits are a bad combo regardless of the settings

Entertainment: A worthy homage to the early Mega Man games, but some aspects of retro design would be better left in the old days

Replay: Moderately High

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Superhot: Mind Control Delete Review – Forward Motion

Publisher: Superhot Team

Developer: Superhot Team

Reviewed on: Xbox One

Also on: PlayStation 4, PC, Mac, Linux

The first-person shooter genre is well-worn territory, but 2016’s Superhot effectively innovated by creating a unique scenario where the action only unfolds when you move. The result was a more strategic, almost puzzle-like shooter, giving you time to plot your next move as you act as a one-person wrecking crew. Superhot: Mind Control Delete uses a variation on this formula; you’re still clearing rooms of heavily armed enemies, but now you have access to myriad gameplay modifiers and new abilities within a roguelike format, elevating this sequel beyond the original.

Much like the first game, you’re tasked with wiping out enemies that can only move when you do – otherwise, the action remains frozen in time. You’re always outnumbered, so this helps you even the odds, as you can take time to identify the best approach to each combat situation, then work to execute your plan. Dodging bullets, grabbing weapons out of the air, and nailing a steady stream of headshots is immensely satisfying. A perfectly executed sequence makes you feel like John Wick at the top of his game, and watching it back at normal speed shows just how awe-inspiring your moves are.

Mind Control Delete is spread out over numerous floors that are constructed in a rudimentary node system. Each node strings together multiple stages you must clear over the course of one life; if you die, you lose all your accumulated modifiers and must start the node over. These roguelike elements add extra excitement to each stage, raising the stakes and emphasizing perfection as you try to give yourself the best chance to complete the later stages of the node. You choose one core ability prior to going in, then every few stages you pick one of two random modifiers you’ve unlocked to add to your loadout for that run.

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Cores give you powerful abilities like being able to swap bodies with enemies or recall your katana after you throw it, causing it to slice enemies down on its way back to you. However, my favorite core is “charge,” which lets you leap at a nearby enemy to deliver a powerful melee attack while escaping imminent danger. Your progress also opens new modifiers (aka hacks), which give you additional abilities. These include bouncing your bullets off walls toward enemies, reloading your gun instantly after a kill, and slowing down nearby bullets for easier dodging.

I relished in each upgrade and anguished at every difficult decision as I weighed the benefits of having an extra powerful punch versus having my bullets pierce enemies for stringed-together kills. Unfortunately, this introduces the element of luck into your playthrough, as certain abilities (like one where you can kill enemies by jumping on them) are absolute duds. On the other end, I always did a small fist pump when the hack that lets me move faster showed up as a choice.

As you unlock more hacks and cores to use to your advantage, the challenges you face grow more menacing in turn. Standard enemies begin spawning with weapons that dissolve when they die, or bodies that are only vulnerable in specific spots. Foes that can only be killed if you hit them in the leg or arm are particularly maddening to face. The corrupted enemy types don’t stop there, as a spiky variant explodes in a barrage of bullets upon death, begin spawning, and eventually, unkillable enemies with special abilities begin randomly spawning in stages. The three characters are not only invulnerable, but can use your core abilities like charge and the katana recall. These characters announce their presence with a frightening sound and can disrupt even the best plans. The mobility of these juggernauts adds a new layer of difficulty and stress, but I loved the adrenaline rush and subsequent relief I felt every time I finished a stage with one of these supercharged enemies present.

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Even with the various powers and hacks, Mind Control Delete is tough. Near the end, I sometimes wondered if I would ever be able to get through the increasingly difficult nodes, but through persistence and luck with the hacks on offer, I was able to push through to the end. Unfortunately, that finale presents you with an eight-hour timer that you have to sit on before you can dive back into the post-game experience, which includes additional nodes with no abilities. I love many of the fourth-wall-breaking elements of Mind Control Delete’s peripheral story, but having to keep my system on (the timer won’t tick down if it’s off) for eight hours before I can keep playing is just baffling.

While the difficulty spikes near the end of the campaign were frustrating, I never felt like it was an unfair or insurmountable challenge. With procedural generation keeping the experience fresh, and exciting abilities to make you even more capable in combat, Superhot: Mind Control Delete is an exciting follow up that had me saying “one more try” well past when I planned to stop playing.

Score: 8.75

Summary: By introducing a ton of exciting elements to the innovative formula, Superhot: Mind Control Delete elevates beyond the original title.

Concept: Take the novel concept of Superhot, where the enemies only move when you do, and add new gameplay modifiers, weapons, abilities, and enemy types within a roguelike structure

Graphics: The sterile white environments and eye-popping red enemies carry over from the original game

Sound: Listening to where the bullets are coming from is crucial, and the minimal sound design effectively communicates that

Playability: Simple controls and a conveyable concept make this an easy game to play, while combinable powers and procedural stages make it difficult to master

Entertainment: The various gameplay modifiers and enemy types add to the puzzle-like elements of the original, further evolving Superhot’s compelling formula

Replay: Moderately high

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