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Astro Bot | Review Thread

What scores do you think Astro Bot will get?

  • 60-65%

    Votes: 3 0.9%
  • 66-69%

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 70-74%

    Votes: 4 1.2%
  • 75-79%

    Votes: 5 1.5%
  • 80-84%

    Votes: 17 5.2%
  • 85-89%

    Votes: 108 33.3%
  • 90-94%

    Votes: 150 46.3%
  • 95-100%

    Votes: 37 11.4%

  • Total voters
    324
  • Poll closed .

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I am at the point now where I will only purchase games developed in the East.

I hope not. The West still makes great games too.

He's been salty since Feb lol.

Wukong selling 18 million copies definitely has him screaming on the inside too.

HOLD ON, WAT?!?! It sold 18 million copies?

It's because you don't listen when people say things.

Astro Bot was a cheaper single player game. Most of Sony's AAA single player games cost big money. They're inherently risky endeavors and they take a long time to produce.

Companies need constant cash flow and operating income.

Concord was a failure and Helldivers 2 is probably the best selling PlayStation game of all time... "it be like that sometimes"

Then shouldn't Sony make more "cheaper" single player games to help fund their mega block busters? It shouldn't only rely on Live Service games to do that. I think Herman and the crew are finding that out now.
 

Fabieter

Member
People being concerned about game length vs price is why we have enormous gigantic empty wastelands and bloated games.

Exactly it depends on the game tho. I wouldn't accept a 15 hour western rpg epos. But most genre are fine between 10 and 20 hours if it's quality content.
 

Stafford

Member
I think that’s a nerd rushing through the game.

It’s the sort of title where you take your time. Why get every collectible first time round? I expect it will take me 20-30 hours to 100%.

I saw a couple of these, also one of around 7 hours. I kinda doubt you can get it to 20-30 hours. Unless you explore every nook and cranny I guess, but even then.
 

Shakka43

Member
I ll just say this, this game is way better than Odyssey and its not even close imo, a fucking masterpiece
I've only played four levels and can agree with that, but then again I didn't find Odyssey to be the best 3D Mario game Nintendo has to offer.
 

nial

Member
This is the first time the PlayStation Twitter account has ever changed its profile picture.
2Ns9BD6.png
 

Dacvak

No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
Bold claims, I guess you are playing it now and have an extensive history with Mario games?

I guess you have 100% the classic Mario's?
If it makes you feel any better, I ritually beat EVERY single Mario game once every two years. Every 2D and 3D game. Plus about 200 Mario Maker levels, and mod content like Super Mario Eclipse. I’m the biggest Mario fanboy I know.

Astro Bot definitely lives up there with the 3D Marios so far. Who knows if it’s “better” or “worse” than specific Mario games; that’s not the point. The point is it has done what literally no other 3D platformer has ever done in my opinion, which is compare to Nintendo’s offerings. It’s fantastic, and absolutely worth playing!
 

Mownoc

Member
Dare we suggest that this could be GOTY 2024?
I'm not sure what could even compete with it. There's not much on the release schedule for the rest of 2024 I think has much of a shot. Unless Dragon Age somehow turns out to actually be incredible.

It seems the clear favourite to me out of the games released and coming soon to win GOTY at TGA's.
 
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Ogbert

Gold Member
If it makes you feel any better, I ritually beat EVERY single Mario game once every two years. Every 2D and 3D game. Plus about 200 Mario Maker levels, and mod content like Super Mario Eclipse. I’m the biggest Mario fanboy I know.

Astro Bot definitely lives up there with the 3D Marios so far. Who knows if it’s “better” or “worse” than specific Mario games; that’s not the point. The point is it has done what literally no other 3D platformer has ever done in my opinion, which is compare to Nintendo’s offerings. It’s fantastic, and absolutely worth playing!
I actually think Astrobot celebrates Mario as much as it does PS games. I think they’re quite unabashed in their nods. The hexagonal honey pads, the octopus boss, the caterpillar like robot mobs, lots of the music.

I think it’s safe to say Team Asobi have played a lot of Mario.
 

Majukun

Member
Dare we suggest that this could be GOTY 2024?
I think right now it's the highest rated game of the year, so it very much could

also hope this reception will put to rest all those "oh if this wasn't a mario game it would get a 70"

surprise, surprise, polished 3d platformers are fun as fuck and everyone should put their gaas shooters down and try them
 
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Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
Then shouldn't Sony make more "cheaper" single player games to help fund their mega block busters? It shouldn't only rely on Live Service games to do that. I think Herman and the crew are finding that out now.


Cheaper single player games aren't guaranteed to be profitable or bring in enough revenue to keep the lights on.

The answer as most things are, is that you have to do all of it, but the idea that Sony will survive as a major gaming company without doing GaaS is simply unrealistic.
 

ByWatterson

Member
I am at the point now where I will only purchase games developed in the East.

It's not quite that dire for me (this week alone I was playing Doom Eternal, Vampire Survivors, and a couple others), but there is no doubt the East has lapped the West (and especially the United States) lately.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Sony should take a lesson from Astro Bot: they can produce high quality games with small teams, low cost and in a time frame of 3~4 years. They should pursure that. Not all games need to be like TLOU2.

And Helldivers 2 is not their best selling, btw, if they release a God of War day and date on PC, it will probably sold much better than Helldivers.

All that said, Sony already have a constantly cash flow: PS Plus subscribers, 30% revenue of all third party games, etc. Besides that, Concord and Helldivers 2 are not design to be cash flow machines, because of the way that those games deal with microtransactions.

They know this already. They've already told us in a press showing that they are doing this. Have you not seen this?

.

YAPc07l.jpeg

Astrobot would be under the "Experimental" game category for them.

Will definitely get heavy promotion through the year, but there is only so many units you can sell in this genre on this platform.



Agreed! I think the ceiling for platform games (NOT by Nintendo) is 10 million units sold
 
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Ogbert

Gold Member
It's not quite that dire for me (this week alone I was playing Doom Eternal, Vampire Survivors, and a couple others), but there is no doubt the East has lapped the West (and especially the United States) lately.
I was being daft. There are obviously good games about.

But I am so completely and utterly done with EA/Ubisoft/Bioware bloat. I can’t do it anymore. Their games are so fucking boring.
 

ByWatterson

Member
I was being daft. There are obviously good games about.

But I am so completely and utterly done with EA/Ubisoft/Bioware bloat. I can’t do it anymore. Their games are so fucking boring.

Agree. Essentially, if a big tentpole release is coming out of Japan/Korea (and China is coming up fast), I assume it to be high quality and interesting.

If it's from the West, they gotta prove it to me.
 

Majukun

Member
Cheaper single player games aren't guaranteed to be profitable or bring in enough revenue to keep the lights on.

The answer as most things are, is that you have to do all of it, but the idea that Sony will survive as a major gaming company without doing GaaS is simply unrealistic.
the idea that every big company needs a gaas is unrealistic, for the simple reason that there's a finite amount of players and a finite amount of free time they can dedicate to games...gaas become basically full time jobs unless you are willing to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars/euro on them, there is not much space in the market and most of the slots are already filled...sure you get some success stories, but those also end up shrinking after a bit, while the big ones keep hogging all the userbase.

the gaas craze it's kind of similiar to the bitcoin one...the first adopters are now rich like motherfuckers, but all the people try to chase now will only get the crumbs
 
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Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
Agreed! I think the ceiling for platform games (NOT by Nintendo) is 10 million units sold

There's no precedence for that ceiling. Nothing comes close to that.

I think the best selling "platformer" from Sony would be around 7 million, which was ratchet and clank PS4, which was probably why they rushed to do Rift Apart, but that wasn't able to sell as well.

Similarly Crash 2 did about 7.5 million.

I'm pretty sure that's the ceiling and given the price of the PS5 it's probably lower.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
the idea that every big company needs a gaas is unrealistic, for the simple reason that there's a finite amount of players and a finite amount of free time they can dedicate to games...gaas become basically full time jobs unless you are willing to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars/euro on them, there is not much space in the market and most of the slots are already filled...sure you get some success stories, but those also end up shrinking after a bit, while the big ones keep hogging all the userbase.

the gaas craze it's kind of similiar to the bitcoin one...the first adopters are now rich like motherfuckers, but all the people try to chase now will only get the crumbs

As GaaS continue to take over player pools, those who don't have GaaS will see declining sales and higher risks.

You said the idea that every big company needs a GaaS is unrealistic because they're unable to all have one, misses the point. They won't all have them and you'll see big companies go from being big companies to being midsize, small, acquired, or out of business entirely.
 

Lokaum D+

Member
I've only played four levels and can agree with that, but then again I didn't find Odyssey to be the best 3D Mario game Nintendo has to offer.
tbh Odyssey for me is the worst 3D Mario, its beautiful and has great art direction ? Fucking YES, but has almost no challenge and its filled with boring stuff to do.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
It's funny cause the year started with a great Remaster for TLOU2, Helldivers 2 surpassed everyone's wildest expectations and ended up not only reviewing well but also one of the year's best selling games and not just on Playstation but steam as well, FFVII Rebirth is one of the best reviewed games of the year, only surpassed by the now released Astrobot...also a PS5 exclusive.

Join that Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade that was a nice surprise it was definitely the best platform i terms of exclusive experiences to play.

And yes i'm saying Concord happening doesn't erase everything i just mentioned. Playstation has its issues right now but it's clear Sony is trying to appeal to all sorts of customers.

And you missed the console exclusive Black Myth: Wukong. One heck of a year so far.
 

Dacvak

No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
I actually think Astrobot celebrates Mario as much as it does PS games. I think they’re quite unabashed in their nods. The hexagonal honey pads, the octopus boss, the caterpillar like robot mobs, lots of the music.

I think it’s safe to say Team Asobi have played a lot of Mario.
Yeah I totally agree. There are tons of little (and sometimes big) homages, it’s really cool.
 

Dacvak

No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
Fucking look at the state of that cover and don’t try and tell me it’s not a baby game! 😂

Wheres the guns and/or tits? We deserve better!

(all comments that say I’m the tit will be ignored - by me at least)
ur the tit
 

Majukun

Member
As GaaS continue to take over player pools, those who don't have GaaS will see declining sales and higher risks.

You said the idea that every big company needs a GaaS is unrealistic because they're unable to all have one, misses the point. They won't all have them and you'll see big companies go from being big companies to being midsize, small, acquired, or out of business entirely.
except so far we have not seeing the declining sales nor the higher risk for non-gaas games.
well made, polished single player experiences are still selling very well and making a lot of profit..the dystopian future where gaas take over the entire market just isn't there and doesn't give any sign of ever been there if not in the wet dreams of big companies exec.

there is space for both models in the industry, for the simple reason that there's no complete overlay between the two userbases...certain people play only gaas, some people love single player games...the latter give lesser returns but are way safer than gaas atm, which are the typical high risk high reward model atm
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Cheaper single player games aren't guaranteed to be profitable or bring in enough revenue to keep the lights on.

But they won't sink the Playstation division either. GAAS for Sony has had alot of SUPER downsides in the last 2 years. So upside too, but it's boom or bust so far. Games like Astrobot and Lego: Horizon have little downside and high potential upside.

There's no precedence for that ceiling. Nothing comes close to that.

I think the best selling "platformer" from Sony would be around 7 million, which was ratchet and clank PS4, which was probably why they rushed to do Rift Apart, but that wasn't able to sell as well.

Similarly Crash 2 did about 7.5 million.

I'm pretty sure that's the ceiling and given the price of the PS5 it's probably lower.

Normally I'd agree with you here. But since Astobot had a PS5 pack-in free game, I think it has the potential to boost pass 5 million units sold.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
except so far we have not seeing the declining sales nor the higher risk for non-gaas games.
well made, polished single player experiences are still selling very well and making a lot of profit..the dystopian future where gaas take over the entire market just isn't there and doesn't give any sign of ever been there if not in the wet dreams of big companies exec.

there is space for both models in the industry, for the simple reason that there's no complete overlay between the two userbases...certain people play only gaas, some people love single player games...the latter give lesser returns but are way safer than gaas atm, which are the typical high risk high reward model atm

We absolutely have...

it isn't to say single player games CAN'T sell but their sales are certainly lower on the whole and getting more and more expensive to make.

As one model grows the other will shrink.

A lot of kids won't even play games that aren't F2P GaaS games these days.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
But they won't sink the Playstation division either. GAAS for Sony has had alot of SUPER downsides in the last 2 years. So upside too, but it's boom or bust so far. Games like Astrobot and Lego: Horizon have little downside and high potential upside.

Everyone knew that going into this.

Everyone said that if Sony hit on 1 of the 12 games they planned it would be a success. They hit on their first major game in Helldivers...

Normally I'd agree with you here. But since Astobot had a PS5 pack-in free game, I think it has the potential to boost pass 5 million units sold.

You were saying the ceiling was 10 million and now you're down to 5 million... that's a significant decrease...
 

Majukun

Member
We absolutely have...

it isn't to say single player games CAN'T sell but their sales are certainly lower on the whole and getting more and more expensive to make.

As one model grows the other will shrink.

A lot of kids won't even play games that aren't F2P GaaS games these days.
gonna need a source on that because i am not seeing it at all.

of course profit margins are shrinking because there is a constant attempt to use production values as a selling point, but that applies to both markets...which is kind of hilarious since the gaas model was born on mobile phones and designed around cheap games that could stay alive with a constant cycle of developed content and recurred user spending, and has been then adopted by AAA executives that only knows the false equation more money spent=more money gained.

If you are talking about which model has the highest ceiling, then we agree that a successful gaas will generate more moeny, especialy in the long run...but successful gaas are becoming rarer and rarer and are by far the more risky option of the two

we already saw big studios with big brands attached fail miserably at finding a spot in gaas players schedule, meanwhile the same brand power applied to single player experiences has worked very well so far (sony spiderman, harry potter games, star wars games, any nintendo game really, etc..etc..)
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
You were saying the ceiling was 10 million and now you're down to 5 million... that's a significant decrease...

No....no...no. I still think the ceiling is 10 million units for AstroBot. I'm saying had AstroBot never had a pack-in game, the ceiling to me would have been 5 million. But since it does have a pack-in game for the PS5 and that game was fun, the ceiling has risen!

10 million max! Days Gone sold 10 million units, so I don't think it's crazy to think this game has more than a 1% chance of doing it too.
 
Astrobot is plenty long. It is the game of the year, easy. The only thing close is Rebirth. Damn. That, honestly with this, Rebirth, Rise of the Ronin, and Stellar Blade PS5 has had a hell of a year. Astro destroys a lot of narratives.

If you so desire, you can always go back to playing Star Wars outlaws. /shudders /ridicule

Honestly, without a PS5 yalls gaming year has been a lot shitter. Just honestly, like, no shit. One platform gets treated the best and everything else gets scraps.
Ronin is my personal GOTY but I wouldn't be surprised if Astro wins. Ronin absolutely deserves to be nominated and in the discussion. Way too many people wrote that game off.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart sold ~4M units (and was profitable, btw) in exactly 2 years, while having much less hype, lower review scores, smaller marketing push and being $10 more expensive.
Astro Bot will be fine.
LBP3 was actually the best selling one in the series, but the series overall wasn't really as popular as many people think.
Ratchet is a pure platformer in the same way gta is a pure driving simulator.

The game is way more about combat and shooting and upgrading stuff, they don't have the exact same demographic.
 
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Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
No....no...no. I still think the ceiling is 10 million units for AstroBot. I'm saying had AstroBot never had a pack-in game, the ceiling to me would have been 5 million. But since it does have a pack-in game for the PS5 and that game was fun, the ceiling has risen!

10 million max! Days Gone sold 10 million units, so I don't think it's crazy to think this game has more than a 1% chance of doing it too.

Completely different genre.

You can tell just by the views on youtube. The trailer for Astro bot while well received pale in comparison.

Sony is going to really have to push this game to get it to 7 million let alone 10.
 

Unknown?

Member
Ratchet is a pure platformer in the same way gta is a pure driving simulator.

The game is way more about combat and shooting and upgrading stuff, they don't have the exact same demographic.
That's like saying Final Fantasy isn't an RPG because you don't create your own character.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
I am 100% as I go. I am glad I just got the standard game as those few bots that comes with the deluxe are easy to get. Game is a lot of fun.
But it is funny to see all the stuff the rip off from nintendo. even pikmin! :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

Ogbert

Gold Member
That's like saying Final Fantasy isn't an RPG because you don't create your own character.
I think the thing that distinguishes a ‘pure platformer’ from a more action/platformer like Ratchet and perhaps even Astrobot is that the toolkit you develop is focussed primarily on jumping.

Consider Odyssey - Mario has the single jump, longer jump, triple jump, reverse jump, stomp into a higher jump, ground cap jump, jump into cap toss into lunge and, finally, a wall jump. There really aren’t many games beside Mario that place jumping and the rhythm around jumping at the core of the game.

Ratchet doesn’t do that at all. You jump, hover and dash. The movement of your character owes more to third person action games.

Astrobot sits between the two, but for me, is still closer to a third person action game than one which focuses on jumping and movement.
 
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