Astro Bot review: Play has no limits in one of PS5’s finest games

Astro Bot MSRP $60.00 Score Details Pros

Airtight platforming
Wildly inventive level design
Toy-like world
Takes full advantage of the DualSense
Heartfelt PlayStation cameos

Cons

Last world repeats itself

It was a prime beach day in Cape Cod, but I couldn’t pry myself away from my cousin’s PlayStation. He had brought it over to my parent’s summer home one day in the late ’90s and hooked it up in the back bedroom. We drew the blinds to block out the glare and spent hours playing a new game instead: Spyro the Dragon. I was transfixed. When I pressed a button to spew fire, it was like the controller disappeared. The colorful 3D world transported me to my own personal playground, a place beyond my imagination. What other frontiers were out there for me to explore?

At one time, this was a fundamental video game experience; a 3D platformer was just about the coolest game you could have. These were tightly designed adventures that understood the ways that digital play could activate creativity, even through a silly little cartoon with nothing to say. In recent years, major video game publishers have abandoned that idea. While Nintendo still reveres that power, once great sanctuaries for kids have crumbled as publishers have set their sights on courting “mature” audiences through photorealism and weighty themes. Video games are richer for that change, but young — and young at heart — are getting left behind, stuck wandering the vast desert of Roblox games with nothing but their parent’s credit card in their pocket.

It’s as if we’ve forgotten that the first word in PlayStation is “play.”

That’s whyAstro Bot feels as consequential as it does even if it just looks like your average 3D platformer full of collectibles and clever power-ups at a glance. The expertly designed PS5 exclusive plays like an intervention with its own publisher. It brings the PlayStation platform on an intergalactic journey through its history to rediscover its long lost sense of wonder. It’s not