Astro Bot (PlayStation, £59.99)
Verdict: There’s a new mascot in town
The Sony PlayStation has never struggled for good games — but it has struggled for good mascots.
Nintendo has Mario, Link and Zelda. Microsoft’s Xbox has the towering figure of Halo’s Master Chief. Whereas the PlayStation has whatshisname, that bundle of yarn from the Little Big Planet games. Until now.
Now, the PlayStation has the little robot Astro — and he’s sublime.
In truth, Astro has been around for a little while, in smaller games designed to show off what the latest PlayStation hardware can do.
Astro Bot is the cutesy new PlayStation exclusive mascot to show off what the tech can do
The experience has been lifted to the level of a full game with Astro Bot
2020’s Astro’s Playroom, for instance, came bundled in with the PS5 and demonstrated the full expressive range of the DualSense controller’s buzzes and beeps.
Astro Bot is very much like Playroom — except the experience has been elevated to the level of a full game, with new powers, a story and everything.
One day, Astro is hurtling through the cosmos in a spaceship that looks just like a PS5 when suddenly, a dastardly alien appears to scatter him and his robo-buddies across the galaxy. Your mission: rescue them all, fix the ship, beat the baddies.
What follows are dozens of stages filled with as much invention, colour and charm as some of the best 3D Mario titles.
Astro Bot is a game that doesn’t just celebrate the PlayStation’s past — though it certainly does that, with plenty of cute references scattered throughout — but gaming in general. It feels like joy in the hands, particularly with one of those DualSense controllers.
In fact, it might well be the best argument for buying a PlayStation right now. And if you already own that console and want to persuade others of its technical brilliance, then Astro is most certainly your bot.
An Astro Bot plushie for the launch of the upcoming game next to a special edition controller
What follows are dozens of stages filled with invention, colour and charm
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions
(PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £24.99)
Verdict: Seek it out
Why has no one ever done it before? A full video-game adaptation of the sport of quidditch — so that you can join Harry Potter and his friends on broomsticks, catching quaffles, dodging bludgers and chasing down the elusive snitch? Surely it would make enough money to fill a vault at Gringotts.
Actually, there’s a good answer to that question: quidditch is complicated.
There’s at least three different games going on in one, and different team roles associated with each of them. Between the keepers and chasers, the beaters and seekers, it’s a lot for any one video game to manage.
But now a new game has come along and given it a go — and a very good go, too. In fact, the best part of Quidditch Champions is how it manages the different parts of this fictional sport. After an engaging tutorial section, set in the fields behind the Weasley residence, it becomes pretty straightforward to switch quickly between roles and to do everything that quidditch has to offer — even as a solo player.
There’s at least three games going on in one, and different roles associated with each of them
Between the keepers and chasers, the beaters and seekers, it’s a lot for any game to manage
The game’s cartoonish look is both attractive and welcoming, allowing customisation
And I imagine it will be even better once the online multiplayer gets properly going — allowing you to concentrate on just one of the roles, while additional players fill in the others. You, too, can become a world-beating seeker, just like Potter himself.
There are other things to recommend this game. Its cartoonish look is both attractive and welcoming. It allows you to upgrade the appearances, kits and equipment of your teams — but (so far as I could tell) without resorting to the real-life card payments that blight other sports games, such as EA FC.
The only problem, really, is the thinness of Quidditch Champions. Its makers have cracked the variety within each individual game of quidditch, but haven’t added much variety beyond that. Once you’ve played a few matches, you’ve seen practically everything on offer.
Still, isn’t that what sport is? The same basic game repeated again and again, in search of victory and maybe even perfection?
So watch out, I’m getting good at catching them snitches. 150 points to Hufflepuff!
