It’s official: Astro Bot is the most overrated game of 2024 – Reader’s Feature-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Astro Bot – the best game of 2024? (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

A reader argues that Astro Bot did not deserve to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2024 but that its sequel may be a contender.

I might never have made it over to L.A. to see E3, as I’d always wanted to, but I feel staying up till 4am to watch The Game Awards, when I’ve got to get to work at 8am the next morning, offers a similar level of exclusivity. In that few people are as stupid as me, as to want to do it.

I almost didn’t, actually, as last year’s really wasn’t worth the effort and if it hadn’t been for the rumours of this being a good one, I wouldn’t have bothered. I’m still not quite sure what the two big ‘holy s***’ moments were meant to be, but I felt there were quite a few reasonably surprising ones (very when it came to Ōkami 2) and I was satisfied by the end of it.

Not only did we get a lot of interesting and unexpected game reveals but almost all of them showed gameplay and the only main one that didn’t, The Witcher 4, had the excuse of being years away and making an important point about who the main character is (I’m not going to spoil the surprise if GC won’t). But overall: 9/10, would watch again – not the same one, but certainly next year.

As everyone knows, the game award part of the showcase is a surprisingly small part of the overall event, with more than half the winners being announced and forgotten almost before you realise they’re being talked about. I sometimes wonder why they bother with the award aspect at all, but they do make a fuss about some of them, especially the Game of the Year award.

Like many, I felt there was no obvious favourite this year, with my personal preference being Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. I wouldn’t have objected to any of them winning, although I have not played Black Myth: Wukong or Balatro, but I really didn’t feel Astro Bot was Game of the Year material.

It’s a good game, that I enjoyed, but for me it’s not really any more than an 8/10. It’s just too derivative of 3D Mario games, while at the same time having much simpler gameplay, which makes it much more repetitive even though it’s much shorter than any comparable Nintendo game.

I would put Astro Bot: Rescue Mission several notches above it, as the novelty of VR managed to compensate for the rampant copycatting. I’m also not sure I didn’t enjoy Astro’s Playroom more too. It certainly had better songs and I felt the integration of PlayStation cameos was much better. The way the cameo characters worked made more sense in context and the final battle was a lot more fun (admittedly it did use up the best possible idea for a final boss, but still).

But as the night went on, and Astro Bot won most of the awards it was up for, it became obvious it was going to win Game of the Year and that just felt wrong to me. I thought this year had been good for games, but Astro Bot can in no way stand in the same company as games like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Elden Ring.

Not because it’s not serious or epic but because it’s just an existing idea not done quite as well. I get it… coming anywhere close to the quality of a Nintendo platformer is a real achievement, but that alone is not reason enough to be throwing around the phrase Game of the Year.

I’m not bitter about this, I get that some people just didn’t like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s open world sections, and I’m not going to say it’s a perfect game – but it’s my opinion that Astro Bot was already overrated and now I think it’s even more so. But hey, if it leads to Sony and others making more 3D platformers than maybe it’s for the best.

What I will say is I loved the acceptance speech which turned into a weird love letter to Nintendo, and I suspect was an admission on the part of the director that he knew Astro Bot was still the learner and Mario was the master.

There is a serious problem with overrating games though, that I feel is underappreciated, and that’s if you start talking about a good but not great game as being the GOAT then suddenly you haven’t got a proper frame of reference for where to go next. Being better than Astro Bot won’t make you a Game of the Year contender it’ll just make you equal to or better to 8/10.

I do feel Team Asobi understand this though and I look forward to their next game very much. Maybe that will be a genuine Game of the Year winner, but I don’t feel Astro Bot is.

By reader Gordo

Astro Bot will definitely see a follow-up (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

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