CRITICAL REVIEW

 FALL GUYS : Ultimate Knockout

No one helps me to fall down in love with this game !

My latest passion has been highly competitive online shooters but Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout might be the thing to break me out of them because it built on the idea that a pretty miscalculation can launch the results of a whole match off - it drives me crazy in other titles, but it becomes something great here.

The basis of Fall Guys is that sixty players are put into a server and are subject to some of the most exciting competitive events imaginable. Players slowly dropped, and the last player standing at the end wins a crown - it’s like battle royale without guns.

Each of the events feels like a section from a wacky Japanese game show - one may require balancing on platforms like a see-saw on a playground, another might make players find the correct tiles to step on to avoid falling off a stage, and one has players accumulating tails and seeing who can hold onto them for the longest time.

The strength of Fall Guys is in its quality. Seeing dozens of different events is a surprise despite a few of them like The Whirligig (a mode in which players have to avoid a rotating propeller) that have me actively screaming over party chat.

The one that tested my endurance was the Gate Crash. Here, players have to touch the end of an impediment course, and along the way are gates that move up and down, halting progress. Timing is the main point - this all ends in a giant slide that leads to the finish line. Between the slide and the end are three more gates that move up and down and a large gap. The number of times I have underestimated that jump and ran to the gate is too many to count.

Other hair-pulling moments include things like other players waiting at the end of a course who knock opponents back before they can move on to the next round, or taking one wrong step in any style involving floating platforms, but missing is its brand of enjoyment in Fall Guys, and I have never been so frustrated at a game that I wanted to keep playing. Sure, it might have been out of resentment at times, but I had to prove that I could get through it and win a crown at the end.

Apart from the enjoyment of simply playing, there’s some inspiration to keep falling in a progression system where players can earn cosmetic items and in-game currency. “Kudos”, one of the in-game coins, can be bought with real money but can also be solicited in-game. All of the options are ornamental and do not affect gameplay, but I’m curious to see what the sojourning power of Fall Guys will be once the initial rush of new players wears off.

Fall Guys uses a bit of skill, a lot of bad luck and a truckload of disappointment, mixes it all and offers one of the most inventive multiplayer experiences around. Sure, I still might absorb at online games but it’s never felt this good to be so bad.

Acknowledgements: This game is published by Devolver Digital and produced by Mediatonic. It is available on PS4 and PC. This copy was purchased via free download and reviewed on PS4. Approximately 10 hours of play dedicated to multiplayer. There is no single-player.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Improvements: I feel that more funny characters make this game more entertaining to small and old age people, attract them to play this game. More surprise twists make this game more interesting and give more guts to win or stay till last in the round among the 60 players.