PlayStation needs more games like Astro Bot and Lego Horizon Adventures

After just 15 minutes of playing this charming and intelligently designed game Astrobot on PlayStation 5 as part of the Sony preview event in early July, I thought to myself, “Why aren’t there more PlayStation games like this?”

My first reaction to Astrobot is a tribute to the development team at Team Asobi, the Tokyo-based team behind an equally great game Astro Bot: Rescue Mission AND Astro PlayroomWhich Astrobot builds on.

As in previous Astro games, I played as a shiny, blue-and-white robot who could jump, punch, and shoot beams from his feet that act as thrusters. On the different planets I visited, I earned power-ups that gave Astro different abilities, allowing him to float in the air, deliver long punches, or smash through walls. Astro’s abilities weren’t complicated, but the cleverly designed levels in Astro games were full of dead spots that hid secrets and paths leading to collectibles.

I ended up spending 45 minutes with the recent one Astrobot game, scratching the itch that comes with knowing there are hidden treats and cleverly hidden robots to rescue. I came away thrilled with what Team Asobi had created: a game with blue skies and dazzling yellow suns that felt like playing with a shiny recent toy. Almost everything I interacted with—giant inflatable ducklings, pink-leafed trees, a robotic ray—responded to my touch in a pleasant way. I unzipped a immense octopus-shaped balloon, finding a glowing treasure inside that allowed Astro to transform into an inflated balloon himself. I hopped on that floating ray bot, and my character did a little surfer pose. I punched a giant octopus boss with a pair of spring-loaded boxing gloves. Classic video game stuff that I can’t wait to play more of when the game ships in September.

Astrobot also immediately felt familiar. Astro’s controls in his recent game seem almost identical to Astro Playroom that came with the PS5. Like that free starter pack, Astrobot shows off what the DualSense controller can do, rumbles softly or loudly based on the action on screen and provides reliable force feedback on the controller’s triggers when firing weapons or striking. When Astro is flying in the DualSense-shaped spaceship, tilting the controller left and right causes the ship to roll in those directions. Every action and piece of related feedback feels precisely executed.

Photo: Team Asobi/Sony Interactive Entertainment

The same sentiment can be seen in another game published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which will be released later this year: Lego Horizon Adventures by Guerrilla Games and Studio Gobo. Their kid-friendly, Lego-fied version of the game for teens Horizon Zero Dawn features the same stakes and characters as this post-apocalyptic game, but wraps it in Lego Movie humor.

As Astrobot, Lego Horizon Adventures is gorgeous, but in different ways. It presents the futuristic wilderness of the Horizon games, made entirely of Lego bricks, with incredible detail. When characters like heroine Aloy and her ally Erend appear on screen, reimagined as Lego minifigures, you can see the slight scratches in their paintwork and the seams that run through their molded plastic bodies. Still, they are full of expressive emotion, and the absurdity of seeing Aloy’s warrior tribe as small Lego people enhances the game’s humor. Lego Horizon Adventures is quite humorous, as the characters joke about their strange Lego hands and break the fourth wall to reflect on the strangeness of their situation.

Photo: Gobo Studio, Guerrilla Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Because of this style of humor, Lego Horizon Adventures may end up being my preferred way to learn about history Horizon Zero Dawn — a humorous, interestingly presented version of a very sedate story (which, uhm, also involves robot dinosaurs).

I played the demo at first Lego Horizon Adventures solo, learning the plain but tight controls, collecting items, and building Lego structures as I journeyed through the early levels. I fought Lego versions of mechanical animals using a variety of tactics: shooting arrows through campfires to release flaming arrows and throwing exploding barrels at my enemies. Everything moves at a rapid pace, with simplified platforming and traversal.

In the second half of my demo, I played locally, on the same screen, in co-op mode with a Sony representative. This experience showed that Lego Horizon Adventures It’s best played in pairs, with a child or parent, where two people can join forces and try out a wider range of combat tactics – or one player can assist the other tackle tasks that are a little more challenging.

Photo: Gobo Studio, Guerrilla Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Playing back events Horizon Zero Dawn may seem pointless to series veterans, but re-experiencing the story from a recent perspective (and with a co-op partner) may be reason enough to do so. But for me, the humor Lego Horizon Adventures was the best reason. With much of the original voice cast reprising their roles, they now allowed themselves to go a bit crazy, Lego Horizon Adventures It looks like it won’t be a rehash, but rather a refreshing and lightweight way to familiarize yourself with the history.

Astrobot coming exclusively to PS5 on September 9th. Lego Horizon Adventures However, it will be available to a much wider audience when it releases on Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Windows PC later this year.