Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was a title that came out of nowhere for me. I honestly probably wouldn’t have looked twice at it, were it not for being part of the Playstation Plus free games this month. It was also a new release, which is the first time we’ve gotten a brand new game via the service for quite some time. Regardless, I typically try out most of the free games and 9 times out of 10 I’m done with them after a quick look. However, this game has a bit of staying power, in that I’ve played it several times over the month, even getting a few rounds in with my son.
Fall Guys sits in a weird place. It’s a multiplayer elimination style game, which mostly reminds me of Ninja Warrior or Wipeout which were obstacle courses that people would attempt to get through, and those that did make it through would then be judged based on their time — fastest gets first place. In this game, it’s the same sort of principle, however you play to be the last man standing, and individual rounds are timed or have a maximum amount of people who can qualify. If you run out of time during one of the team games, and your team has the worst score, then you’re out. If you fail to qualify before the set number of people do, then you’re out. There are various rounds and types of courses that you’ll experience, each picked at random. The overall collection of rounds is called a “show” and after each game you’ll get placed on a leader board where those eliminated will be popped off. I believe there are a total of five rounds, but I have yet to make it past a fourth.
As you can see, the game utilizes “cute” graphics and 90’s pastels and neons. Generally speaking it’s not really about the graphics, but I suppose keeping it light and fluffy was the way to go, as hyper realism probably would take away from its charm. Really though it’s a physics based game where falling down happens a lot, due to people running and/or jumping into you. You can grab other players too in order to get ahead or try and push them off of edges. Anything goes with these dastardly dudes.
I’m not exactly sure how many actual courses/events there are, but I’ve seen quite a few of them. Some of my favorites just involve running through the gambit, but I also enjoy the spinning platforms and the tiles that disappear from under you, where you’re constantly jumping from square to square like Q-Bert. I’m really not partial to the team based ones, where you’ll play soccer, try to hold onto your tails, or try to keep balls in your quadrant. Depending on a team and then losing sucks.
In between games you’ll earn rewards, the purple stuff being an in-game currency and the pink stuff being your experience. As you level up you’ll unlock color palettes and skins for your character, and you can also buy other bits and bobs from the in-game store. It does not appear that there are any sort of micro transactions, so that’s a plus. The skins and colors are all pretty basic though, so I assume at some point more will be added in or perhaps there will be some reasonably priced DLC. Honestly I don’t see much of a point in the customization but that’s the world we live in these days.
That’s really all there is to say about the game. If you have Playstation Plus you should grab it up for free while you can. If nothing else it can be a fun little romp for your friends, but I doubt it will have a long term lifespan for many.
Me Vs. Myself and I 