I don’t know about you, but for me it’s definitely to live out the thrill of seeing if I’ve ended up on team yellow or not.
Mediatonic’s Fall Guys: Ulitmate Knockout is a charming experience. An all you can eat buffet of diving finishes and fancy dress silliness. It’s also the most downloaded Playstation Plus game ever.
So is that all it’s got going for it, that it’s cute and silly? That may be why you tried the game to begin with, but is that why you keep coming back to it? People who have never got a win are continuing to play right along the players with double digit crowns and a developing god complex. Are we all slaves to this cutesy Nintendo-esque escapism?
Probably.
I think it’s a little more than that, though.
It’s fun, it’s only got three action buttons, and you can certainly win with nothing more than dumb luck and persistence, but there’s also room for improvement and changing strategies. That doesn’t sound as fun as dressing a pink bean up in a dinosaur costume, sure, but it does add a slightly deeper level to the mini-games after replaying them so much.
I was shocked to the core the first time I was pushed off a tile in Perfect Match, a game where you have to memorise pictures of fruit and stand on the correct one when prompted. I was waving naively at a hotdog in gym wear, and then he pushed me.
I have since come to terms with the sporadic brutality of Fall Guys. I even push people myself sometimes, because I guess I really did live long enough to become the villain.
People are intercepting other teams’ balls, playing defensive midfielders, and hopping instead of running in Final Showdown to preserve their position as platforms start to disappear beneath them. Not The Witness level of problem solving, but it’s been fun to watch other people work out these little shortcuts and absolute filthy ways to destroy somebody else’s chances of qualifying.
There’s also the added bonus of having up to three friends join your party and take on these mini-games together. There’s a lot more screaming, but there’s proper communication during team games, and sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and watch somebody else attempt Slime Climb after an early elimination. I do hope sometime in the future there could be an additional teams only mode, so that you and your friends can all cry in victory together, but regardless, it’s still been fun.
Fall Guys has made people realise that the battle royale genre can be successful in more than just shooters. There’s something about battle royale’s that get my heart pumping and what little perception I have working into overdrive. I’m glad I can get this feeling in Fall Guys, where it’s just as nail-biting trying to jump through a hoop in overtime than it is running from gunfire in PUBG—because not everyone is in to shooters.
Maybe it’s the chicken outfits and pushing wars, maybe it’s for the love of team yellow, whatever reason we’re playing Fall Guys every day for—they’ve got us hooked.
With the promise of a new Medieval theme, new mini-games, and adorable costumes, I can’t wait to fail, fall, and maybe win in season 2 of Fall Guys.
jessicaorr.net 