It’s true that games like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds have helped popularise a last-player-standing format of gaming, but Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout has unleashed its potential by painting the format hot pink and dressing it up in a hot dog costume. In comparison to other battle royale games, this game is a colourful, bouncing fresh breath of air that has a different, less exploding strategy towards battle royales while maintaining all of the excitement. Instead of C4, you’ll be avoiding Vitamin C as you’re bombarded with grotesquely oversized oranges in several events that make up the game show-like experience.
The large majority of such minigames captured our attention, providing both entertainment and distress in equal measure. Fall Guys finds a way to make you want to jump up and down the air when you’re looking to win and yell at your computer monitor when you’re losing, but you’ll be laughing regardless of the outcome.
You’ll have a chance to win the championship if you can mentor your very own customised jelly bean profile through as many sessions of inflatable carnage as you can manage in five minutes. Each tournament is framed as an event and lasts no more than 15 minutes at the most, which adds to the feeling of being in a television show. In more survival-oriented events that threaten to submerge you into the slippery depths, the controls are straightforward: you can navigate assault courses and avoid enemies by jumping, running and diving with your hands and feet as your only tools. If you are unfortunate enough to be eliminated, you have the option of sitting back and watching the remaining contestants compete for the championship while the melodic equivalent of wax begins pouring into your ears.
