Review: Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (PlayStation 4)

by Jim Smale · August 10, 2020

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout flings hordes of contestants together online in a mad dash through round after round of escalating chaos until one victor remains! Battle bizarre obstacles, shove through unruly competitors and overcome the unbending laws of physics as you stumble towards greatness.

Pros:

Chunky cartoon graphics.
7.75gb download size.
Platinum trophy.
Elimination mini-games gameplay.
Inspired by the amazingly popular TV series Takeshis Castle and Wipeout.
Controls are minimal and easy to learn.
How to play menu.
Fame-earn it from playing, full the bar to unlock a reward on the season pass influenced reward bar.
Customise-Colour (two-tone), pattern, face, upper and lower body parts.
Unlock and assign new emotes.
Actions-grab, jump, and dive.
Party invites system.
Ship-rotated stock for customisation options, earn credits in-game but does have in-app purchases.
Every game is randomized.
Each game has a set amount that can qualify, all the rest are eliminated.
Can spectate when eliminated (both the current game or the whole thing) or when you have qualified.
60 player games.
Rules are shown on the loading screen.
Quick loading times.
Very easy to get into.
Every game is different.
Badges awarded for each time you qualify.
Tons of replayability.

Cons:

Some game modes are not that fun and can drag on a bit.
Only the one game mode so not private games or the ability to play one game mode.
No customs support.
Slow to unlock items.
No stats screen or ability to show off your accomplishments.
Trophies are tied to RNG as you may never see the mode you want.
Team games are not fun or fair.
Can just fall over for no reason.
Time to get back to your feet is long.
Occasionally get stuck in a restart loop like on fans or rotating platforms.
Grabbing each other is fun for two minutes.

8/10

Graphics - 8/10
7/10

Sound - 7/10
8/10

Accessibility - 8/10
7/10

Length - 7/10
9/10

Fun Factor - 9/10

7.8/10

Summary

Fall Guys is a game that is going to appeal to so many people, I mean it bright colorful cartoon graphics and a gameplay loop that’s very akin to Takeshi Castle, those who don’t know it’s a TV show whereby a horde of people compete against each other and can get eliminated as they go and the games get whacker and whacker. OK so Fall Guys, it does what it set out to do which is entertain, the controls are jumping, grab and dive that’s it so it’s pretty easy to learn, games are randomized and you are in with 60 people. So far so good as the game modes are fun with one’s like football, Jinxed, and fan-run. I loved every minute for a long time but that fun soon dwindled. The only progress you have is you full up a bar by getting awards for playing and by leveling up you get some customisation items and that’s it. That aside the overall gameplay can really be a downer, RNG on game selection means you could play the same games over and over or never see the ones you want or like, movement is not great with no clear science on how falling works, you are constantly falling over or rolling around and the time to get back to your feet can be so damaging. Having the ability to grab each other has nasty situations and can ruin the game and I had it happen whereby a teammate was doing it and stopping us from winning, talking of which team games suck because you could play your heart out but if a player on your team forgets to pull their weight that’s it game over. I want Fall Guys to succeed and I want to see it grow but at the moment it’s a game that started off strong but got more and more diluted as the player count grew.