There’s an old debate about whether video games are entertainment or art. As usual, there is no clear answer – there are plenty of examples confirming this or that point of view. There are also those for whom gaming has become a lifelong pursuit, allowing them to earn a living and satisfy their ambitions: eSports players, creative content creators, or virtual currency traders in MMOs.
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout from Mediatonic is a concentrate of the same entertainment that video games were originally. Pure “fan”, despite the fact that the competitive element is at the forefront here, it is indicative that exactly Devolver Digital became the publisher of all this funny disgrace. The project instantly gained enormous popularity, but what is the secret of success and how long will this holiday of pleasure last??
King of the Hill
main idea Fall Guys spotted in old television entertainment. Remember "Fort Boyard", "The Great Race" or "Cruel Intentions"? Despite all the differences, the essence of these television projects is approximately the same: several teams or individual participants must overcome a series of tests in pursuit of a valuable prize. Unlike official sports competitions, the rules of which are strictly regulated, in such competitions the tasks assigned to the participants and the conditions for their implementation can be very different and limited only by the imagination of the authors of the show.
Simple examples include an obstacle course where they try to push a participant with huge boxing gloves, maintaining balance on a spinning circle, or conquering an oil-drenched mountain. But there are options that are much more impressive: bullfighting with a real bull, gladiator fights in funny costumes – the more varied and ridiculous the conditions, the more fun. It’s better not to talk about completely crazy “challenges” from Japanese shows.
Fall Guys represents just such a “Great Race”. Six dozen participants must reach the end of the level, which is a sophisticated obstacle course. Sometimes it’s running along a path separated by doors: some doors open with a light poke, while others are tightly locked – if you don’t guess right, it means you’ve lost time. Sometimes there is a chain of swing platforms turning over under the weight of runners, a fall from which leads to a rollback to the nearest spawn point. And sometimes – an endless run along a rotating cylinder, rich in barriers and gaps that you need to jump over.
At levels where you need to stay on the surface of a platform while dodging obstacles, there is always a great opportunity to play nasty tricks on your opponents.
Those who do not manage https://noaccount-casinos.co.uk/review/palm-casino/ to reach the finish line are among the first to drop out of the competition, and the rest move on to the next test, where the race begins under new conditions. And so on until there is only one winner left. Some levels represent competitions between several groups of participants – for example, football with huge balls or collecting as many eggs scattered around the arena as possible for your team.
There are not many levels, but it will not be possible to study everything thoroughly at once, and each specific test requires its own tactics and “knowledge of the route”. For example, in a race with closed doors, it is better to stay slightly behind the leading group, so as not to hit a closed gate, but to know exactly where to run. Falling behind, however, is also not an option – the obligatory bustle at the last open door can lead to an insulting delay for the remaining winning places.
I’ve already played this
Or not, wait, Fall Guys – this is not at all an analogue of television shows, but an original embodiment of ideas seen from other games. Here, as in Trackmania, there is one route for all participants, which is almost impossible to pass among the leaders without long training and watching real masters gracefully overcome all obstacles and know where the best shortcut is.
There’s always a dump at the last door. This is where it’s better to hurry up and not wait for someone else to find an open gate.
At some levels you remember a funny browser arcade game Transformice, in which it seems that everyone is for himself, but for the sake of success it is necessary to cooperate with rivals. Same here. We didn’t have time to jump through the same swing platforms alone? We’ll have to work together to tilt them in the right direction. There’s nothing to say about team trials – without any options, the group that can find a common language faster will win (and there’s no chat, be it text or voice).
The appearance of the characters and the ability to grab an opponent in order to throw off his timing before an important jump or push him into the abyss are somewhat reminiscent of a fighting game Gang Beasts. Football levels – exactly the same Rocket League, for nothing that it’s on foot and without wild speeds. And the main idea of gradual elimination of those lagging behind, intricate tracks and the principle “There must be only one left” seem to be taken from a game popular among streamers Marbles on Stream.
Elimination game
Well, in essence Ultimate Knockout – this is another battle royale, very fun and taken to the absolute extreme in its simplicity. The controls are as concise as possible – just enough movement buttons, two types of jump and the ability to hold objects or opponents. Nothing superfluous: there is no need to come up with dull tactics with an ambush, waiting for most of the opponents to kill each other; there is no need to shoot accurately; there is no feeling of wasted time that accompanies almost every protracted round of “grand piano”.
Sometimes the key to success is not only manual dexterity, but also a good memory. After the timer expires, those platforms on which the same fruit was depicted as on the screen will remain, and the rest will disappear.
But the last level, which should reveal the winner, is very reminiscent of those fierce battles that happen at the final stage of narrowing the circle in PUBG and analogues. Everything comes into play – cunning and meanness, skill and luck. If there are no weapons, then we will use the environment: confusing the opponent by locking him on a piece of tiles that crumble after touching is priceless. And despite all the simplicity, getting the coveted first place is quite difficult – sometimes all you need is a little luck.
The main thing is that both competing and just watching other players is incredibly fun. The crowd effect, when a horde of clumsy pot-bellied men rushes towards the goal, obeying a single impulse, but at the same time constantly interfering with each other – there is something bewitching about it. Even if you don’t take into account funny situations, as a result of which the leader can instantly be among the last, and victory depends more on chance than on skill.
Mediatonic – great job for being able to embody in one game what makes the examples listed above so popular. Nevertheless, it is too early for the authors to rest on their laurels. The bombardment of negative reviews on Steam is not at all accidental – irritation from technical problems Fall Guys directly proportional to her fame. It’s not pleasant when you can’t connect to the server or, even worse, you get kicked out right during the next race. Such a rapid rise of popular love does not at all exclude future oblivion: after a while the levels, with all their diversity, begin to get boring, and some controversial decisions, such as team rounds with different numbers of participants on each side, do not add positive emotions.
One of the most difficult levels: you need to make the right decisions quickly, but without a bit of luck you still can’t count on winning.
Developers need to work tirelessly if they want to achieve sustainable success. So far they are only actively adding various skins for characters (there is, for example, a Gordon Freeman costume), although after fixing network problems, the priority should be the development of new levels. It will be absolutely wonderful if Mediatonic screw it to Fall Guys support for modifications and will give the community the tools to create their own challenges. Then we can say that the game has a long life ahead.
Pros: various tests; ease of control; funny situations that constantly arise during the game.