Best Game of the Year

While everyone was hoping Sony’s Astro Bot would be good, I’m not sure anyone could have predicted what would happen here. And now we see PlayStation pull off a huge victory in a week it desperately needed.

As of now, it’s the highest-rated full game of the year, with dozens of Astro Bot reviews. Has a metascore of 94It’s rocketed into the GOTY race, though it’s not currently a clear frontrunner. It’s been called one of the best platformers ever, on par with the classics, and the reviews are absolutely brilliant.

A score of 94, unless you count Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion as a full game, which most people don’t, and a score of 95, makes it the best-reviewed game of the year. Here’s a list of “game” games:

1. Astro Bot – 94
2. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth – 92
3. Animal Well – 91
4. Balatro-90
5. Good to Have You Here! – 90
6. Tekken 8 – 90
7. Tactical Breach Wizards – 90
8. Like a Dragon – Infinite Wealth – 89
9. Lorelei and Laser Eyes – 88
10. Minishoot Adventures – 87

It’s been a weird year so far. You can see that most of these are indie games that have fewer reviews, and the ones I didn’t count are for “definitive collections” or remasters that I won’t count. And an expansion or two like Elden Ring or Destiny 2’s The Final Shape. But if we’re talking about full games, games with GOTY potential, Astro Bot is right up there.

At the time of writing, Astro Bot has 29 10/10 ratings from 78 reviews. Here’s one that sums up most of them: Full 10 from VGC:

“Astro Bot isn’t just a fun platformer with a little nostalgia that brings it together; it’s a generational, compelling entry in a genre that understands PlayStation at an atomic level. The sheer joy the game generates makes it impossible to compare it to anything other than Mario’s best adventure. Astro is no longer a vector for PlayStation icons; he’s a PlayStation icon.”

There’s only one score below 8, a 7.8/10 from GamersRD. There’s only seven scores below nine periods.

So, it’s a critical hit, and we’ll see if that translates to sales. Players are hoping that the fact that this game has been reviewed so well, and hopefully made a decent amount of money to match, will push Sony and other publishers into more solid single-player games rather than endlessly chasing live service titles, many of which have failed spectacularly lately. The contrast between Astro Bot and Concord this week alone is absolutely insane. I can’t wait to play it.

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