Astro Bot Review: All History Lessons Should Be This Fun

Astro Bot, a generally exceptional, imaginative game, features a heroic robot with pixelated eyes of blue who waddles tentatively through the universe like a toddler. But Astro is an ardent puzzle-solver, too, in a game that is a mammoth, interactive pop culture history.

Astro previously appeared in a tech demo for the PlayStation 5 that showed off the bells and whistles of the new Sony console and its controller. That tidbit was fun, but Astro Bot contains a fuller, 12-hour experience. It uses the PS5 controller to an impressive extent, emitting thousands of sounds and good vibrations. It’s not an exaggeration to say I felt like I was holding an extension of Astro Bot in my hands.

The simple sci-fi rescue story by Team Asobi works despite the fact that the only decipherable language comes via eye expressions and verbal exclamations. Astro’s delightful, whooping laughter recalls Curly’s harried vocalizations in the vintage black-and-white short comedies of the Three Stooges.

Asobi means “play” in Japanese, and Astro Bot evokes so many versions of play from pop culture’s annals that it’s somewhat like Steven Spielberg’s version of “Ready Player One.” About 150 PlayStation characters make appearances, including the dragon Spyro and the cylinder-headed prince from Katamari Damacy.

Astro Bot can feel like some Nintendo or Sega games. Like Super Mario Galaxy, it includes scores of planets. As in Pikmin, the little beings work together; on your home base, they combine to make a bridge held by a pelican’s beak. Climb across and you’ll enter an area inspired by Sony’s Horizon series. Even an old board game, the Rube Goldberg-style Mouse Trap, is evoked on a level in which the white-and-blue Astro shrinks to a gnawer’s size.

Some might think of this as way too much borrowing. I prefer the Newton-esque “standing on the shoulders of giants” idea because Astro Bot, startlingly, becomes its own thing.