Once upon a time, kids would sit down with their parents and grandparents to watch wholesome family entertainment on a saturday night. As strange as it may seem in these modern times where nowadays each generation (probably even grandparents) are instead separately locked into a loving embrace with their phones or tablets, "It's a Knockout" used to be the highlight of the week for childhood me.
It was an insane idea. A gameshow of sorts where physical prowess and athletic dexterity met colossal foam costumes, often resulting in horrific looking injuries (quite often glossed over by the commentators / presenters). Though we have Ninja Warrior UK as a sort of wince-inducing modern equivalent, nothing could match the potent combination of seeing the UK and other European countries duking it out dressed as giant ostriches, fighting over a cardboard ring to an endless soundtrack of Stuart Hall laughing like an asthmatic drain. Clearly they do not make telly like that any more.
It's pretty obvious that the developers of "Fall Guys" hit upon a singular idea. That it was utterly ridiculous that no one had sought to digitise the crazy experience of "It's a Knockout" for modern audiences. Slamming together that basic concept with a massive multiplayer (well 60 is massive to me, I avoid multiplayer online stuff like the plague most of the time!) chaos-fest, a collection of horribly addictive minigames calling for not only manual dexterity but a good dose of cunning and downright caddish behaviour and you've got "Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout".
Releasing it as this month's "Free" game on PS Plus was also a bit of a genius move, but one that hasn't stopped the game selling over 2 million copies to date, not too shoddy for an indie studio in this day and age. Though the freebie giveaway status has inevitably meant that the servers are choked and you'll really struggle to get into a game in the evenings and weekends, nip on during the day and you'll find out what it's all about.
Your tiny blob-like character may look ineffective, but your survival instincts kick in as soon as you land in the garishly coloured landscape of your first "Fall Guys" experience.
Your challenge could consist of merely getting from the start to the finish of a fiendishly devised course filled with obstacles and dangers, with you needing to get a wiggle on before the level timer ends and you're disqualified (which will happen a lot when you first start playing). Some minigames involve teamwork and strategy, which calls for even more dastardly misbehaviour as you find yourself more often than not extracting great delight from nobbling the opposition (the controls for grabbing and pulling other players around are thankfully not that effective, so most of the time you end up hoisted by your own petard).
Other minigames involve survival - being the last blob to retain a pin-on tail for example, or just staying in the game on a rotating platform or a level filled with collapsible tiles. The games may sound simple but when you're in them, competing with up to 60 others, often against the clock and fighting with those aforementioned controls, things ramp up to levels of insanity that other online games can't quite match.
Obviously things do get a bit 'tired' after you've played the same minigames over and over again (particularly if you're served up by the ones you hate the most). But the potential here for "Fall Guys" to not just become a DLC-mining operation by its creators, to take on Fortnite-levels of seasonal awesomeness, well, it's there but I guess you'll have to wait and see if the devs can cook up even more fiendish levels in Season 2.
For the time being it's a welcome distraction from a fairly disappointing gaming summer (the other free game on PS Plus this month - a polished up version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2's piss-awful single player campaign can do one as far as I'm concerned). Looking forward to seeing what Fall Guys does if there is a second season (and judging by the sales figures, at this point it seems almost inevitable).
"Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout" by Mediatonic / Devolver Digital is "Free" on PS Plus or 15.99 on the Playstation Store.
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