E3 2019 - Hands on with Fall Guys
I will be frank, I don’t like Battle Royales, there is limited appeal to them, unless you dedicate countless hours to understand their mechanics, maps and modes, which can all be undone when they update, in order to keep things fresh. When I first heard about Fall Guys, I was intrigued right away, having seen that amazing debut trailer, then playing it, I was convinced, this was the perfect Battle Royale for those who don’t like the genre.
I must get this out of the way first, Fall Guys is not your average BR game, in fact you could honestly not think of it as one and you would still be ok. If you ever saw the old Japanese tv show Tekashi’s Castle, it ran in the late 80’s, this is basically that, but in game form, 100 players will enter, but only one will be crowned the winner and I mean that literally as the final thing to do, is grab the crown. What happens in between is a series of mini games that each whittle down the competition until there are only a handful remaining for the final game.
The build that Media Tonic were showing off at E3 2019, allowed for four human players and the rest were filled in by the AI, as for the challenges, there were only three, but they were chaotic and fun. The first pitted all 50 competitors with running through an ever-decreasing number of Aztec inspired mouths, the catch, only some of them could be busted through and you would never know if you had picked right, until you broke through or bounced off. If you chose poorly, the eyes would light up with giant red X’s and you would have to then try again, with one of my run throughs, requiring me to try four mouths, before I got through.
Having survived and made it to the next round, it was a mad dash to survive the timer, with a tail attached, as the round began with half the players having a tail, but you would only move on, if you still had one at the end. Luke, the Producer from Media Tonic who was with me during my session noted that during playtests in the office, this particular game gets quite noisy as people are constantly shouting when tails are stolen, or acquired, depending on the point of view. In my time with it, the AI proved to be quite tame, so I was able to find a ledge, out of the way and just stand there for a good 15 seconds, eventually though, all good things must come to an end and someone did come for me, but as the timer kept ticking down, I managed to maintain hold of my tail and moved onto the final round.
This consisted of attempting to run up a hill, whilst dodging giant balls, spinning hammers and walls and the remaining players, all in the hope of collecting the crown at the top, simple right. Well, sort of, you see I managed to make it up to the top, without too much hassle, but I misjudged the jump and fell down into the pit below, which also happened to be a conveyer belt, which took me away from it and by the time I managed to get off it, someone else stole the crown and was crowned the winner.
I played through the games a second time and only just missed out on getting the crown and by that, I mean I was stuck way down the bottom, as I was hammered by the balls and hammers. But I had a blast still, there was something fun about random luck, yet still having control over what I was doing, and I can only imagine that things will be even better once more real players jump in. I can’t wait for access to the full game, as Fall Guys was one of the highlights of the show for me, so bring on 2020 I say and let me win that shiny, shiny crown.
