Press Start's GOTY #1

It’s time for our annual countdown to award the very best games this year had to offer. Over the next ten days, we’ll count down our top ten games of 2024.

As always, the votes of each Press Start team member, weighted from #10 through to #1, were collated to compile our collective very best for the year that was. Games worthy of one’s top spot would be awarded a maximum of 10 points and the values would descend to their tenth selection, which would receive a single point.

Just as Astro’s Playroom achieved at the launch of the console, Astro Bot is a mid-cycle celebration of the expansive history of PlayStation that paints Sony’s now-premiere platforming mascot with a nostalgic brush that’s sure to paw at the video game fan in everyone.

Whether it’s Ape Escape, God of War, or even something more abstract like Space Channel 5, Astro Bot feels like an archival project and, in a roundabout way, PlayStation’s most concentrated effort at game preservation.

Beneath the fanfare is an absolute technical showpiece and one of the smoothest platforming experiences we’ve had in a long while, and it’s made all the better thanks to the DualSense’s haptic response. Team Asobi has poured so much care into every incredibly detailed level, with so many of them including fun, bespoke mechanics that you might only see once.

I think everyone’s favourite, in retrospect, is “Downsize Surprise”.

Astro Bot, of course, already took home the chocolates at this year’s The Game Awards but their success hasn’t stopped the team from releasing new speedrun levels each week, extra bots, and even a Christmas level to really jingle your bells. Although nothing is assured, we’re certainly hopeful this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Astro Bot because there’s no other game, PlayStation or otherwise, that brings quite the joy it does.

Buy Astro Bot On Amazon

In our review, Kieron scored Astro Bot a 9 out of 10 stating:

“Astro Bot is an easy pick for one of the year’s best, if not the PlayStation 5’s as a whole. The first fully-spec’d adventure might not move the needle forward for 3D platformers, but it’s a triumphant effort from Team Asobi that stands toe-to-toe with some of the best in the genre. It’s full of joy and surprise, presented with an astonishing level of detail and tactility, and packed to the rafters with reverence for PlayStation history.”

On the review aggregator Metacritic, Astro Bot is resting at an average of 94.