Some of my favourite games of all time are the Mario Galaxy games. There haven't been that many 3D platformers that I've played over the years that live up to the variety and fun of those games, especially around their level's tight design and mechanics.

That's until the recent standalone Astro Bot game came along, almost out of nowhere. I liked the previous 'demo'-type games that previously introduced us to the cute little robot, but this standalone feature blasts it out of the park.

This game was made for me. Cute character, check. Finely tuned platforming, check. Awesome theme, check. Great featured 'abilities', check. Hard bonus stages, check.

It's all there. This was the most fun I've had with a game for probably the last decade. The only thing that didn't quite get to a 10/10 level was the soundtrack, but that is the nittiest of nitpicks. Most other games would be lucky to have a soundtrack this good.

Of course, I completed the platinum trophy for the game. The PS5 game time reports approximately 17 hours, which is ok, but I definitely wanted more!

I had a great time collecting all the little bots. I'm not that much of a PlayStation fanboy, so I didn't understand what a lot of the bots were supposed to represent. Although, I have played most of the 'big' character's respective games that were a part of the story (excluding the God of War ones), so it wasn't all lost on me.

I hope this game is as successful commercially as it has been critically, because if Sony doesn't make Astro Bot their PlayStation-wide gaming mascot the same way Mario is for Nintendo, then they're definitely fumbling hard!

10/10 for awesomeness.