Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout - Fortnite meets Takeshi's Castle

I'm going to put it out there straight away. I hate Fortnite. From the moment Epic saw PUBG and said "This Fortnite game we've got going on, let's just ignore our initial idea we've put out there already and copy theirs" I've stayed well clear of the streaming favourite. I might just be old fashioned but I like my games to have a story, to draw me into a well-realized fictional world, and occasionally just have me turning zombies and Nazis into jam. When it comes to battle royale games, the concept of a load of 10-year-olds hurling abuse at me, killing my character with zero effort, and claiming intimate knowledge of my mother has simply never appealed to me.

When I first saw a trailer for 'Fall Guys' last year, my attention wasn't so much grabbed as it was kidnapped, bundled into an unmarked van, and held by force. This battle royale game was doing something very different in that people weren't being eliminated through skillful shooting and scavenging, but through a much more balanced series of games not all that dissimilar to a game show familiar to many around the world in one form or another.

Takeshi's Castle was a Japanese gameshow, shown in Japan on TBS between 1986 and 1990. It saw a large number of contestants take part in a series of games that would, much like in Fall Guys, slowly whittle them down until a few remained. The footage from the show would be used years later in 2002, with added commentary by Red Dwarf star Craig Charles, to air on Challenge where it found popularity with UK audiences. Likewise, the footage had American commentary added to be shown as 'MXC' on Spike TV in the US.

It's this gameshow style gameplay that had me paying firm attention to the game and since then it's been through several periods of beta testing including this weekend. The last 48 hours have played host to a technical demo which saw keys, to allow people to play the game, being handed out like insults at a Frankie Boyle gig.

First off, the game has three controls outside of movement. Jump, dive, and grab. That's all. No aiming ability needed. If you're not much of a gamer, you won't be left behind by those who've spent years with a controller in their hands and have evolved extra fingers to manage their buttons.

Next: the rounds. They aren't all a footrace via numerous oversized obstacles, nor does each round take much time. A full game can take as little as ten minutes so you can squeeze in a quick game whenever you want. There's plenty of footrace variations (Door Dash being very 'Takeshi's'), Fall Ball: a game reminiscent of Rocket League but on foot (it's a weird idea but it just might work), a memory game which uses the wisdom of crowds not all dissimilar to Runaround (ask your dad/mum), and plenty of other fun games to narrow down the field.

Most importantly, this game is never not-fun. You never have one of those angry little moments where someones sniped you from a mile away because when you are eliminated, you know full well why. It's you that fell off, you that went the wrong way, your errors. There's no stress coming from wondering where someone is lurking, just the stress of racing on conveyor belts and avoiding incoming giant fruit.

The real highlight of the weekend's demo, however, has been the fun whoever has been manning the game's Twitter account has been having handing out beta codes. I'm not saying they've been giving out a lot, but I'm pretty sure the servers have been given a good stress test to avoid any Ubi uber-collapse.

'Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout' is out on August the 4th and is available for pre-purchase on Steam and will be available for PS4 too. The Twitter account is teasing big news for PS4 owners and all I can think is "The 4th is PS+ day for August..."

UPDATE: Fall Guys has indeed been confirmed for PS+ next week