Console launches are funny things. Even though every man and his dog plays games these days, it seems many companies almost forget that anyone other than the hardest of hardcore 'gamers' exist for the space of a few months. Convinced that it's only the most dedicated fans that are willing to drop £300+ on a new device (even Nintendo seemed to fall into this trap with the Wii U), they spend all their time talking about graphics, gigaflops and gore, forgetting there's many outside of the stereotypical 18-35 male demographic who'd like to see something a little bit... different. But while Microsoft have been leading with their Roman hack and slash Ryse and serious driving sim Forza in their plans for the new Xbox One console, letting their Xbox One offerings (Zoo Tycoon and Peggle 2) so far sit somewhat behind, Sony have put their weight behind a rather more balanced trifecta; the social racing game Driveclub, sci-fi shooter Killzone, and the charming Pixar-like platformer Knack.
Looking ice.
With more than a little in common with other popular Sony platformers Ratchet and Clank, Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter, most of your time in Knack will be spent smashing and bashing enemies and objects, solving a few puzzles and searching for hidden collectables as you take in the incredibly gorgeous worlds. Telling the story of a small robot created by a scientist to help the humans in the war against the goblin uprising, the titular Knack is a little robot with a big secret power - although he starts out as a cute little robot with an upturned flowerpot for a face, he can pick up fragments of the things he destroys and incorporate them into his body, growing in size and strength with each new addition. Knack's ability to go from a tiny, transparent tot capable of sneaking through lasers to a humongous car-hurling wrecking machine and back again becomes an essential part of the game, forming the basis of many of the puzzles you'll find littered throughout each level.
Since the game's announcement, its director Mark Cerny has been pretty vocal about how he wants Knack to be a game for everyone, even going so far as to explain how the team created a larger model of the PS4 controller to help simulate the problems your average eight year old may face when playing the game with smaller hands. With families in mind, Cerny hopes that Knack will act as an "on ramp" to console games for kids; on it's easiest difficulty, he believes it should be "playable by pretty much anyone regardless of their gaming history or habits". While a fixed camera angle, and some simple controls are hoped to make things easier for younger players, it turns out it's not the only thing the former Crash Bandicoot lead had up his sleeve, as it's been revealed that Knack will also come sporting a co-op mode to let another person drop in a lend a hand whenever the going gets tough.
When the second player leaps in to help out, they'll take control of a smaller, less powerful version of the main character, called Robo-Knack. Much like the titular Knack, he's capable of giving enemies a good walloping, and grabbing the parts they leave behind to grow larger, although he lacks some of Knack's cooler abilities. Intended as a way for a more experienced player to help out a struggling companion, Robo-Knack also comes complete with the rather cool ability to donate his health, transferring the pieces of relic that make up his body to the other player, which is sure to come in handy. Unfortunately you won't be able to play through the entirety of the game in co-operative though, as Robo-Knack is locked out of the scenes where Knack is screen-fillingly massive - but as Knack's health is directly linked to his size, it hopefully shouldn't be so much of an issue.
What's as yet unknown is whether the co-op was always intended to be included or whether it's been added in posthumously, following feedback from the people who've played it since it's announcement - we found it to be pretty hard going when we played it, falling to a group of goblin grunts several times near the start of the demo while Knack was still tiny. Either way, with an approach intended to make the game playable by people of all ages, it seems Mark Cerny and his team are thinking all the right things, and we can't wait to get our hands on Knack when it launches alongside the Playstation 4 on the 29th November.
