Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (A Parent Review): The ultimate playground

Why Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is the perfect game for kids right now

As I’ve said previously, I love Fall Guys. The gameplay is perfect in my eyes. There’s always something new to figure out, it’s fun and positive and it lets me hit that dream of going back in time and competing in Takashi’s Castle, a show which Fall Guys is almost certainly inspired by and I refuse to hear otherwise. They even have the thing where you have to crash through doors not knowing if they’ll break away or just be a wall in disguise. Come on.

The team itself is also incredibly positive. They’ve become a Twitter darling in the span of 48 hours with both the Witcher teams and the people working on Cyberpunk 2077 chatting them up about possible cross-promotion. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout comes from a team that has nothing but joy for their creation and it bleeds over into every aspect of the game and I love that.

But that review I wrote was written when I played the game for the first time at 11:00 p.m. with my two kids dead asleep. I was just in a dark room with headphones, enjoying the game by myself. The real test came the following night when my kids (Damian, 6, and Malcolm, 4) came upon their nightly allotted “technology time” and I asked if they wanted to try something new. So here’s how that went.

Right out the gate, my kids were excited. They didn’t know what to expect. All they knew is that they were looking at a screen in which my character, dressed like an order of fries, was standing on a pillar in a yellowish void. But something about the colorful aesthetic got them hyped. I showed them what the character looks like without a costume and Malcolm called it “The Bean Child” in a tone that implied he was speaking of a prophecy.

I told them we were going to take turns as the game didn’t have local multiplayer. I took the first go so they could see what you had to do and while my game loaded, I explained the simple controls to my kids.

When the match first started they were really surprised to see all the players standing together, doubly so when I told them that each one is controlled by another person somewhere in the world. They never really got a good sense of what the internet and online play really means but this was them getting a visual representation and that seemed to really excite them.

Then, we were off. The stage was See-Saw, a stage that I’ve become strangely good at as I got used to the dive trick. They were cheering as I ran ahead, laughing and giggling as I tripped, and somehow, their wave of hype propelled me through the stages. I got 3rd place which made me feel oddly proud.

Then it was the kids’ turn.