I can’t stop playing Fall Guys, and that’s partly because I’m (maybe) what’s wrong with gaming today. When Fall Guys dropped two years ago and became a hit for its crazy racing, I couldn’t get enough of it. But eventually I withdrew.
In a moment of boredom, waiting for an early plane to get delayed (and delayed again), I realized I had to give Fall Guys a second chance. And then, wouldn’t you know, I’m sitting here a week later raving about how addictive this game is.
Fall Guys, for the uninitiated, is an online competitive platform game in which you and up to 59 other participants try to survive an obstacle course. Sometimes it’s a race, sometimes it’s a puzzle where you have to stay alive. But whatever you play, you’ll be battling in a neon-soaked environment where your fellow Fall Guys are stocky little creatures (not unlike the Minions) with tiny eyes.
Fall Guys, available on Switch (opens in new tab)Xbox (opens in new tab)PS4/PS5 (opens in new tab) and PC via the Epic Games store (opens in new tab), became free-to-play in June. But I played long before that.
I bet you’re wondering what actually brought me back? Well, dear reader, I don’t like makeup, but this is a story that starts with cosmetics.
Fall Guys has character skin that makes me smile
One morning last week, I was at the LaGuardia airport in New York and heard that my flight was delayed. And that’s when I remembered a story I saw online. Austin Creed, who goes by Xavier Woods/King Woods when in the ring on WWE Friday Night SmackDown, entered Fall Guys as a cosmetic skin, which is available for purchase as downloadable content. Yes, that’s what I meant when I said I’m what’s wrong with gaming. To be so influenced by a character skin, in a game that I already know is fun and good? I feel the shame.
Since he won the last King of the Ring tournament, Woods’ skin would even have its own crown – the artifact you run to grab and win in Fall Guys. (Fellow WWE wrestlers Asuka and Undertaker are also on sale. So I fired up my Nintendo Switch, dropped the money to play Fall Guys as King Woods – and Asuka too, but I’ve had better luck as Woods), took my Switch Pro Controller out of my bag and got to work.
And this is when LaGuardia’s Wi-Fi really impressed me. Not only was I able to download the latest game update smoothly over the free Wi-Fi at the airport, but I was also able to play on the server using the same wireless connection. I didn’t expect this to work from downloading an update to playing real games.
Once I found a corner of the airport where I could play Fall Guys in peace – the gate where I almost waited had its own version of Fall Guys with little kids and confused adults running left and right – I plopped down and almost lost track of time. I played over two dozen rounds of Fall Guys games at that gate. At some point, I realized I was too wrapped up in my mission to actually win a game of Fall Guys, so I had to set an alarm to remind me when to leave for my gate.
And when that alarm sounded, I hadn’t won a round yet. But I still had a lot of fun.
Fall Guys is an addiction I’m trying to control
I would have played Fall Guys on the plane if I could, but JetBlue didn’t offer functional in-flight WiFi. However, the second time I got to my Airbnb, I was so desperate to win a round that I made up all my mind to go out and get some local food (I was in Nashville and hungry for Prince’s Hot Chicken). paused. I had to win, right? Especially in the comfort of an Airbnb, with more stable WiFi.
And yes, I did it. Plus, I did it on Fall Mountain, one of the last levels I always find the hardest to win. That level is a race where you have to get to the big floating crown before someone else at the end and then time a jump really well so you grab that crown, which goes up and down.
I wasn’t confident in my Fall Guy skills and thought I had a few more rounds to play until I got Hex-A-Gone, a round where you walk over hexagons that disappear when someone steps on them. But I won Fall Mountain because other players in front of me were running for the crown and not timing their jumps right.
Outlook: Fall Guys Got Me Addicted — Again
And now that I’m back home, Fall Guys has worked its way into my waking hours by being that game that you can play just a little bit of, if you want to. So whether I’m tired of doomscrolling on Twitter (and yes, I’m really tired of it), waiting to leave for something else, or just tired of my streaming options, I’m jumping back into Fall Guys again.
So, dear reader, if you’ve never tried Fall Guys, I hope I’ve given you a reason to give it a try. And if you’re already playing. Watch out for the player named ‘henrytcasey’ who wears a Xavier Woods skin. I’m more chaotic than good at this game, and I’m fine with that.
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