The Company Man | PlayStation 5 Review
The Company Man, developed by Forust and published by Leoful, is a 2D platform adventure game. It is currently available on Windows PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, and for the purpose of my review I was playing the PlayStation 5 version.
The Company Man has you battle back against the corporate machine where you work and are enslaved by. You play as a character who has just graduated from university and is ready to launch himself into a wonderful and prosperous career with “Good Water Company”; but quickly everything spirals and descends into chaos as he finds himself fighting to maintain any sanity and to keep his job. Fight against the corporate machine in this goofy adventure. The Company Man is certainly a unique take on platformers in terms of its setting and theme but despite the differences, it features very typical nuances that are found in 2D platformers but provides its own unique spin on it in terms of setting, scene, and theme.
As previously touched on, The Company Man takes typical tropes from 2D platformers, and turns it corporate. Every hero needs a trusty and reliable weapon to bring their wrath upon the foe, and this is no different. Here you must become a literal keyboard warrior. The range of the keyboard attacks isn’t too great, so I spent a lot more time dodging and jumping rather than fighting; perhaps a longer cable on the keyboard may help? A Bluetooth adapter, maybe? As well as your standard attack, you’ll also have an “Email Blaster” that sends a strongly worded email straight to the face of whoever is nearby. The gameplay isn’t incredibly challenging nor inspirational, but it provides plenty of entertainment just by being silly and unique and in a sense, it was a welcome breath of fresh air. Despite it all taking part in an office type setting, each of the levels within The Company Man have a fresh and unique feel to them.
Every level takes place in a different department of the office, and each level's theme works well with the intention behind it. I don’t really want to go into details on this aspect because each level really brought me a lot of excitement to find out what the next theme will be, and the surprise was always worth it. With all this said, it’s fair to say that one of my favourite aspects of The Company Man has to be the visuals and setting, they didn’t skimp on anything in that respect and the entire world is just so full of character. My biggest criticism of the game WAS that the creativity and variety didn’t quite extend to the enemies that you faced throughout. However, now, in retrospect I’m beginning to feel it may have been deliberate as the stereotype of an office and its employees is that everyone appears the same in terms of dress code and such, and they just become sucked into the rigmarole of the corporate machine. I may be totally off base, but it's just come to my mind and I may be reading into it a little much; but with everything else fitting well thematically, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case.
The Company Man is a very cut and dry platformer, but takes its own unique spin on what makes a good world for the genre. In a world of exceptionally popular platformers, The Company Man managed to maintain simplicity whilst still being engaging and entertaining. It’s not a terribly long game, with it only taking me a couple of hours to beat, but those few hours were entertaining and different from the norm. The game runs well, and the controls feel smooth and fluid.
Lj’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
For more information on The Company Man please use the following links...
Forust - Developer | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Website
Leoful - Publisher | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Website
Many thanks to Leoful for supplying the review code.
The Company Man | Windows PC | PlayStation | Xbox | Nintendo
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