Timothy’s Night by Wild Sphere is out now on PlayStation 5 and is an extended version of Timothy Vs The Aliens. It was rebranded to take advantage of the new features the PS5 has to offer, such as adaptive triggers. It is a Noir-themed adventure game, with platforming to be done in the open world.

This new version of the game has increased the size of the map but it still felt a bit small to explore, and since I did not play Timothy Vs The Aliens, I can’t be sure of how much improvement the world size has had.

The tale opens with a mobster underling as he wheels and deals with the local criminals, who are unfortunately interrupted by a very inconvenient alien invasion. Your mission now is to convene with the remaining town folk to take down the alien infestation and hit back at the mothership hovering menacingly over the city. It is quite a mundane premise really, especially since the dialogue is all text script. The whole concept does come off as quite a child-friendly game until you factor in the Tommy guns and mobsters. It is a bizarre direction story-wise when you also factor in the gameplay.

The gameplay is pretty generic, often requiring you to fetch an item from somewhere and backtracking to open another area. There are a few different enemies types, with some that are just a recolour of another, so it could’ve been done with a bit more variety, although the boss fights were fun.

The platforming sections are mainly just climbing scaffolds to find items on roofs. Timothy will mount and pull himself up when platforming and making certain jumps. The keyword there being “certain.” There were many times I would have to start platforming again due to Timothy not grabbing a ledge with more than enough time and spacing to do so.

The graphical style of the characters has them being short and stocky. A high point is the black and white colour theme it runs with for the noir feel. In a world absent of colour, the aliens will stick out easily as they are the only coloured beings that are around town. The world is filled with a nice jazzy soundtrack, but at times the soundtrack did get a bit loud and I ended up shutting out radios around the city, just so that they were not overlapping the soundtrack and making it louder than what was needed.

The controls and combat for Timothy’s Night are on the easier side of things when it comes to picking up and learning. I personally felt the adaptive triggers for the PS5 didn’t work well for the game with how smooth the game controls.

Having the resistance with the trigger just didn’t blend well for me. In terms of combat, it is a bit on the easy side given how much ammo is supplied, so there was not really any reason to swap out from the Tommy gun.

Overall, Timothy Vs The Aliens is a solid experience if you want a basic platformer adventure with not much innovation or exciting surprises. While there is hope in the beautiful animations and music, sadly, the story seems rushed, with no love being put into the combat and platforming.

Written by: Shane Walsh