SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game

The scatterbrain starfish gets his first game: SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game is more of a playground than anything else, chock-full with references, memes, plenty of humour and the original voice cast.

Who lives under a rock under the sea? There’s a reason why the famous cartoon show intro song doesn’t feature this clunky rendition of Patrick Star, but there is no reason why Patrick shouldn’t get his own video game. After all, the starfish has aggregated his own cult following in the 25 year history of Spongebob Squarepants, and voice actor Bill Fagerbakke as Patrick has become just as much a superstar in the voice acting world as Spongebob’s voice Tom Kenny is. While Patrick has been playable in the last two big Spongebob games, namely Battle for Bikini Bottom and The Cosmic Shake, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game is the first time he has gotten a full game to himself. The publishing structure is also different here: While Battle for Bikini Bottom’s Rehydrated remake came from the THQ legacy and was thus settled at THQ Nordic, developed by Purple Lamp, and The Cosmic Shake was a direct successor to that game based on the same game world, The Patrick Star Game comes from PHL Collective and is published by OutRight Games, a British publisher specialising heavily in licensed family franchises. PHL Collective is in the industry since 2013 and has several licensed games under its belt as well, like from the Ben 10 and DC universes. The game itself is as much a competent rendition of the Spongebob universe as it is a hommage to Patrick’s seldom-used strengths (apart from his exceptional upper body strengths referenced in the series – that one was the main Patrick mechanic of earlier titles). Fitting for the starfish scatterbrain, The Patrick Star Game is more a physics based open world sandbox than a linear title, with lots of shenanigans to do and things to destroy. Players can dress the ‘enigmatic mind’ of a protagonist in several costumes inspired by the series, push things around, pick them up and throw them. The game is also chock-full with references to popular internet memes – a subculture that has developed in tandem with the Spongebob franchise and incorporated countless pictures of it.