Moving Out 2 is the sequel to 2020’s Moving Out. A cooperative party game focused on helping people move in, move out, or do other activities related to the field. Just like a birthday, the more people you invite to the mayhem, the more fun you’re bound to have. In our review of Moving Out 2, we take a look at whether or not you should hire the services of Smooth Moves Inc. or move on.
Story
If you’re playing Moving Out 2 for the story, you will be sorely disappointed. The story is akin to other Team17 games, such as Overcooked and Moving Out. You have a job in the world, a major disruptive event happens, and now it’s your job to fix the world, one world at a time.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the location are you taken to vary in variety, appearance, and setting. You go from a windy city to a city built to resemble Candy Crush and other fun locales. Each place has its own unique gimmick the further you level up and play, unlocking the more challenging and demanding levels from players. Some of these will take you a few retries to figure out and try to get the better time in them.
Before and after starting missions, the characters exchange pun-filled and otherwise filler dialogue about the level, the setting, or just jokes with each other. This is great for setting the stage but some levels take more time to figure out and the dialogue does not help at all in making that easier. I felt that for some of the levels, there could have been a better way to convey the purpose of the level through the dialogue while still keeping the comedic tone.
That is not to say Moving Out 2 doesn’t do a good job of giving a coherent story, it just drags its feet getting there. What’s here is comical, yet fun. You are not going to buy this game for the plot, and that is my promise.
Gameplay
The gameplay loop is simple. There are a variety of game modes that center around the theme of helping customers move in, move out, or do tasks related to either. These are in the form of clever minigames where you slingshot the furniture into a house or even use a pinball-like mechanic to do it. The buttons boil down to jumping, slapping, and heaving furniture which requires two players to coordinate together.
Furniture and items can vary on many levels, with some being able to be picked up by a single person, and others will require two people to move the item unless you’re up for watching someone take 20 minutes to drag a couch by themselves. In addition, there are also parts of the game where you have to transport fragile items from the moving truck to the room, or vice versa. This adds a layer of difficulty to the game particularly in the more challenging levels.
There is a good variety of levels, and mechanics here to keep players entertained for quite some time. I played the game with a few friends and I can say it was quite a pleasant experience. The friends are inexperienced casual gamers and they both had no difficulty in understanding the game, controls, or anything.
We all had a great time playing the game which really improved the experience significantly. This is why I thoroughly recommend only buying the game if you have another person to play it with. The game supports local and online coop, so you have no reason to not play with a friend or two.
Replayability
The replay value essentially comes in the form of replaying levels in hopes of getting 5 stars by doing the secret objectives in each level and getting the best possible time on the level. While it’s not necessary to do it as you go, at one point in the story you will need to backtrack and get 5 stars on some of the easier levels to access further levels.
Presentation
The cartoonish visuals make a comeback for the title, and they look as colorful and vibrant as ever. If you are familiar with the first entry, you will be right at home here. The graphics are very cartoony but this also means the game runs on relatively any system because of the simple visuals, allowing for more people to enjoy the game with little impedance of hardware compared to other cooperative games.
The game does a good job of making sure you know it’s a lighthearted game right off the start. You can customize your crew’s appearance right off booting up the game for the first time. You can dress yourself up as a rooster, a toaster, an ice cream cone, and other hilarious figures built around the theme of the game and the levels in it.
Visually, the game is colorful and good to look at. I played the game on the PS4 and PS5, and while the visual differences are minor at best. The best-looking experience was on the PS5 with crisper visuals, whereas the PS4 was SLIGHTLY less pronounced.
Conclusion
Moving Out 2 is a worthy sequel that deserves all the praise. It’s a passionate title loaded with hours of fun, great and unique levels to challenge you and your friends, and there is something here for everyone looking to have a good time that won’t get boring or monotonous. With the unique levels, mechanics, and gimmicks in each world, you are in for a world of fun.
What do you think of our Moving Out 2 Review? Share what you think about it in the comments below.
This review is based on the PS5 version of Moving Out 2. The key was provided by Team17.
