Moving Out 2 is a colorful and chaotic co-op sequel that tasks you with bending at the knees while consistently splitting your sides. Just as likely to break windows and knock down doors as it was to temporarily fracture friendships, Moving Out 2 is a raucously entertaining co-op game that took the typically tiresome task of shifting furniture and turned it into a giddy form of slapstick. The hilariously chaotic couch-carrying fundamentals of the original remain relatively unchanged in Moving Out 2, but the formula has been refreshed to a substantial degree via a more outlandish approach to level design and added environmental interactivity that brings a bit more depth to the furniture-flinging strategy.
Much like the original game, ferrying objects to the designated drop-off point in tandem with your co-op partner is a delicate dance that involves careful verbal coordination and constant battle between your combined inertia and the obstacles in your path. The movers themselves – a roster of bizarro bobbleheads that has been greatly expanded in numbers since the original – feel just as deliberately clumsy as ever, and their move set is every bit as simple. This familiarity admittedly meant that, for the opening set of levels at least, Moving Out 2 initially felt closer to a standalone expansion pack than a fully-fledged sequel. However, before too long, a number of welcome environmental enhancements bring more noticeable points of difference to proceedings.
Moving Out 2 is stacked high with personality, and its light story is stuffed with so many guilty-pleasure puns it feels like it was at least partially scripted by throwing darts at a board covered in dad jokes. The game uses multiverses to good effect here in order to place you into a series of entertainingly absurd scenarios. Things get fantastical right away when a number of interdimensional portals open up around the small town of Packmore, leading your team of heavy lifters to steer their delivery truck through tears in the fabric of space and time in order to pick up and pack an assortment of quirky cargo.
Despite playing the bulk of the game by myself, I enjoyed my time in Moving Out 2 overall. Though still enjoyable, solo play felt a bit tedious at times. The game is clearly designed for cooperative play, couch or otherwise, making the addition of online multiplayer a logical next step for the series.
