Moving Out 2 – Review

It’s been three years since the F.A.R.T’s were let lose in Packmore, but we’re back with the Furniture Arrangement and Removal Technicians for more removals mayhem in Moving Out 2.

After the success of games like Overcooked, I was a fan of the original Moving Out, which allowed up to 4 players to crowd around a single screen and yell at each other while trying to move a house full of furniture into the removal van for relocation. The original game had a few drawbacks, most notably a pretty familiar setting for many levels, and the limitation of only couch co-op meaning you were reliant on family and real-life friends, which most oldies will know aren’t the easiest things to gather around a pizza and the Xbox.

Moving out 2 looks to fix these issues by allowing a range out missions which are quite literally out of this world, alongside online co-op for those who want to play in the comfort of their own home without the whole social anxiety saga.

Gameplay follows the same system as the first game, with each level tasking you with moving a variety of furniture and appliances, some are small and can be easily thrown around, others might require two people to move quickly and others might be tethered by a power-cable which need yanking out of place before they’ll move freely, others are just plain awkward or will break easily, so you’ll often find yourself trying to collect certain items in order, while one of your so-called team mates does the exact opposite.

While your mission to retrain as a FART might seem tedious at first, there’s a wide range of new recruits, including characters and alternate skins which can be unlocked as you play and discover new locations and special crates. It’s not long before you’re back at HQ after your first day back to work, and things go a little haywire, opening up portals to various dimensions.
Within each of these portals is an entirely new world with a unique setting, each packed with more levels to explore as you hunt down gnomes to fix-up each portal, this makes the overall setting of Moving out 2 both familiar and far more varied.

I found the overall variety of levels and their respective themes much better than the first game, furniture matches locations too, so in the futuristic world, you’re more likely to find curved modern sofa’s which throw up their own hassles when trying to manoeuvre them, but rather than just Moving Out, you’ll occasionally have to move in as well.
Smoe levels will task the team with emptying your trusty removal truck of all furniture and putting them in the correct rooms/places throughout the location.

Gameplay still feels very familiar in these modes, but rather than playing Tetris trying to stack items in the limited space of the truck, you’re instead carefully positioning them, trying not to knock them out of place as you move the rest of the items around the house.
I definitely preferred throwing items into the truck rather than putting them into specific rooms, but it’s a nice change without making things feel too different, there’s also some levels with moving targets, such as farmyard animals which can be given a swift slap so you can pick them up, but as soon as you turn your back, they’ll be trying to escape their pens, leading to some frustrating times.

While it’s all very familiar, Moving Out 2 also feels more polished, movement just feels a little more predictable and pulling around a large item alone, might be slow, but it feels more rewarding when things do move as you expect them to. There’s still plenty of raised eyebrows with others as you try to move the same item in different directions, or co-operate to lift heavy, awkwardly shaped obstacles around corners, but everything just feels a little more controlled, leading to an overall more fun and rewarding experience.

Gameplay doesn’t suffer too much when playing alone, it removes the randomness of other players actions, but larger items become easier to manoeuvre so progression isn’t halted just because your friends had to go and get something to eat.

Once again, there’s also the return of easy-access mode, which allows you to tinker with settings, allowing more time, easier to move objects, or less hazards to make the game more enjoyable for younger or more inexperienced gamers.

There’s also the ease of adding or removing players, between levels you can add or remove a player with a few button-clicks, meaning you’ll be straight back on the job, smashing moving plant pots.

Graphically, there’s nothing to really push the Xbox Series X|S, but everything looks sharp, well detailed with nothing detracting from the experience, obstacles and hazards are all easy to spot, and while the camera does get a little awkward when you have 4 players spread across one location, that’s usually down to one person wandering off the other side of the map and the game’s just trying to keep everyone in view.

Sound joins graphics as the “could be better” category, there’s plenty of sound effects, but I would have liked to see some voice acting, even if only for the box-guide, rather than always reading lines of text between missions, Gameplay wise, everything feels new and fresh, but the overall presentation still feels like it’s stuck in 2020.

Apart from a few shortcomings with presentation, Moving Out 2 seems to do exactly what it’s aiming to achieve. Gameplay feels better, more refined and more enjoyable than the first game, and the locations, features (online co-op) and overall variety have all improved across the board.
Picking fault with a few small areas of presentation might sound a little harsh, but for me, that’s the only thing from stopping Moving Out 2 as being in quite the same league as Overcooked 2.
There’s’ no doubt Moving Out 2 has made improvements across the board and it’s only a handful of faults with presentation that stop it being one of the very best party games available on Xbox.

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