it takes two
It Takes Two (video game)
| It Takes Two | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Hazelight Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Director(s) | Josef Fares |
| Producer(s) | Aimar Bergan |
| Programmer(s) | Lucas de Vries |
| Artist(s) | Claes Engdal |
| Writer(s) | Soni Jorgensen Josef Fares |
| Composer(s) |
|
| Engine | Unreal Engine 4 |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | March 26, 2021 |
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure Platformer |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
It Takes Two is an action-adventure platformer developed by Hazelight Studios and published by Electronic Arts under the EA Originals label. The game was released for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X and Series S in March 2021. Like A Way Out, Hazelight's debut title, It Takes Two does not have a single-player option; it is playable only in either online or local split screen co-op between two players.
Gameplay[edit]
It Takes Two is an action-adventure video game with elements from platform games. It is specifically designed for split-screen cooperative multiplayer, which means that it must be played with another player through either local or online play. The game features a large number of game mechanics from various video game genres.[1] These gameplay mechanics are connected to the story and the theme of the level. For instance, in one level, Cody gains the ability to rewind time, whereas May can replicate herself. Players have to cooperate with each other and utilize these abilities in order to progress. The game also features a large number of minigames.[2]
Plot[edit]
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As May and Cody Goodwin argue about their imminent divorce, their daughter Rose overhears from her bedroom. When Cody and May try explaining the situation, Rose excuses herself and flees to the tool shack, where she uncovers her "Book of Love", written by Dr. Hakim, the "world-wide bestseller and famous expert on love". She pleads for help and cries on her own hand made dolls of her parents. At the same time, Cody and May fall asleep in the house.
Some time afterwards, Cody and May awake, discovering both are inhabiting Rose's dolls at the tool shack. Cody is a shoddy clay-made sculpture and May is a wooden figure. Here they meet Dr. Hakim, who has assumed the anthropomorphic form of the Book of Love.[3] He informs them that Rose pleaded for help and now they are in this state to fix their relationship. Cody and May are forced to work together to reach Rose traversing across the tool shack, but they are constantly interrupted by Hakim's lectures on couples therapy and by fights with a vacuum cleaner (which Cody broke and May promised to fix only to replace it with a brand new one) and the left-over feral toolbox (which May stashed away because she was too busy to look over her tools). With the assistance of the tools come to life, May and Cody are able to get to the upper window of the tool shack, where they come across a talking binoculars stand named Miss Binoculars, who helps find both the couple's human bodies, in a catatonic state. Cody theorizes that Rose cast a spell on him and May through her tears and thus only her tears upon the dolls can bring them back.
The couple leaves the tool shack and reaches the tree to get to the main house, but are captured by the inhabiting militant squirrels when May knocks on their exposed door. Observing that May and Cody are unable to die, as they return every time it occurs, the squirrels convince May and Cody to help them win their war against the wasps (who inhabit a hive Cody failed to dispose of) and neutralizing a traitorous agent who pretends to command the wasps through a mechanical Wasp Queen frame. Using the squirrel's inventions - a tree sap dispenser with inflammable properties and a matchstick cannon, the couple fights through to the wasp hive with the aid of a Beetle being used as an arena animal and destroy the mechanical Wasp Queen, revealing the squirrel's double agent to be a bumblebee, who infiltrated the wasps at the squirrels' behest but became enamorated with the special attention. Being exposed and targeted by the wasps, the couple save the bumblebee by firing at the nectar reservoir, destroying the hive completely, as the bumblebee helps them escape only to be then targeted by the irate squirrels, who accuse the couple of betraying them. The bumblebee leaves Cody and May behind, forcing them to commandeer the squirrels' biplane (which also uses Cody's old underwear) and fight the squirrels off, including the squirrels' commander-in-chief in a man-to-man fight atop the plane. As the plane is dismantled, Cody and May use the frame with the underwear to glide across the house's yard to reach Rose's bedroom. Meanwhile, an oblivious Rose tries talking to both her parents in their catatonic human bodies.
Within Rose's pillow fort in her bedroom, the couple come across Moon Baboon, a monkey in an astronaut suit who recorded their conversations on making Rose cry and thus imprisons them in his space station, given his overzealous mission to "protect Rose from the dark side of the universe." Using anti-gravitational boots and an utility belt that allows shrinking and overgrowth, the couple explore the station until they reach the control room, where they observe Rose's emotional state to be at an all-time low, a fact Cody and May themselves attempt denying. As they try escaping the space station, they fight and defeat Moon Baboon. In his dying words, he makes them promise to not make Rose cry in exchange for leaving the station.
As they warp in directly at Rose's bed, Cody and May watch Rose writing a letter as they realize that, while they cannot get her attention on their own, they can interact with objects around her to do so. May suggests they destroy Rose's stuffed elephant, Queen Cutie, to get Rose to cry despite the promise they made to Moon Baboon. Traversing across Rose's toy-filled room, they breach towards and across Cutie's castle in a hack-and-slash battle until they come across Cutie herself, whom the couple reluctantly dismembers despite her seemingly gentle nature and pleas of mercy. However, even as they accomplish their intent and get Rose to cry atop them, Cody and May still do not return to their bodies.
While May is disappointed it was all in vain, Cody notices to the spotlight in Rose's room, Cutie is stitched back together, and the greenhouse is restored with the bumblebee flying at it, admiring it. The Book of Love, which Rose has admitted she found in school, in a trashcan, is put within a book stand.
Development[edit]
Josef Fares, the director of Hazelight's previous game A Way Out (2018) and Starbreeze's Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (2013), returned as the game's director. After releasing A Way Out in 2018, the team decided to create another co-op only video game because it had a more experienced and refined team and the team felt that they could further improve and expand the gameplay concepts introduced by A Way Out.[4] The development team worked to ensure that the gameplay had connection with the narrative, and that as the story unfolds, the game's mechanics will change accordingly. Fares pushed his team to include as many as mechanics and setpieces as possible since he believed that if a gameplay mechanic is used repeatedly, it will become "less special".[5] Fares described the game as a "romantic comedy". Fares provided motion capture for Dr. Hakim, one of the key characters in the game.[6] Cody and May are voiced and motion captured by Joseph Balderrama and Annabelle Dowler.[citation needed]
Like A Way Out, It Takes Two was published under Electronic Arts' EA Originals program. The program allowed Hazelight to retain full creative control while receiving most of the game's profit after development cost was recouped.[7] EA first announced that it had signed a publishing deal with Hazelight in June 2019.[8] The game was officially revealed during EA Play in June 2020.[9] EA and Hazelight introduced Friend's Pass for the game, which allows the player who purchased the game to send invitations to their friends who can then play the game for free with the player.[10] The game was released for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X and Series S on March 26, 2021.[11]
Reception[edit]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | PC: 90/100[12] PS4: 86/100[13] PS5: 89/100[14] XSX: 89/100[15] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Game Informer | 9.25/10[22] |
| GameSpot | 9/10[16] |
| GamesRadar+ | 5/5[17] |
| IGN | 9/10[18] |
| Jeuxvideo.com | 18/20[19] |
| PC Gamer (US) | 80/100[21] |
| Shacknews | 9/10[20] |
| Gamer.no | 9/10[23] |
According to review aggregator website Metacritic, the game was met with "generally favorable reviews" with the exception of the PC version, which received "universal acclaim".[12][13][14][15]
References[edit]
- ^ Gilliam, Ryan (December 10, 2020). "The new co-op game from the A Way Out team lets multiplayer pals play free". Polygon. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
- ^ Borthwick, Ben (February 23, 2021). "It Takes Two offers a look at its co-operative gameplay in latest trailer". VideoGamer.com. Retrieved March 17, 2021.
- ^ Arts, Electronic (2021-02-12). "Dr. Hakim's Three Lessons to Save a Broken Relationship". Electronic Arts Inc. Retrieved 2021-04-05.
- ^ Skrebels, Joe (January 15, 2020). "'Not Even EA Thought A Way Out Would Sell' - Josef Fares on Why He's Making Games in a Genre He Had to Invent". IGN. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
- ^ Skrebels, Joe (December 15, 2020). "It Takes Two Could Take 15 Hours to Complete and Should Win a World Record for Mechanics, Says Josef Fares". IGN. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
- ^ Watts, Steve (December 10, 2020). "It Takes Two And The Relentless Positivity Of Josef Fares". GameSpot. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
- ^ Fares, Josef (June 11, 2017). "A Way Out creator Josef Fares: 'If you don't like it, you can break my legs'". VentureBeat. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
- ^ Dring, Christopher (June 8, 2019). "EA signs fresh indie publishing deals with Zoink, Glowmade and Hazelight". Gameindustry.biz. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
- ^ Lee, Julia (June 18, 2020). "New co-op game from A Way Out creator, It Takes Two, launches in 2021". Polygon. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
- ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (December 11, 2020). "Here's our first look at It Takes Two gameplay". Eurogamer. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
- ^ Devore, Jordan (December 10, 2020). "It Takes Two is an out-of-control co-op adventure from the makers of A Way Out". Destructoid. Retrieved January 20, 2020.
- ^ a b "It Takes Two for PC Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved March 24, 2021.
- ^ a b "It Takes Two for PlayStation 4 Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved March 24, 2021.
- ^ a b "It Takes Two for PlayStation 5 Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved March 24, 2021.
- ^ a b "It Takes Two for Xbox Series X Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved March 24, 2021.
- ^ "It Takes Two Review". GameSpot. Retrieved March 25,2021.
- ^ "IT TAKES TWO REVIEW: "A CO-OP EXPERIENCE UNLIKE ANY OTHER"". GamesRadar+. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
- ^ "It Takes Two Review". IGN. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
- ^ "It Takes Two : Un jeu coop indispensable par les créateurs d'A Way Out". Jeuxvideo.com. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
- ^ "It Takes Two review: Together forever". Shacknews. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
- ^ "IT TAKES TWO REVIEW". PC Gamer. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
- ^ "It Takes Two Review – The Joys And Heartbreak Of Love". Game Informer. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
- ^ "En ufattelig variasjon og sømløs plattformspilling". Gamer.no. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
External links[edit]
- 2021 video games
- Action-adventure games
- Platform games
- Asymmetrical multiplayer video games
- Cooperative video games
- Electronic Arts games
- Multiplayer video games
- PlayStation 4 games
- PlayStation 5 games
- Split-screen multiplayer games
- Video games about size change
- Video games about toys
- Video games featuring female protagonists
- Unreal Engine games
- Video games developed in Sweden
- Video games about magic
- Windows games
- Xbox One games
- Xbox Series X and Series S games
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