There’s an unbridled chaos and joy to playing Heave Ho 2, a raucous delight to teaming up and struggling to overcome its physics-based challenges. It is very much like the original… but more.
At its core, Heave Ho 2 is a very simple game. You’re a head with a pair of long, gangly arms, and you’re very good at grabbing onto things. Using just one analogue stick and left and right triggers of a gamepad, you can grab onto things, swing around, and fling yourself between ledges. Except sometimes these ledges are really far away, so you need to create long-limbed chains and go swinging with friends or strangers – not like that. Definitely not like that, when you can now unleash an explosive fart and violently expel people away from you.
That’s where it gets chaotic, especially with strangers (from a co-op gaming perspective) trying to figure out the physics, communicate who should grab with what and when, and the odd little bit of mischief thrown in for good measure. It’s very easy to have grabbed both another hand and a surface at the same time – or at least be so fearful of falling to your death that you won’t let go – and tricky in general to coordinate. Even when you know what you want to do, you might just have a moment of brain fade, letting go with the wrong hand at the wrong time and send you and/or your co-op buddies flying off screen, to be turned into a colourful spurt of yoghurt.
So far, so Heave Ho. You build chains of people, swing through levels and try to get all of your to the end together. Where Heave Ho 2 looks to really take things beyond the original is with more interactive environments and themes.
In a kitchen themed level, it was a touch of Overcooked as we had to meet the order of a grumpy looking chef to clamber around ropes, open containers, grab and layer the constituent parts of a chicken burger (including a timely squirt of mustard), before dinging a bell to have judgement passed. Dropping into a gallery room, it eventually became clear that we had to place three artefacts onto plinths and have them in the right order – cue awkwardly trying to drag one bust over another and not tip the one that was correct off its spot. And then there was the surprisingly serene and calm space level, swinging into a rocket and then blasting off using four thrusters to help direct us between asteroids. We basically each took charge of one thruster, and it went about as smoothly as Artemis II did.
More varied gameplay isn’t the only thing coming to this sequel, and while I can absolutely say that this will be best played with good friends all gathered together in the same room, online multiplayer will also now be an option.
Heave Ho 2 does the sequel thing of taking the original and adding to it. Underneath it all, it’s the same physics-puzzler shenanigans, but mixes things up with new level themes and puzzle styles.
