Good horror game with a fantastic atmosphere. Some really good scares and tense moments, however at some points it can lean to more of a tedious feel to the gameplay. This particularly applies to some of the Chris Walker sections of the game. These however are also some of the most tense, not too many of these tedious moments however. Some jumpscares were a little cheap, but they sometimes managed to get my heart to at least jump a bit. Navigating the map is awesome, with a solid amount of exploration. I did play on normal difficulty, so this may change with higher difficulties, but I did not ever really feel at risk of running out of batteries besides maybe the first hour of the game. At around the mid-way point of the game I basically just stopped managing the night vision. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the game for me was when you lost the camera momentarily, and you had to endure the darkness more. If the scarcity of batteries was more prevalent, it would have been much more tense and enjoyable in my opinion. Story was solid overall, but nothing crazy special. The big part of the game for me was the immersion and reading the logs. I always looked forward to reading the next set of documents, and would get genuine chills at points when I would piece things together, or find one report that references another previous document. The game still holds up today a decade later, and was well worth the purchase. Looking forward to trying the DLC and Outlast 2 next.

Solid game overall, considering that it was originally a mobile game. I played the demo for this originally back in 2013/2014 or so, and I was very intrigued at the time. Fast forward a decade later, and I was able to get it from Epic for free. The game has 11 chapters, and most of them are pretty straight-forward, however, some areas can take some time to figure out. In my case, I got stuck in the subway portion of the way looking for coins, afterwards, the rest was easy enough. The strong suit of the game is its atmosphere, and the first 5 chapters or so of the game. The mystery of not knowing what is going on and being exposed to the time traveling mechanics is very cool originally. I do feel that the story kind of falls apart a bit towards the latter half of the game however. While the ending of the game was not what I expected; nor wanted, it was an alright story overall. At the end of the day, one has to remember this was a mobile game after all. All in all, its a solid experience, you get what you are expecting for a mobile game, and its actually quite good relative to that context. If you have a dollar or two to spare, or got it for free, and have a couple hours to spare, it would not be a bad idea to play this.

This game is easily one of the most passion-driven, well made games I have ever had the pleasure of playing. The attention to detail, the endless little activities you can stumble across through exploration, the heart-warming story, the goofy little things you can do, etc. Everything was so carefully planned, and executed, it is very hard to find flaws to pick at. I originally heard of this game when it won GOTY during the 2021 Game Awards. I made a mental note that I would play the game eventually, but besides that had no clue what to expect in terms of the game I was getting. Fast-forward to the 2023 steam winter sale, I managed to snag it for $10. The game during the first hour or so was what I expected, a story driven, co-op platformer with decent puzzles. As time went on, and the game was really able to spread its wings, I realized this game was much, much more than just that. First off, the art style of this game is fantastic. It strikes an excellent balance of realism, and cartoony, likely allowing it to age better as time goes on rather than had they gone full realism. The gameplay feels extremely smooth, and surprisingly very satisfying. This is intensified as the game begins to showcase more movement options, making it very fun to navigate around the map, especially during high-speed portions of the game. The characters were executed very well, down to their flaws and what makes them frustrating at times. Dr. Hakim is the highlight in this department, however I still do not understand how Dr. Hakim can be Hispanic. Truly a game-shattering flaw. Regardless, the part of the game that truly makes this game stand out to me is the environmental design, setting and visuals. I would like to especially praise and applaud the team behind this aspect of the game, as they absolutely knocked it out of the park. The creativity, visuals, atmosphere, and everything altogether was so beautifully put together. I have been playing video games since I was maybe around 5-6 years old on the original Xbox. For the last two decades, I have played a lot of video games, and seen a lot of the good, bad, ugly, and downright different of all aspects in games. My childlike wonder for the environments in games has diminished simply due to more exposure to gaming. One of the main aspects I particularly miss about games from the early 2000's was the atmosphere and dreamlike environments on display. One in particular I can remember from my childhood was Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, in where I would replay the game levels simply to look at the environments again. These worlds felt like I was in a dream, and seeing It Takes Two take me back to that sensation I have not felt since that age was incredible. I can not express enough just how beautifully designed everything was, and how impressively intricate it all is put together. Each world having its own theme was awesome for exploration, and each subsection of the game having different mechanics/weapons allowed each portion of the game to feel fully fleshed out, never overstaying its welcome. Overall, this is a must play game that I truly feel is maybe even underappreciated game for what it was able to do. A true passion project, and a very deserving Game Of The Year award recipient.