I can totally see why It Takes Two won the 2021 Game Awards. Gameplay-wise, this game is an absolute masterpiece. Every chapter is a game on its own, with new mechanics for both players (which are different, so you have a slightly different experiences). The chapters are not that long and introduce new concepts so frequently that you get to play something new every half an hour. The game is stuffed with small versus-minigames that are fresh and challenging. The game keeps score of how many times both players have won, for the real competitive couples out there. Finally, the music is quite fitting and adapts to actions in-game.

However, the story and dialogue of this game are APPALLING in my opinion. I cannot support the notion that people are forced to work on their relationship for the sake of their child. I am not going to get too political here, but this was a mayor distraction from an otherwise beautiful game. The voice acting felt so unnatural and annoying, especially from the book of love.

In the end, I am glad I played it. Me and my partner had a TON of fun and we got a great laugh out of the game as well. I would still recommend it to others for this reason!

Deliver Us the Moon has a pretty in depth starting video and prologue about it's story. In the future Earth's resources have been striped bare leaving an almost barren energy less rock. Fortunately due to the Moon's Helium-3 resources that can be beamed back to Earth a solution is found but one day in the year 2048 the colony on the moon goes dark and the power is stopped. The World Space Agency don't have the resources to launch a mission to find out why but somehow five years later just 3 people in an abandoned WSA facility managed to design, build and power a rocket to the moon the rest of the world working together couldn't and that's where you, Earth's last astronaut come in.

So the story has more holes than a block of swiss cheese but to be honest the fun comes from exploring the space station and colony upon arrival. I absolutely adore games like this in this setting (Alien Isolation, Prey, Dead Space, Tacoma). there is a real thrill in exploring abandoned sci-fi facilities and unraveling what the cause behind them was. Deliver Us the Moon is not the best at this but it still reveals a fairly riveting yarn through holograms, computers and notes found as you explore.

The main game plays as a puzzle adventure exploring and occasionally powering up doors and towers to go further in. It feels pretty standard. The visuals are a little rough which is expected as a low budget title but it still has some nice looking scenes and designs. It plays very smoothly though on the PS5 however the animation for moving your character around in 3rd person was kind of hilarious and not in a good way.

It's a pretty solid and short sci-fi adventure definitely worth a play even if there are much better games in the same vein. I look forward to seeing if the developer KeoKen Interactive can build on these foundations in the sequel Deliver Us Mars.

+ Fun to explore and find out what happened.
+ Good attempt at lore and backstory...

-....even if it is full of plot holes.