Two Players Required, One Heart Yielded

-- An ode to co-op video game Valhalla


Note: this is part of a series of writing exercises where I am forced to avoid perfection by putting a timer 30-minute timer on me before having to publish. Or to put it another way, don't judge me too harshly if this sucks. 



I am about to enter a line into my video gaming histories that I never would have predicted. Hazelight studios' most famous title, It Takes Two, is one of my favorite video games ever, and here's the kicker:

I haven't played it.

I bought It Takes Two as a Christmas present for Jackie, well aware of its reputation as the ultimate couples game. Like many spousal gifts it was appreciated but never used, until one day Bron picked it up and asked if we could play. I didn't want to, but since when is disappointing kids a part of my repertoire? We slogged through the first chapter, the story heavy with themes of divorce and the gameplay only ho hum, clearly saving its more creative teamwork features for future chapters. He was not amused and I thought that would be the end of it.

And then something weird happened. He and Ellie started playing it. This is bizarre for many reasons -- namely that we aren't lacking in other great options -- but mainly because Ellie isn't a huge gamer. Yes, she will participate in the Switch multiplayer games and enjoys laughing her way through Overcooked disasters and she took Astro coast-to-coast11. I mean who wouldn't, Astrobot is dunks. but she's not like Bron or Max, jumping for joy when Mario Wonder arrived as a birthday present, or circling games in the annual Amazon or Walmart Christmas magazines as if Santa had an unlimited budget. 

And yet this game, man.

This game absorbed Ellie and Bron like nothing before or since -- including it's excellent successor Split Fiction -- and what was meant to bond me and Jackie surprised me by dumping a bottle of super glue on those two. And look, I don't know if in the future they'll remember it like I do. Maybe in 15 years to them it will be a fuzzy memory like what I have reminiscing on taking turns playing Aladdin on Sega with a Valerie or Katrina. But right now, during an era where aging kids plus a reflective new year and a perfectly crafted book on parenthood22. The Correspondent, absolutely elite book. has me in a nostalgic, sentimental whirlwind, I consider this game to be a gift from God that brought two of my kids together in a way that no other activity on earth could. Not Disneyland, not church, not friends. This game, and this game alone. 

These guys would get so excited to see what the next gadget would be. To tackle a boss together. To solve the amazing, cooperative puzzles. To talk me and Jackie into letting them stay up late to see what the next level would bring. They laughed so hard when Bron's character was able to shrink and Ellie's character blasted him into outer space when he went onto the seesaw and she jumped on it. They cheered each other on. They worked together. They jointly booed the annoying Book of Love. Somehow, they never even got angry at each other during the competitive mini-games and what level of sorcery is that? What manner of game is this, that even when pit against each other it creates bonds instead of bites? 

I admit this is a nonsensical review of a game; there isn't a ton you can say when you haven't played the material in question. And yet and yet and yet. This game was a unifier. 

It Takes Two will never leave my memory. Bron as Kody, Ellie as May. The hammer and nail gadgets. The combustible sap gun and the match shooter. The ice skating level. I'm a sappy guy, which is a 'no duh!' to any who know me but I must push aside fears of corny-ness and pay tribute to Hazelight. You made something that brought my kids together in a way that is permanent, at least to me. I only wish it were three players so Max could've been involved ... and wouldn't you know that dream by and large came true when two years after they first beat it, the duo picked it up and started playing it again, this time rotating turns with their younger brother. They played again, they laughed again, this time with one more.

And so to It Takes Two I say congratulations on being the best game I've never played. I meant for it to bring me closer to Jackie but it bonded other people I care about even more. In 2008 I paid $10 to watch BYU put UCLA through a 59-point hellstorm of defeat. For the longest time I considered that ticket the greatest joy-per-dollar purchase of my lifetime. But this game only cost me $20. There's a new king in town.