|| REVIEW || Tools Up! (Xbox One)
Developed By : The Knights of Unity Published By : All in! Games
Category : Party, Multiplayer, Arcade Release Date : December 3, 2019
For a while, I feared the end of couch co-op games. It felt like during the PS3/Xbox 360 generation that a heavy focus was being put into online gaming, and a lot of tiles that previously had split-screen capabilities were doing away with it. Thankfully, over the last handful of years these games have come back with a super strong punch and it's amazing to see.
One such title is the newly released Tools Up! It's a party game that puts you in charge of fixing up various living spaces. Play it alone, or go it with a friend, the game is your oyster. No matter the size of your crew, you'll travel to different places where you'll need to paint walls, lay carpet or tile, strip wallpaper or flooring, and all sorts of fixer-upper tasks.
There are about two dozen levels in the game, each one with its own unique tasks to complete. You'll have a number of rooms in each house, but only certain ones will require work to be done. To figure out which room(s) need attention, you'll have to locate the blueprint which is on site. This brings up an overlay on top of the house layout that will visually change the room that needs some love.
Any materials that are needed can be found a few different ways. The most common is that they will already be scattered around the house. Sometimes, mostly in the early levels, you'll only have the materials you need. In later levels though, there will be tons of materials so you'll need to be careful that you don't lay the wrong thing down since you'll have to start the job completely over. Some levels will feature delivery men that bring materials to the front door of the house, but if you don't get to them quick enough they'll leave and come back later. Even other levels will feature some sort of conveyor-like system where you'll have to grab things as they pass.
A lot of the jobs will involve more complex things. For starters, you'll need to rip up old flooring before you can put the new one down, or tear up a wall before it can be painted. However, once you get into the process of tiling or papering, things get a bit more complex. These processes require the floor or wall to have a glue or cement applied, depending on which surface you're applying. This can be a glue which will dry quickly, so if you don't put the paper up quick enough you'll have to redo the glue. Or if you're laying cement for tiles, you'll have to wait for it to dry, and wait again after you put the tiles themselves down, which means that space on the floor won't be able to be used for a short time!
To complete a job, you'll need to finish all the rooms that were required, and then it's all about cleanup. Every material must be removed, including the blueprint and all the workers. This also includes cleaning up any messes that happen. There will always be a bin outside for garbage to be put into, so you can either carry it there piece by piece or use the small pail that you might find in some levels.
Tools Up! is an extremely fun game. As soon as I saw it I knew it would be a perfect game for my wife and I to play, because we were big fans of playing the Overcooked games. It didn't take long for us to get hooked on this one, we were pretty much sold before we finished the first level. You're graded on your progress, being able to earn one, two, or three stars. You must accrue these so you can unlock the later levels but we refused to progress unless we earned all three stars. This made the game a bit more challenging, but a lot more fun.
If you're a fan of party, couch-coop games this is most certainly one for you. It's just as challenging as it is fun, and it makes a great thing for any little ones to play or watch. If you're playing with other people you can even pick each other up to...help out on the job. No matter how seriously or not you take this game, it's one that will be an amazing addition to your library and once you start fixing things, you won't want to stop. I absolutely can't wait to see what else might be in store for this game in the future.
Game Rating : 9/10
Pick up the game HERE on Xbox One
This game was played and reviewed on Xbox One
Also available on : PC, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch
A review code for this game was graciously provided to the site
