Biped initially launched in March 2020 as a cooperative adventure title that focused on moment-to-moment teamwork between two players and racked up glowing 85% average scores across review aggregate sites. Biped 2 is the next evolution in the series and offers one to four player action, with an expanded co-op experience and 2v2 modes to boot!
Interesting Mechanics, Cute Storyline
Having never played the original game, Biped 2 has a similar visual appeal to it as something like AstroBot or Tearaway, albeit with a more simplified aesthetic and more mobile-friendly-feeling controls and UI.
The story goes that, having completed their mission on Earth (Biped), Aku and Sila embark on a new quest after picking up a distress beacon in another galaxy. Heading to planet Tau, the pair immediately strive to save those in need. It's super cute, but ultimately superficial, serving as an extremely loose narrative that joins together a series of mini-games and puzzles to solve.
The core gameplay comes from how you control your biped. While it's an extremely clever physics-based approach, it can get very confusing. Using the left and right analogue sticks, you must lift your limb and plant it down, rhythmically timing your movements to perform basic walking and running.
Tilting and turning the stick pirouettes your character around to spin and collect coins, holding one leg against an object will interact with it, and lastly, holding both sticks in a direction will allow you to skate around, avoiding the necessity to produce locomotion.
It sounds simple, but it is deviously tricky to coordinate some of these things in one fell swoop. Even the early tutorial stages tripped me up a few times, because I didn't realise that you could skate on virtually any surface, so I awkwardly attempted to gallop past fast-moving platforms and obstacles, only to fail numerous times.
Skating is your friend, across almost every surface. Keep in mind that it's possible to skate on sand, wood, gravel and more, and you will succeed faster than I!
Tricky Puzzles, Cosy Quests
Throughout your intergalactic adventure, you will come across flying sections, rolling floors, pushing obstacles, switches and tasks to complete to save the inhabitants of planet Tau and bring rebalance to the elements. The majority of the game is spent exploring for coins and avoiding objects, which, while fun and allowing you to buy cosmetics for your bot, is not the main attraction of this title.
The puzzles and Quests are the meat of this game, with it adapting depending on the number of players. For example, simple traversal of the opening levels requires you to shift your weight on a rolling barrel-type platform. Moving to the right of it sets it spinning, and you therefore have to counter the rotation to see what's on the underside, or navigate a twisty path.
With two players, this becomes a strategic operation, cooperating in coordinating your weight distribution and pace so that you can both pass the challenge at hand. It's extremely smart, and the level of frustration juxtaposed with adulation you have for your player 2 is immense. The dynamic flip flops constantly, with a satisfying endorphin rush at the crescendo of solving a particularly tricky area.
Some challenges involve being lashed together or one of you pushing buttons while the other navigates platforms, others are like races with vehicles like hang gliders or rafts, or you need to flip tiles in order, or in succession, to progress.
Everything usually descends into sheer chaos, but that's the beauty of this type of game!
Incredibly fun with friends
While I had a blast playing this solo, collecting the coins and stars and beating my best times, I found it far more fun with friends.
The cooperative mode is essentially a teambuilding exercise, and the 2v2 modes are trash-talking expeditions into new tests of friendship. Ultimately, Biped 2 is a fantastic physics-driven puzzler that has the power to entice hardcore puzzle fans as well as casual gamers for a cosy yet emotionally fluctuating experience that I heartily recommend trying as a team!
With this in mind, I'm also going to pick up the original Biped game to get another fix of multiplayer puzzling goodness!
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