Summer is in the air, so it feels like a good time to release couch co-op games for us to play with our families during the summer holiday! Manic Mechanics is one of these chaotic, fun, co-op games where you must fix up various vehicles as fast as possible, with help from your friends.
Manic Mechanics is a one to four-player game, but playing as a single-player isn’t going to give you the best experience of this game. You and your friends playing together is the real fun in this game — and if you have a younger team member, they can actually take on a support role, making it much easier for them to play the game!
When it comes to actual gameplay in Manic Mechanics, you are placed into a level with various vehicles that need to be repaired. At first, these are cars, but over time they can be submarines, UFOs and trucks, which add a lot of different parts to create and replace. Each vehicle has up to three things that need to be changed, which are displayed on the level through panels.
Sometimes it’s a new tyre, or a painted door, or an entirely new engine. You will need to grab one of the parts off of the conveyor belt, then repair it if it’s not already glowing (which is rare). Tyres need to be brought to a station to inflate them — an action that takes a bunch of button mashing. Engines need to be hammered back out, lightbulbs need to be charged with energy, and paint needs to be painted. All of these different ways of fixing things trigger a little mini-game, showcasing what you need to do with the buttons or thumbstick.
These mini-games feel really well-timed and quick to do, giving you just enough to do to make the game itself feel intense while not feeling overly frustrating. Your friends can also help you do the mini-game at the same time, fixing the object more quickly, which is a big help when it comes to things like engines that take a bit more time than tires.
A robot friend, who seems to be on your side, also helps you create automatic machines which allow you to put the broken object on them, and then allow them to fix it up without doing a mini-game. The only issue is, you need to pay attention and take these items off of the machines before they break or cause a lot of problems. The painting machine, for example, can start splatting paint everywhere if the object is left on, which you can later slip in or choose to spend your time mopping up.
Manic Mechanics does have a bunch of different levels, which take you through interesting areas and introduce you to strange characters. You can go from being in a modern cityscape, fixing up electric cars, to working on UFOs on farmland, avoiding cow herds and lazers from some chaotic aliens. This variety in gameplay is really fun, especially as the world and vehicles change. Manic Mechanics doesn’t introduce too much at once though — giving you bites of new features and building on them over the course of the levels. Batteries is a great example of this, showing itself as a battery that needs charge and can be put in a car, then can be used with an engine to make an electric engine, then can be used with a lightbulb or a memory chip, then can actually cause electrical shocks when moving it across water.
If you are a fan of chaotic, couch co-op games and want to bring a new one to your living room, Manic Mechanics is another fun entry, with plenty of levels to explore. I really love the inclusion of a kid-friendly mode, which makes this game super-friendly for all ages!
You can find Manic Mechanics out on Nintendo Switch.
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