Review: Get Packed: Fully Loaded – PS4, PS5

Moving out of the cloud and onto a console near you.

Get Packed: Fully Loaded isn’t your typical co-op game. In fact, co-op is discouraged, not that my partner and I paid much mind to that. At least not at first…

Get Packed: Fully Loaded is Moonshine Studios’ spin on the couch multiplayer mayhem genre, a subsection of gaming that has done well with the likes of Overcooked, and… Overcooked 2. There are more, but these are the big hits in Casa de Chris.

Game Information
Release Date: July 29th, 2021
Developer: Moonshine Studios
Publisher: Coatsink
Availability: PSN (Digital)

The game frames its madness inside a silly story about a corporation taking over a town. Four friends who work together as a removals company start off the game by helping residents move their valuables out of their homes and into a big red truck.

As you progress through the game’s chapters, things take a turn and the group moves away from residential contracts and move onto bigger things, like robbing a bank and a museum. It’s not long before their criminal ways land them in the clink – not that imprisonment stops the gang from doing what they do best. While the prisoners are packing cell-made shivs, your hardcore removals team carry on packing everything else.

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It’s a silly framing device but as charming as you’d like, and it provides plenty of locations to play at, as well as some unlockable characters and character items if that kind of stuff matters to you.

Get Packed can be played either solo or with up to three other players, either offline on the same console or online via the magic of the internet.

Whichever way you play, the job is to get as much swag out of each location and pack it into the van waiting outside. You need to be careful, mind, because smashing windows or damaging property will deduct from your final score, and it is that score that determines whether you’re going to the next level or staying in the current one until you can learn to be more careful.

Playing single player is actually not bad; it’s how I played the game back last year on Google’s Stadia platform. It’s better with at least a second player, though, and that’s how I’ve spent most of my time playing Get Packed: Fully Loaded.

Playing with my other half was fun, but unremarkable. We each complained that it was just too simple. We would coordinate and plan out our approach. I would run inside and grab the valuables, bring them outside and drop them in a pile for her to load into the van and send it off when it was full. Then we’d make another pile while we waited for the van to return a few moments later, empty and ready to be filled up again.

Each player is given an individual score at the end of each round. We didn’t really care about our scores – we just wanted to progress through the campaign. And then… I decided to be a dickhead.

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On the next round, as my partner was loading the van, I locked her in and sent her away. She was not happy and I got a kick from the other side of the sofa. Deserved, but worth it, because it was the kick that made me realise the true nature of Get Packed, and that is to annoy the other players until they scream “get f**ked!” after being knocked over, pushed into traffic, and locked in the van repeatedly.

Get Packed became a weapon of annoyance, and as a person who prides themself on their ability to annoy and infuriate, I was in my element. Even if my leg was starting to get a little bit sore…

Get Packed is best played with at least another person, and with the aim of competing instead of co-operating. Sure, you can help each other, but it’s more fun to use the game’s wacky physics to your advantage so that you’re the top worker at the end of each shift. In the three million jobs I’ve done in my life, I’ve never been the top worker of any shift… But none of them let me smash my co-worker into oncoming traffic with an ATM machine.

Review Disclaimer: This review was carried out using a copy of the game provided by the publisher. For more information, please read our Review Policy.

Primary version tested: PS4. Reviewed using PS5.