'Order Up!' cooks up some good fun
Move over, "Cooking Mama," there's a new casual chef game in town.
"Order Up!" is the type of game that makes hard-core gamers roll their eyes, but after clearing a dining room full of finicky customers with rave reviews, I couldn't help but get that satisfied "I'm succeeding with minimal effort" feeling.
The story is simple enough: After you choose either the male or female chef, you're air-dropped -- no parachute -- into the town of Port Abello. ... Cute. You start out as a trainee at a fast-food joint called Burger Face, then, after the bitter disappointment of your first paycheck, you buy your own establishment, a greasy spoon called Gravy Chug.
Your mission: Meet various objectives to earn stars for your restaurant. This entails hiring assistants who help you prepare ingredients -- a huge help for crowded tables, even though that hired help tends to fall asleep and complain -- buying spices and recipes, upgrading your kitchen and, of course, pleasing the fussy clientele to earn big tips.
You'll work your way up from diner to haute cuisine, and take on rival chefs in an "Iron Chef" send-up called "Fortified Chef Competition."
Mostly, you'll just need to make sure your dishes get the right spice, are cooked properly by watching a gauge, making sure you get the food out quickly before your other orders cool or customers walk out.
The first-person gameplay is at its best when you've got four tickets to prepare at once, forcing you to quickly prioritize and delegate prep work to serve the table's orders together. At its worst, you get socked with random minigames where you have to scrub dishes or flick rats. Dull, to say the least.
The stylized cel-shaded graphics are quaint compared to today's standards but fit the overall mediocre quality of the presentation. Bright colors spruce up the sparse restaurants, but the small roster of repeat customers smells like leftovers.
And then there's the hiccuping controls whenever you need to tear off lettuce leaves or fold a burrito. In a time-pressed environment like the kitchen, glitchy mechanics can make or break a big tip.
But the simple act of cranking out orders is addictive in a mind-numbing sort of way. You can even replay it on the difficult levels, if you're so inspired. After all, the playtime is painfully short at less than 10 hours.
What could have given this title legs would have been some kind of multiplayer -- at the very least a co-op for Fortified Chef challenges.
Simple, cheesy and cheap -- only $39.99 -- "Order Up!" likely will be a hit among casual gamers and a guilty dalliance for the culinary curious.
Additional Information:
'Order Up!'
Grade: C+
Developer: SuperVillain Studios
Publisher: Zoo Games
Platform: Wii
Genre: Cooking
ESRB: Everyone
Retail: $39.99
