I’ve worked in the food industry at various points in my life. I’ve seen it all. The dizzying heights of making burgers and cooking fries in McDonalds, cleaning dishes in a steakhouse and even spending two weeks as an assistant chef in a curry house. It’s an intensive environment even when you’re doing one of the “simpler jobs”.
Every part of the team has to work together, otherwise service will slow down, things will get burnt and customers will be unhappy. That sentence is an important thing to keep in mind when it comes to Overcooked, the multiplayer cook-em-up by Ghost Town Games. If you’re not talking to each other and making sure to keep your stations covered then you’re going to struggle to pass the level, never mind get a high score. The main things to get used to in Overcooked is chopping up ingredients, cooking them, plating them and then serving them. Once you’ve got that down then you should be able to start scoring a high enough score to get through the first few levels. It’s easy to pick up the basics and then after that, there is dish washing and order control to get to grips with.
The last two things can be difficult to keep track of, especially if you’re playing through the game by yourself. It’s not a game that is really geared up for solo play, but rather than having an AI controlled partner to take you through the campaign, you control two characters yourself. It makes the game that much more slow paced, which makes it very difficult to get a top score on some of the levels.
The higher your score on a level, the more stars you get. You can get up to three stars and have to get at least one to unlock the next level. The thing is that doesn’t always unlock the next level. Overcooked is a fun party game that friends of varying levels of gaming knowledge will enjoy. The fact that levels are locked behind how many stars you unlock in the campaign mode can be frustrating considering the game is very much angled towards being a party game. Most people you’ll play live won’t want to play the same level again to just try and get one more star, and not all of the levels are fun to play.
While some of the levels might not be all that much fun, a large majority of them are and the sheer variety in the levels is great to see. Not only is there a variety in the layout and setting of each level, but there is also a variety in what it is you have to cook in each level. From your basic soups to your burgers, there’s lots of things to cook up as you progress through the campaign. It all seems evenly spaced out to make sure you never get too fed up of making a certain type of dish.
The campaign is what helps you unlock more levels and characters, so this is something you have to play if you want to experience everything that the game has to offer. It has a cute story as you try and save the Onion Kingdom and, as stated, most of the levels are great. Outside of it though, there is a Versus mode which pits players against each other as they try and get the most points by serving the most dishes.
Versus, much like the campaign, can be up to four players, but don’t worry if you’ve only got two controllers. You can split the controller and have two players on each meaning all four can play. It will be frantic and clunky, but it’s something that kind of lends itself to the party game and, if anything, encourages teamwork even more. Unfortunately, if you only have two players the Versus mode will see you having to control two characters which, as previously mentioned, slows everything down. There is no Versus bots option unfortunately.
You’ll have a lot of fun with Overcooked as long as you have people to play it with. As a singleplayer experience it’s lacking, but then it was never intended to be a singleplayer game. The campaign feeling the need to lock levels behind the number of stars collected will no doubt frustrate more people than it will encourage them to try and obtain more stars. It is, however, a small niggle for a game that has a huge amount of levels to choose from with design that oozes charm. If you’re looking for a party game that isn’t a beat-em-up or sports game then Overcooked is a great choice.
- If you’d like a closer look at what the game offers you if you opt to play through Overcooked single player you can watch my let’s play below.