Simple prepare the food, cook it and serve it up. How hard can that be……
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- Developer: Ghost Town Games
- Publisher: Team 17
- Genre: Simulation strategy
- Release Date: 2nd August 2016, Switch 27th July 2017
- Platforms:PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
- Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch
- Game Supplied by: Team 17
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The Onion Kingdom is in danger and only the finest cooking can save it. Players will journey through a campaign mode featuring a whole host of cruel and unusual kitchens on their quest to become master chefs capable of conquering an ancient edible evil which plagues the land!
Traverse through the campaign solo or engage in classic, chaotic couch co-op for up to four players. You’ll have to cook a range of different dishes and work together to become the ultimate cooking team! You can even go head to head in nine versus competitive levels for either two or four players.
Overcooked: Special Edition includes the Overcooked base game plus The Lost Morsel and Festive Seasoning additional content and, with Nintendo Switch™, players will be able to take the Overcooked experience anywhere they like, with HD Rumble adding a whole new element to the cooking chaos!
Overcooked: Special Edition contains:
- 44 campaign levels which can be played solo or couch co-op with up to 4 players
- 9 versus levels to play head to head locally with either 2 or 4 players
- 22 different chefs to play as. Choose a human, racoon, dinosaur, French bulldog, robot or even a reindeer in your quest for culinary greatness!
- A range of crazy kitchens to play across with different recipes to master – cook soup, burritos, burgers, fish and chips and more!
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You know when you look at a game and think that’s easy let me have the controller, well beware, whilst what is simple in its concept is as deceiving in it’s delivery.
All you have to do in the game is chop/prepare some food, take it over and cook it then serve it onto some plates and earn points and tips for fast delivery. Then wash the plates and keep on serving up. That is the game in it’s concept and if it were just that it might get a little tedious and boring however the levels on offer as you progress always have you wanting more. Be it a icy platform where you skid right past the vegetable you wanted to pick up, or the mobile cooking van that splits in half and isn’t there all the time or even the moving preparation areas (and that’s just a few of them) each one has its own unique challenge.
The points are based on how fast you deliver the food out and how many tips you get as a result, so speed is of the essence and the simple yet addictive 3 star system based on how many points you get will have you heading back to earlier levels to gain those 3 stars for pride and glory time and time again.
We spent a lot of time doing this with 2 adults and 2 children (6 and 8 years old) playing various levels, learning the unique quirks of each one and aiming for mastery of each, however as we tried some of them again and again through we just couldn’t get those 3 stars and it was some of the best gaming in recent times trying solo play and multiplayer campaign as teams and working in rotation to achieve our 3 stars.
Never did we get bored of it and still we are playing it now which is something to be said as the switch is only a week old for us and with games like just dance 2018 and mario kart also in our possession we are going back to this 75% of the time.
Visually it’s a cartoon based full of vibrant colours and be it on the switch screen or the big screen you might play on we had no issues seeing what we needed to cook or where we had to go. There were a few levels were scenery make certain sections of your kitchen harder to see at times but overall it’s very well presented. Scenery does set each level very well, from icy terrains to city streets there are nice details everywhere even as far as rats that come out of the streets to steal the food you left on the side ready providing yet another challenge to contend with.
Music plays a huge part in the game and sounds really add to the games atmosphere drawing you in with fast paced music when your reaching the end, high bleeping tones when pans are going to burn (which can spread like wildfire if you let them and then need putting out with a fire extinguisher.
The game has 44 different levels to master and each one gets progressively harder, and although there is a story (in the about section) we just enjoyed playing the game for what it was but can’t fault the devs for adding a little something, you even drive a bus round to your next location which adds another nice touch.
Multiplayer versus has 9 levels to complete in where like in single player campaign you control 2 chefs each and must switch at times to get the fastest possible cooking routine going to win the match, we had so much fun doing this as the extra competition just adds that little bit extra to the pressure of cooking.
You can select different characters to play as from humans, animals and even a robot, not that it changes the gameplay but still nice to have some level of customisation, even if you stick to one you love.
We had no issues unlocking characters or levels either as only 1 star is needed to progress to the next level but we couldn’t help ourselves but keep going back to previous levels in search of the challenging 3 stars.
SUMMARY
Not all simple games are made well but Overcooked is a excellent example of great detail and enjoyable gameplay for everyone and capturing children and adults alike.
For the low cost i would recommend this game to anyone with or without kids as it’s enjoyable challenging and competitive.
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