Overcooked 2 review
The cooking madness returns for a second helping and while I missed the first course, it seems the second brings more of the same chaotic goodness and haphazard multitasking mayhem.
The Onion king has unwittingly released the unbread upon his land thanks to following a seemingly simple recipe. Now he summons his two chefs to serve up enough tasty treats to sate the appetite of these doughy disasters.
While I’m happy for my multitasking skills to be challenged, being run over by cars or blown about the level by random gusts of wind is infuriating. It’s not challenging. It’s stupid and it made me stressed out with the game, particularly as these hazards were random in their appearance.
If this is the ‘beauty’ of Overcooked’s challenge then I’ll happily pass and just head for dessert… but regardless of this annoyance, the many hazards that ruined my cheffing skills were easily bested on a second attempt at the level.
One challenge I did relish was when navigational hazards such as conveyor belts or teleport portals were thrown in. Levels even begin to move, as staircases flip positions during a Harry Potter-esque set of levels, while floating platforms attached to hot air balloons keep your chefs apart.
The ultimate challenge facing you though is multitasking the abilities of your two chefs – chopping, cooking, mixing, cleaning and serving your dishes. Only by effectively maximising each chef’s time can you best a level and grab all three stars.
And this is the beauty and charm of Overcooked 2; I wanted to get all three stars before moving on. Once I solved the initial puzzlement of how to create each recipe and sussed out the best way to navigate a level, all that was left was to keep on top of the orders coming in. It’s just a simple case of nailing a pattern of movement and preparation – do this and each level is actually pretty easy.
While you’re busy preparing meals, new orders keep coming in, each has a time limit – I guess representing the customers patience – get each meal out in the order that they were placed and a tips multiplier gradually gets bigger, mess up an order or take too long and the multiplier resets.
Chasing these scores adds an additional manic pace to the game and only by combining a dash ability and throwing ingredients between your chefs – or even better – launching a chopped piece of meat so that it lands in a frying pan, can you hope to smash the target score and lay down your own score for your friends to beat.
And playing against your friends – local or online – is certainly where the heat in the kitchen steps up once you’re done with the entrée of the campaign. Despite the fun of the campaign, nothing is truer than saying that things are better with friends and while you might not remain friends – things get hectic in the kitchen – it’s jolly good fun whether you play Overcooked 2 versus or coop.