By Ned Jordan
If you dismiss Order Up as just another Cooking Mama clone, then you'll miss
out on your free chef's hat. Yes, Order Up really comes with a little burger
chef hat that you can wear while playing the game. It's not required to play the
game, but it will get you in the mood for the game's lighthearted sense of
humor. And if you're going to spend your leisure time flipping simulated
burgers, then you'd better have a sense of humor.
Order Up is more than just burger flipping, though. It's also a time
management game in that you must prepare multiple ingredients for each dish, and
prepare multiple dishes, all the while ensuring that nothing burns on the stove
or grill or that nothing gets cold before the order is completed and served. The
better each ingredient is prepared and the hotter the dishes are served, the
happier your customers, and the bigger the tips they leave behind. Those tips
are your lifeblood as you'll need that money to expand your menu, but improved
kitchen equipment, and hire some help for when things start to get really busy
for you.
Preparing a dish requires using multiple stations in your kitchen to do
things like chop tomatoes, grate cheese, fry potatoes, boil noodles, and grill
meat. To complete all of the orders in time, you'll need to multitask by doing
things like chopping vegetables while meat is grilling and a pot is boiling on
the stove. At first it will be relatively easy to prepare each meal to
perfection, bur as the menu continues to grow and your restaurant attracts more
customers things can get pretty hectic. This is a critical part of the game,
because without it things would get old pretty quickly – once you've made a
burger and fries a few times you won't feel compelled to do it again, especially
without earning minimum wage while doing it. But the twin pressures of time and
juggling multiple orders make things compelling, varied, and a bit stressful,
but in a good way. More variety is added to the game as your restaurant begins
to attract regulars with particular tastes. You'll have some with a taste for a
particular price or who prefer things a little overcooked. It's enough to keep
you on your toes and throw a little hitch into your burger-flipping groove.
Since this is a Will game, every action is performed with waves of the Wii
Remote. Use a chopping motion to cut, move it in circles to stir, and twist your
wrist to flip a burger. The controls are implemented pretty well, but they do
suffer from the inherent inaccuracy problem with the Wii. Sometimes a chop or a
flip has to be repeated to be registered by the Wii, but as mentioned this is a
no more an issue here than it is with every other Wii game.
For someone who didn't particularly enjoy Cooking Mama, Order Up was a
pleasant surprise. If it were a straight cooking game it would have held my
attention for five minutes at best, but franticly juggling multiple dishes at
once while striving for perfection in each one adds a lot to the game in terms
of enjoyment. It's not the sort of game that will appeal to everyone and it will
still leave you wishing that there was a bit more to the game, but if you're
looking for something a little different then it may fit the bill nicely. Plus
you get that free chef's hat...
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
78%. Order Up will have you wearing your chef's
hat, literally.
