..Order Up!!..

REVIEW |

Order Up!! has a cartoonish appearance and a silly attitude, which will appeal to many different people and turn others off, but the game is fun nonetheless. At the start, there are two chefs on a plane, male and female. You can pick either one, and once you do, the chair beneath your chosen chef dumps the rotund person out of the plane, bouncing harmlessly to the world below. Your chef stands up, dusts off their chef outfit, and realizes they need a job.

Things start off in Burger Face, Order Up!!'s tutorial cooking place. Here, a pimply-faced boy will tell you how to cook food, pour drinks, etc. Unfortunately (or fortunately), after your first day, you are fired. Well, you really didn't want to keep working there forever, right? Your little chef walks away somewhat sad, but little did he/she know the whole thing was for the better! You'll acquire an old diner right next door, naming it the Gravy Chug. The diner is drab and in need of a serious cleaning, but it's yours, along with your waitress. Time to cook!

Each day you play in Order Up!! starts with a paperboy riding by and throwing a paper. In the paper, you can upgrade your equipment, hire assistants, and even clean up your restaurant. There is a phone booth to the right of your diner where you can call a delivery van, a chef specialist for a hint, or a food critic (once you have acquired the correct amount of stars to do so). A sign to your left shows the food you can cook. There are regular items and chefs specials, which you can purchase from the market or discover by adding spices to dishes randomly. You'll have four rows of food, each one costing more to purchase, but you do not have to get them in a specific order.

Every day, hungry patrons enter to eat. Like in other time-management cooking games, a "bubble" pops up above the head of each customer showing what they will be ordering. If it is a chefs' special, there will be a chef's hat, and if they want spices, the outer ring will be yellow. This makes it easy to know what to expect while taking the order. You click on the table to have the waitress take their order, and she'll bring it to you. In the kitchen, you can do various things to make the meal, and each meal consists of a series of steps to complete in a specific order. The idea is to get all the meals done around the same time, so don't concentrate on just one.    

In Order Up!! your score will depend on the food you cook: it can be perfect, good, OK, or poor. Luckily, if you get too low of a score on any one item, you can trash it and start again. Just be careful, as trashing too much food will cause rats to infest your establishment. In order to get rid of them, you'll have to play a "mini-game" where you flick the rats off the counter and cooking area. One thing I noticed is for some meals is if you got a "Good" on one part and a "Perfect" on the rest, it would be a "Perfect" complete meal.  Perfect meals get you better tips.

Eventually, you can enter the market to purchase spices or the chefs' specials. These items become available throughout the course of the game, and as it progresses, they get more expensive. The trade-off, however, is that they will make better meals, which will net you more money. As soon as you can purchase some spices, you should get a little of everything. Also, after a few days, you will get your first assistant for free, who can help with tasks. Only two are allowed at one time, but there are many to choose from. Experiment with them, because some do better at certain dishes or restaurants than others.

A health inspector will show up randomly (or if you fail the rat game), and you have to wash dishes to get rid of him. Also, once you gain enough stars for the particular restaurant, either you can call the food critic or he will just show up. Impress him to get a good rating and climb up the ladder in Order Up!!

The goal of the game is to keep improving and buying better restaurants until you complete it as the best chef. It is a relatively short game, but it's also loads of fun if you enjoy challenging casual titles. One cool thing is the game uses either a standard dual shock or the PS Move controller. I found the Move controller easier to use, which is nice, as this game was designed with motion controls in mind. The game's look might make people think it's for kids only, but even adults will enjoy the simplicity of Order Up!! If you missed it when it came out for Wii, you might as well play it in HD with Move controls.

GameDynamo's Score for Order Up!! (PS3)

Diane Brunner   Followdianebrunner I have been gaming since I was in high school, before it was acceptable for a girl to do it. I have been a writer for even longer. It's only natural the two would combine. I prefer RPGs, action/adventure, and strategy games, but I also play dancing, sports titles, and shooters.

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