You’ll Struggle to Find a Better Party Game than “Overcooked!” – Review

Let’s face it, working in the food service industry is tough, especially if you’re cleaning dishes. However, Ghost Town Games‘ 2016 multiplayer masterpiece Overcooked! makes preparing food, fulfilling orders, and doing the dishes a chaotic and hilarious experience. If you and a few friends are looking for plenty of laughs and a healthy serving of manic cooperative gameplay, this game should has you covered!

In Overcooked!, you play as a chef in a kitchen who has to prepare and deliver food orders. However, the game is so beautifully designed that you can’t effectively complete a single level without you and your friends working together!

The gameplay is where the game really shines. After all, you don’t need extensive experience with video games to get the hang of this title and as long as everyone communicates, either by using their indoor voice or by screaming at one another, you’ll manage to finish levels with the necessary amount of points.

The level design really adds to the experience. You’re not in a normal kitchen for every level so whether you’re on a pirate ship, a space station, or a haunted house, there’s a new challenge for you and your friends.

With the ensuing chaos, it’s lucky this game has some nice visuals. I’m not saying these are the finest graphics you’ll ever see, just that most of the time they clearly convey what’s going on, you know where you are, what you’re doing, and what you need to do.

The controls aren’t great but I’m not sure if this is by design in order to improve the experience. If each chef handled like a dream, I’m not sure that the game would be as enjoyable with every dish being prepared as if it was in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

I love this game so much, but it’s biggest problem was the lack of online multiplayer. If you can’t constantly have friends over to play with, you may find it being played far less than it should be.

I’ve always preferred couch co-op over online and there’s something incredibly rewarding after delivering the order that will get you that coveted 3-star rating just as clock runs down and having all your friends there to share the victory with you (or to blame you for messing up the whole level!).

The Verdict

This is a fantastic party game and a fine example of some of the best cooperative gameplay you will find anywhere. There’s no way for a skilled player to do all the heavy lifting and every player has to be equally involved in the game. While the controls can be frustrating at times and you can’t take your kitchen antics online, the latter was remedied in its sequel, Overcooked! 2.

Overcooked! is available on PC, Switch, PS4, and Xbox One.