Ever wondered what it would be like to run a kitchen? Chaos. Overcooked 2, when playing with kids, becomes absolute pandemonium, but also incredibly fun. This game gives kids a chance to see what it would be like to be in charge, give orders, and deal with failures.
Full disclosure, most of our experience with this game is the original with the sequel just being an improved version of the first.
Sam has always been a little helper in the kitchen, whether it’s helping to stir the pot or knead the dough for bread, he is eager to learn. One of the most entertaining parts of this game is how they take technical recipes that may include multiple cooking techniques and simplify them. If you need to produce dough for pizza, you don’t knead it, you chop it. Hamburger patties? Chop it. Shredded cheese for tacos? Chop it. So it makes recipes very easy to understand and formulaic without requiring a culinary degree.
The crux of the game is multitasking and coordination. Some levels can have complicated steps that take more cognitive load, but always offers a strategy that you can assign your young one that can keep them on task and contribute to winning. I’m not going to sugar coat it, though: this game is hard. It’s even harder in multiplayer with increased score requirements.
Overcooked 2 offers a wide variety of human and animal chef avatars that are all pleasing a cute to look at. The imagery, iconography, and graphics are all cartoonish and very clear with what they represent.
Teamwork is essential in Overcooked 2, and one thing this game does well is training you to work together efficiently. It’s a great time to show how to react to failure on a team. Instead of blaming, we each come up with positive ways to improve what we were doing to succeed. Sometimes I will point out something for Sam to do better, and unsurprisingly, he will find things that I could do better as well. It’s been an overall positive experience.
The controls are also very simplistic. The basic gameplay requires just the control stick and two buttons, one to pick up and put down, and one to perform an action like chop or wash dishes. As you progress, you’ll incorporate dashing in between tasks.
The design choices in the level design and how they incorporate game elements to interact with them is very smart and noticeable. The environment of the levels is where all of the complications come into play, whether it’s pedestrians, earth-quake cracks that separate the stove from the plates, or rats that try to steal unattended food.
Overall 5/5
Overcooked 2 is a team-building game, that is cute and entertaining. It can be frustrating at times, however, when you finally get the win that you’ve struggled with, it’s all the more sweater. I highly recommend this game.
Breakdown
- Spacial Awareness: 5/5
- Memory Skills: 3/5
- Hand-eye Coordination: 4/5
- Problem Solving: 5/5
- Reading Skills: 2/5
- Entertainment: 5/5
- Appropriateness: 5/5
Reviewed on the PC version through Steam.
See my Steam Stats for Overcooked and Overcooked 2
