Overcooked! Review for Switch
Our Nintendo Switch gets a lot of use. We play a ton of 4 player games. Overcooked! is one of our favorite co-op games. It’s a popular couch game to play with friends or family.
Overcooked has you playing as chefs in a variety of kitchens, cooking a broad range of food, for some unusual customers. There’s a lot of chopping, mixing, cooking, and serving. Plus washing dishes. Because who doesn’t love washing dishes?
All of this preparing, serving, and washing has to be done as efficiently as possible, otherwise orders time out. Plus you won’t get a tip.
While many of the tasks are routine, for some reason this game is still fun. Who would think making soup or salad would be so entertaining? There must be some subconscious appeal to hearing that ding when you serve an order. Job well done.
Overcooked has many levels, taking place in many geographical regions and in space. Plus cooking a variety of food. All building up to a final showdown between the chefs and a giant meatball, aka the ever-peckish, that’s hungry. Which is ironic considering he’s made of food.
Anyway, there is a narrative to this game. Including a talking onion and his dog. Overcooked also has cut scenes, additional chefs to unlock, and a few mini games. The additional chefs are just skins, all chefs are the same underneath.
The mini games offer player vs player action. It’s not a battle, rather a competition to see which kitchen is faster at cranking out orders.
Why Overcooked?
If you’re looking for a co-op game Overcooked is an ideal choice. It’s challenging, fun, and requires teamwork. it’s a great choice for friends or family.
Overcooked is best with 2 players. We played with 3 players and it just didn’t seem as balanced, many levels were harder. Playing with 4 players was much better than 3 players. I don’t recommend playing Overcooked solo.
If you’re looking for a challenging multi player game Overcooked is a good choice. It’s not like most party or mini games for multiple people. Those anyone can just pick up and play. Overcooked starts off easy with salads but gets progressively more challenging.
Pros and Cons
Overcooked has a learning curve. It starts simple enough, but later levels add more ingredients and kitchens get more complicated layouts. So the earlier levels got us used to the basics and later it gets more challenging.
There isn’t an assist mode for Overcooked so we got stuck on later levels. We normally played with 4 players but couldn’t get enough stars to continue.
Through trial and error we discovered 2 players could get 3 stars. Playing Overcooked with different numbers of players resulted in very different levels of difficulty.
Our tests revealed 3 players is the hardest, 2 was the easiest, and 4 was in between. As mentioned before solo play is nearly unplayable since we had to switch between chefs.
Switching back and forth is counter productive since you’re only 1 person. At best it saves 2 seconds chopping or washing dishes. At worst switching chefs unnecessarily adds to the workload. We just couldn’t imagine doing all the levels this way.
I wouldn’t consider Overcooked glitchy but if we spend a lot of time dashing into each other and occasionally found our chefs stuck in weird places. Also, dashes look like farting. We figured that was intentional.
The music throughout Overcooked is hands down the best background music in any game I’ve played. I love Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario, but Overcooked takes the cake for background music.
A minor complaint is the ingredient icons. Some are hard to tell apart. They could have made each item more distinct color. But again, this is minor.
Otherwise the graphics are great. They make good use of the screen. It isn’t zoomed out or too busy. We had no issues with losing track of our character or items because of the graphics.
Comparable Games
Overcooked is similar to Moving Out 2, Out of Space, Lumberhill, and Very Very Valet to name a few. All of these games are made for up to 4 players that work as a team.
Overcooked is similar to Lumberhill and Very Very Valet in that you have to fill individual orders before they time out plus each round is timed. There are levels in which you can fall off, which is annoying but Lumberhill is the most annoying on this score.
Overcooked requires more co-ordination than Moving Out in my experience. Each player has to work at specific tasks, unlike Moving Out where there’s one task, moving items. Overcooked has preparing, cooking, serving, and cleaning dishes. You need to work as a team to clear the level.
Overcooked is similar to Out of Space as far as a challenge goes. If you don’t shy away from a struggle, these two games are for you. They both keep you running around doing jobs but Out of Space doesn’t have any timers.
Review Summary
Our Overcooked review gives it 9 out of 10 stars. It’s one of our favorite games. Who would have thought working in a kitches was sa much fun?
We never get bored playing any of the versions. I thought some of the space, ice, and lava levels were harder with 4 players. But having to play a few levels with 2 players didn’t ruin the game.
The graphics didn’t cause any problems and the music is top notch. I found the gameplay engaging and the storyline interesting.
Overcooked has a lot to offer. There’s also newer versions of this game which we reviewed. Overall, Overcooked is top notch fun to play with friends or family.
Overcooked! review brought to you by David M.
I’m David M. I’ve been playing video games a long time, my pong game was fire. Now, my kids run circles around me but we always have a good time. We mostly play party and family games. Strategy and battle games are still among my favorites. I like writing about games almost as much as I do playing them. My favorite games are: Moving Out 2, Out of Space and Overcooked All You Can Eat.
