Plusses and Minuses: Order Up!

Massouken on August 11th, 2008

Have you ever wanted to feel the tedium, depression, and the unflinching sense that you’re slowly wasting your life away that comes with working in a kitchen cooking greasy cheeseburgers for the morbidly obese? Thanks to Order Up!, you can experience being a failure two-fold: By spending money on this game and by filling the virtual shoes of a short-order cook destined to slave away wearing a sweat-streaked chef’s apron for meager tips and fleeting satisfaction. In fact, this game may be a cleverly -designed viral marketing campaign against meat, the fast food industry, the Wii, Nintendo, and video games in general in disguise. I can’t imagine anyone wanting anything to do with any of that after playing Order Up. I’m convinced that the developers were single-handedly attempting to suck the joy out all of the above. For what purpose, you ask? I dare not fathom the depths of their devilish devices, and neither should you. But for what it’s worth: Mission Accomplished.

Order Up! starts you at the bottom of the food service industry totem pole, cooking basic meals at low-class eateries, and tasks you with climbing the lard-slick ladder to success. Sadly, success here is merely being forced to do the same thing you were doing before for more money and recognition – like real life but much, much less fun. Order Up!’s game play exploits the Wii’s motion sensing controllers and makes you waggle your way through various recipes ordered by walking, talking stereotypes (a salty fishing boat captain wearing a cap who yells, “Arrr Matey!” As a salty fishing boat captain myself, I take great umbrage to the inclusion of such a poorly-developed, one-dimensional character…Arrr). If they order a cheeseburger, for example, be prepared to cook and flip the meat, dunk the fries into grease, pull apart the lettuce, etc. You’re graded on your fake chef competency, but the only satisfaction you’ll get from making a perfect burger is that you’re qualified to work at McDonalds. Congratulations!

Eventually, your hard work will pay off. As the tip money (for speedy, efficient cooking) and Gold Stars (for getting an A+ in finger-painting? What the fuck!) roll in, you’ll be able to buy new cooking equipment, hire assistants to boss around in your hellish kitchen, and unlock complicated recipes for the more discerning customers. Of course, that’s assuming you’ll last that long. Playing this game for more than 30 minutes leads to such abject despair that you’ll be lucky if you don’t run to the medicine cabinet and down a bunch of pills to dull the excruciating pain of knowing you just wasted the last half hour of your life on what is essentially Cooking Mama: For Dummies. Bon apetite!

Plusses

Wow, this is going to be tough….The art style is colorful and attractive, even if its sole purpose is to make you drop your guard and open yourself up to the game’s silly premise and poor game play.

Um……you can return this game and get some cash back, trade it in for something good (like Blast Works), or foist it onto a niece or nephew, though this is viewed as child abuse in 48 out of 50 states (what the fuck, Iowa and Wyoming?).

….I got nothing.

Minuses

This is essentially a Cooking Mama clone, which is the very last game I’d expect a developer to want to ape. Whose bright idea was it to bring the “joys” of a thankless minimum wage job to a video game console, anyway? What’s next: A game about coding a game? It’ll sell millions!

The actual cooking is repetitive and mindless…which means, they got something right. Waggling your way through the recipes is overly simple and requires minimal skill. If you have even the most basic and rudimentary comprehension abilities, you’ll be able to cook every recipe to near-perfection. The 7-to-9 year old demographic will eat this game up! Everyone else would probably rather get an actual job in a kitchen. At least it pays, right?

Yet another throwaway Wii game to add to its already mediocre software line-up. It’s as if developers are purposely churning out shitty games in a concentrated effort to make the Wii the laughingstock of the industry. Though not quite shovelware, Order Up! still manages to offend and infuriate. Why bother with Order Up! when you could go into your own kitchen, cook up a nice meal, and play a good game (No, not Cooking Mama!) instead?