Have you always wanted to be a world-renowned chef, but opted for another career instead? You can finally make your wish come true with Order Up!!. In this cooking game created by SuperVillain Games, you’re playing as an ambitious chef who’s starting at the bottom of the ladder in a shack serving hamburgers and fries, who makes his or her own way up to own a world-renowned restaurant.

Order Up!! has been out since 2008 on the Wii. The PlayStation 3 version (available on both the PSN and as a regular game disc) is an enhanced port of the Wii version and has a few new features: a local multiplayer mode, a new restaurant, and even 3D support!

Order Up!! PlayStation 3 Launch Trailer

The core gameplay of this game takes place in multiple restaurants while you have to deliver meal orders to your customers. Of course, orders vary in complexity the classier your restaurant is. You start serving easy-to-do hamburgers and fries, and soon get to handle a restaurant serving varied meals like fish and fries or pancakes. By serving a lot of people, getting enough money, recruiting cook helpers and finally impressing a critic, your restaurant will get a 5 stars rating, and will yield you the right to purchase a higher-class one. Your ultimate goal is to get 5 stars in all restaurants of the game.

One of the things I liked the most, besides the gameplay being surprisingly fun and addictive, is that each play session takes between 10 and 15 minutes, which is perfect for a quick play session!

As for the gameplay itself, you’ll be using your DualShock 3 or PlayStation Move to actually make the dishes. For instance, if your customer wants a hamburger with fries and liquor, you’ll place a steak patty on the grill. While it’s grilling (you’ll have to turn it over half-way though cooking), you’ll start the fries in the frier and fill the drink.

Gameplay quickly becomes micro-managing multiple orders at the same time while giving tasks to your helpers and keeping track of when a specific food item will be ready so you can complete an order. You must be thinkful while completing orders because when you receive 4 orders at the same time, you have to make sure they all get their meals hot (food temperature decreases when they’ve been completed for too long). But wait, that’s not all: each regular customer has it’s own taste in food, so you’ll have to carefully remember how to spice everyone’s order; and if you forget food while it’s cooking, it’ll catch on fire and burn your kitchen….! After a few hours in, you’ll actually feel (stressed) like a real chef!

I haven’t tried PS Move support as I only have a few DualShock 3 controllers at home. I played the game using them and the gestures needed for preparing food items are generally very intuitive. However, I don’t know if it’s a glitch with the DS3 controllers (I tried 2 of them), but processing a few food items needs to be so precise, it almost seems broken: I would always miss those items until I gave them to my cook helpers (I’m pretty sure this doesn’t happen with the PS Move controls though). This is frustrating, and because most helpers are not as good as you are, you’ll get “good” food items (average quality) while you would easily be able to make “perfect” (best quality) items, thus yielding larger tips.

Final thoughts
I didn’t know what to expect when I first started to play but it turns out it’s a fun and addictive game that kept me hooked a few hours later than usual! With a lot of helpers to hire, restaurants to unlock and critics to impress, this small game has a lot of to offer. If you’re playing with PlayStation Move, I’m pretty sure you won’t have the issues I encountered with DualShock 3 controllers and you’ll enjoy the game to its full potential!

[review pros=”Addictive gameplay
Gaming sessions ranging from 10 to 15 minutes” cons=”DualShock 3 controls on some food items” score=78]

Cost: $14.99
You can purchase Order Up!! from the PlayStation Network or from Amazon.com.

Disclaimer
Total amount of time played: 10 hours.

This review is based off of a retail copy of the game provided by Ignition Entertainment