Order Up!
	Genre: Casual Developer: Super Villain Studios
Publisher Region Released Zoo Digital Publishing NA 07/22/2008

Your Account Options

You currently have no privileges related to this game profile because you are not signed into an HonestGamers account. Please log in, or click to register for a free user account.

More Reviews by Jason Venter
	Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland (PlayStation 3) There’s an astonishing level of complexity on display everywhere you turn, so you might have to wait until your second or third trip through the game before try...
	Kingdom Rush (iPad) Kingdom Rush is the perfect showpiece for Apple’s famous tablet, by virtue of thoroughly competent and refined design that typically is preserved for the...
	Revenge of the Titans (PC) Compounding that particular issue is the fact that it’s difficult to see very far. The perspective is close enough to the ground that you can easily see detail...
	Little King's Story (Wii) Your royal guard has a tendency to get caught up on fences, on the edge of buildings and so forth. By the time you’re commanding a group of 17 soldiers, it’s a...
	Ridge Racer (Vita) In Ridge Racer, though, none of the tracks—even the two bonus ones—include more than a few corners that you might call “sharp.” Old Town, one of the adde...

Best Wii Games
	Okami Average Rating: 9.5; Reviews: 2
	Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition Average Rating: 9.3; Reviews: 3
	Super Mario Galaxy Average Rating: 9.1; Reviews: 9
	The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Average Rating: 9.0; Reviews: 3
	Sin & Punishment: Star Successor Average Rating: 9.0; Reviews: 2
	World of Goo Average Rating: 9.0; Reviews: 2
	No More Heroes Average Rating: 8.5; Reviews: 6
	Sonic Colors Average Rating: 8.5; Reviews: 4
	Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Average Rating: 8.5; Reviews: 2
	Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 Average Rating: 8.5; Reviews: 2

Looking for a good read?
Check out a selection from our database of more than 8000 reviews! honestgamer has weighed in on Destroy All Humans!: Big Willy Unleashed for the Wii and figures it rates 6 out of 10. What do you think? Read the review, then be sure to leave feedback or chime in with one of your own!

Staff Review

Review by Jason Venter
August 01, 2008

During a plane ride over the island of Port Abello, a chef suddenly finds himself falling through a hole in the floor. He lands in a rubbish heap far below, a castaway in a strange seaside town with nothing to call his own but his floppy chef hat. Ever the resourceful fellow, he applies for--and is hired for--a job at the local fast food joint. When taxes and other things take away everything he worked to earn, though, he takes advantage of a bank loan and opens up his own restaurant.

Order Up! is the story of that plucky little chef--or chefette--and his (or her) quest to build a culinary empire. It may strike you as generic at a glance, but give it a chance and you'll find that the game has a lot of heart. Terrific artwork, fun challenges and a great sense of humor combine to create a satisfying digital feast, just so long as you don't gorge yourself all at once.

Gameplay is divided into six basic areas. The first is a simple tutorial stage. There, you'll learn the art of in-game cooking. It's not comprehensive training, but it's enough to prepare you for how the bulk of the game's remainder will transpire. Once you're satisfied that you can handle things pretty well, you can progress to that first restaurant you purchased. Advancing after that requires satisfying five objectives--always the same, despite scenery changes and increasing difficulty--until you've finally purchased four eateries and turned them all into something special. Then there's a final competition between various chefs before the game ends.

The first few hours of play are a total blast as you spend your earnings on restaurant upgrades, spices, recipes and additional workers. You can even try your luck at a random jackpot to improve your earnings potential. Even if your interest in such customization wanes, they're simply a brief prelude to the main event: the cooking!

When you step into your restaurant, herds of customers soon follow and your server rushes out to greet them. He or she then returns with the list of dishes you must prepare. The number varies, mostly based on how many stars you've built up for your little restaurant by satisfying simple objectives. You can tackle the incoming orders in any order you like, or even all at once, since there are various stages to each one.

As an example, hamburger preparation includes tossing a patty on the grill, chopping up some tomatoes and crisping some fries in the deep fat fryer. You can do all of this simultaneously, provided you have enough space and dexterity. The different processes each require different amounts of time to complete even when things are at their best. Though it's easy to switch between stations on the fly, the Wii Remote gestures required to accomplish some tasks (such as cutting sheets of pasta into tiny squares, or hacking apart a bunch of beef) can get you hung up if you rush excessively. Controls are for the most part satisfactory and you'll rarely drop a rating because they were unresponsive, but sometimes things do feel quite hectic.

Fortunately, you can assign specific roles to hired help if you're confident in their abilities to perform the duties correctly. The different folks you hire possess different skills. Some keep customers happy as they wait and others can fry like nobody's business. Their assistance is always welcome, but you can't rely on them because too often they'll hold you back from getting a 'perfect' rating on a given dish. Order Up! requires you to balance all of those factors on the fly, to quickly jump in and out of one task after another with precision and intelligence. Then everything starts bubbling or sizzling and you have to grab all of the goodies before they scorch or burn. It might not sound like much when you see it written here, but it's quite exhilarating.

Then spices come along to add another variable to the mix. These allow you to increase the size of your tips if you match them to the proper patrons. For example, there's a gassy old man without any real sense of smell who likes foods with a powerful aroma, plus a boy with almost no teeth who is delighted when you dump sugar in his meal... no matter what it might be. Other customers offer similar rewards if you cook their food a certain way, such as the cowboy who wants you to burn everything almost to a crisp or the Dracula-like character who likes everything served in raw form.

Knowing your customers will definitely help you through the game, and there are a lot of them to learn. There's a pretty decent variety of stereotypes represented here, including a vegetable-loving whiner and a snide spinstress. As you'll soon find, though, there aren't quite enough. Most of them come with an impressive stable of one-liners that they'll spout as they walk to their tables or interact with your waiters, but it isn't long before those start repeating. As you move to fancier restaurants, a lot of the same group of eaters follows you around.

Despite the solid selection of dishes on hand, cooking for the same motley assortment can get old after awhile and the game doesn't really offer much relief. About the only exceptions are a few mini-games. One has you flicking rats that run along the screen. Another has you quickly scrubbing plates under the eye of the watchful health inspector. Then there are the ones where you must move the Wii Remote to shake your workers awake when the going gets tough. These are nice diversions that fit the humorous cooking theme quite well, but there simply aren't enough of them to entirely dispel the monotony that is inherent to a title of this nature.

Rather than cushion that flaw, the developers made some design decisions that worsen its impact. There are times where you have to fly through several days of cooking just to save up enough coins to purchase a new stove or some deluxe recipes required to satisfy certain objectives. This is true even if you're getting a 'perfect' grade and bonuses on each dish you prepare, since the costly items near the game's end are overpriced by an unfair margin. Presumably, those things were meant to pad the game and provide more lasting value, but instead they just dilute what's already there.

Such flaws can be overlooked if you're in the right mood, but they're still disappointing. Another few restaurants and three or four times the distinct patrons could have made Order Up! really special, but that's all stuff that we'll have to put on our wish list for a possible sequel. In the meantime, what we got this time around is a fun game if you play it for an hour or two at a time and then let it sit for awhile. If you're okay with that, its strengths warrant a possible purchase. Otherwise, look for it the next time you're ready to rent.

Feedback

Facebook()

Forums(0)

You can click the tabs on the above bar to choose whether you wish to read comments from visitors who have posted on Facebook, or from registered site users who have left feedback on the forums. Please leave a comment of your own if you have anything to say!

Info | Help | Privacy Policy | Contact | Advertise

© 1998-2012 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site--from reviews, guides, cheats and editorials to message board posts--may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Order Up! is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to Order Up!, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors.