Order Up! - Nintendo Wii review

Can you smell what the Wii is cooking?

7 November 2008 16:00 GMT / By Stuart Miles

It seems you can't turn on the television these days without yet another cooking programme. So will a cooking game on the Wii work? We get sizzling to find out.

While Cooking Mama on the Nintendo Wii was well received, where there is one, there is always a second, and in steps Order Up! a cooking game that sees you manage various kitchens as you train to become a master chef.

It might sound like a bad episode of Ready Steady Cook, but you've got to manage the orders, cook the food and then build your restaurant to become a success. Throughout the game there are a series of goals that need to be met like recipes you can cook and the cleanliness of your kitchen.

Using the Wii Remote (and Nunchuck if you like although it’s not a necessity), the main crux of the gameplay is to cut, boil, and cook your way through a service. As with a real kitchen everything is about timing. The quicker you crack this, the more success you will have and the points system is based on meeting set times to make the perfect Chilli Con Carne or Burger. Mess it up and the customers start complaining, you don't earn as much cash, meaning you can't buy new kit or hire staff to help you out.

As you grow and the money starts piling in, the simple cooking of burgers soon turns into managing staff and the game grows, taking on a new slant that keeps it fresh. Of course once you've cracked one restaurant you get to move on to another and while there are differences, i.e., the food you cook, the crux of the game remains the same: keeping the customers happy.

To mix things up a bit you can head down to the farmers market to improve your recipes (mainly with spices) and the more creative you are the bigger the rewards (although you are limited with your creativity).

Verdict

Grumbles? We had trouble grabbing and using the ingredients, but this is probably more to do with our inability to use the Wii Remote correctly than a fault of the game - it seems we can't hand peel lettuce, but are a demon slicing tomatoes.

Overall this is a really fun title that surprisingly garnered our attention for a lot longer than we expected. The fact that this game gets kids thinking about cooking food is great.

What's cooking? It seems Order Up!

Score

Review Recap

Made by: Nintendo
Price as reviewed: £29.99
The good: Fun tasks, ease of use
The bad: Like the real thing, cooking in a restaurant can become dull
Quick verdict: The fact that this game gets kids thinking about cooking food is great
Score