Overcooked is an excellent co-op cooking game that goes well beyond the perfunctory “Hey, here’s a set of switches we need to both use” kinds of design. You need to think ahead, talk out duties and adapt to the ever-changing orders being sent your way — not to mention the literal shape of your kitchen.
You can technically play Overcooked alone, but you’d likely never want to. The solo play is a bit of a technicality; you’re given control of two chefs and need to use a button to switch between them. It’s an inadequate presentation of a game clearly meant for at least two people. Relying on the efforts of others to make it through is the whole fun of it, and once you rope at least one other person in it feels like you’re on an episode of Hell’s Kitchen in the best way. You run around the kitchen from an overhead perspective, scrambling from station to station trying to keep your orders straight and your body out of the other cooks’ way while you prep them. You’ll be rhyming out orders to your partners as quickly and matter-of-factly as possible: “two patties, two buns, one lettuce, one onion!”
Each action around the kitchen is a single button press, from picking up ingredients to chopping them or slapping them down on a plate. The real challenge and unique tone of Overcooked lies in the small steps that make up your cooking routine and the timings needed to make everything work together. OK, you made that tomato soup on time…but is there a clean plate to serve it on? Did getting ahead on that soup mean a burger had to burn on the far side on the kitchen? The sensation of trying to manage a kitchen service feels panicked and authentic in its chaos, and it’s a legitimate satisfaction when you’re able to take control of it.
The controls are mostly responsive and effective, and that’s a big comfort since each stage takes place against the clock. You can perform a dash that’s a little tricky to master but really pays off once you do, shaving precious seconds off of each trip around the kitchen. Sometimes the dash or minor movements can feel a little finicky, particularly on the more gimmicky stages that restrict your free space — the inside of a volcano perhaps, or on arctic tundra with an ice flow splitting the kitchen down the middle. These locations are imaginative but have a less pure and interesting sense of challenge to them. They can bring other little eccentricities to the surface, like the game’s tendency to plop items on the square next to the one your character seems to face directly. This can be an issue for picking up ingredients from their designated bins as well — and sometimes there’s seven or more bins, clustered next to each other and primed for misunderstanding. Little problems like this can feel bigger in the pressure cooker of Overcooked’s intense, time-limited gameplay.
Overcooked is short; my wife and I finished the game and earned all the stars in each stage in well under ten hours. A basic versus mode provides a competitive alternative to the campaign, but it’s the barest of bones. A co-op survival mode or variations on recipes to get a handle on post-game would’ve been nice. But it’s tough to argue that what is there isn’t a whole lot of fun. If you’ve got others to share it with, it’s some of the most unusual and undiluted fun of the year — even if that fun is over all too soon.