By: Natalia Gercheva & Persephone Pond
‘Overcooked’ is a cooperative multiplayer game (up to four players, split screen or online) in which you work together to cook delicious recipes for hungry customers. ‘Overcooked 1’ was released in August in 2016, and just 2 years later in 2018, the sequel came out. Over the course of these two years, and a few years after, Ghost Town Games, the developers of the ‘Overcooked’ games, steadily released extra levels to extend and provide more ‘Overcooked’ content. In this article, we will be analyzing and informing you about the levels, strategies, and overall story of these fun games.
The plotline In ‘Overcooked 1’ includes a giant spaghetti monster, an Onion King, and a dog named Kevin. In the prologue/tutorial level, you face the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but to your dismay, you and your fellow chefs are unable to feed him enough to extinguish his appetite. The Onion King and his loyal dog Kevin are present at this initial event, and when they see you’re losing, they teleport you back in time to improve your culinary skills in hopes you’ll be capable of conquering this ancient evil.
‘Overcooked 2’ starts off with the same Onion King and his dog Kevin, who discovered the Necronomnom-icon, an ancient cookbook full of evil curses and recipes. By reading from this book, the Onion King accidentally summons an army of undead bread: the Unbread. You and your fellow chefs must cook your way through the dystopian land in order to defeat the Unbread Army.
The games consist of a multitude of levels that change based on the theme of each recipe included. As you travel the lands, there are different biomes, and in each biome, the recipe you’re cooking changes. The game uses a 3 star point system and each level is timed, and your score coincides with how many stars you get on any given level. All your stars from prior levels add up, and some levels further on have specific star requirements for you to play, thus the importance of doing well. Each biome also includes a specialized type of obstacle, such as sliding counters or rotating platforms. There are also a few different game modes you can choose from, such as campaign, verses, and arcade.
There are 6 biomes in ‘Overcooked 1’, and for the most part, each biome consists of 6 levels, with a few exceptions. The first biome is a basic desert/restaurant, mostly for tutorial reasons. This biome consists of many rising and falling floors, which prove to be difficult. The recipes you make in this biome consists of soup and burgers, which are the more basic and simple recipes.
The second biome is a pirate ship, in which the recipes don’t change from the first biome. The pirate ships cause counters to slide back and forth, making it difficult to access cutting boards and ingredients.
The third biome is an ice-y sea, where the kitchen is on an iceberg. The icebergs are incredibly slippery, and it’s very difficult to move without falling into the water, in which case you die and take five seconds to respawn. The recipe for this biome is fish and chips.
The fourth biome is a dark forest, where the kitchen is located in a haunted mansion. You learn to cook pizzas, and continue practicing making burgers and soup. The counters love to fly around and block your path, making navigation frustrating.
The fifth set of levels is a trade off between a space station, and a lava filled volcano. The space station introduces a new obstacle, which is the passing of ingredients through a small room controlled by a button, and the lava level has you running across small bridges to get to parts of the kitchen, and you have to be careful to not fall into the lava. You learn how to make burritos.
The sixth and final set of levels is a bit different – you travel to the hardest kitchen from each biome stated, and the sixth level in the set is the boss fight, in which you cook everything you’ve learned, and (hopefully) defeat the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
In ‘Overcooked 2’ there are quite a few similarities and differences with the first game. There is less organization in terms of biome matching to the set of levels, as there are more biomes and variation in the second game. The new biomes consist of: a sushi restaurant with converter belts where you learn to make sushi, a hot air balloon where you learn the ways of pasta, rapids in which the kitchen is located on a raft where you make chicken and fries, the mines where you make burritos, a magical wizard world with portals where you make delicious pancakes and cakes, and an alien planet where you practice former recipes. There are also two swamp biome levels where you continue practicing the same recipes, while being faced with new obstacles such as wind pushing you.
Each set of levels consist of a variety of these biomes and recipes. In addition to these normal levels, ‘Overcooked 2’ provides an extra six levels which are secret and have to be unlocked. These levels are Kevin levels. Kevin, the dog, wants you to suffer greatly, as he introduces dumplings in very well designed kitchens that make these levels very difficult. These secret levels aren’t required for the completion of the game, but they’re a fun add on that makes the game fun.
Both ‘Overcooked 1’ and ‘Overcooked 2’ are available for purchase on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. You can buy these games separately, but there’s also a package deal, ‘Overcooked: All You Can Eat’, which includes both games and all sixteen DLCs.
The major difference between buying the two games separately and the package is that in ‘Overcooked: All You Can Eat’, you get twenty-two DLC packages, each containing six to ten new levels to play. With the extended package, you also get more and new chefs to play as, new game modes, and more versus levels. ‘Overcooked: All You Can Eat’ contains so much more material than the two games separately, the only downside is that ‘Overcooked 1’ tends to run easier. In the extended version, ‘Overcooked 1’ adapts some of the graphics and aspects of gameplay that makes it feel a bit easy compared to buying the game separately, which is much more challenging to play through. This is a minor difference, and it doesn’t affect the game other than a slight change in difficulty level.
Overall, the ‘Overcooked’ games are both great unique video game options to play. Working collaboratively with your friends to advance through levels in a non-violent, yet competitive atmosphere is a really fun experience. ‘Overcooked’ might just even teach you how to better communicate with your teammates, or teach you something about cooking too!
In the end, both ‘Overcooked’ games get a 10/10.
