Preview

Order Up! Simulates Kitchen Life Without The Inherent D-Baggery

May 16, 2008

Lee Cummings, the creative director at Green Screen Interactive, left his gig at Rockstar with the intention of checking out of the games industry altogether and becoming a chef. He never made it to culinary school, but he did end up developing a game focused around a restaurant kitchen in Order Up! During our preview session it became pretty clear that the subject matter for the title is flat out fucking weird. Which, of course, makes it look like kind of a good time.

Slaving over a Fry-o-lator and managing a team of AI sous chefs that range from culinary specialists to a monkey wearing a hair net doesn’t really make a lot sense. But it’s a Wii exclusive (and Cummings’ first title for the platform), so anything goes. Since he had a producer credit for San Andreas on his resume we had to ask if there was any nastiness reminiscent of working in a kitchen like grease burns, unfortunate disfigurement via the meat slicer or, at the very least, an assistant chef with a raging cocaine addiction.

Unfortunately, the answer is, “no” across the boards. The game revolves around the basic premise of a restaurant. Patrons walk in to your joint and you cook the meals as quickly and properly as possible with the help of two assistants. The game progresses as you work you way up from running a small diner to a five-star establishment, amassing cash tips and passing muster with the local food critic. As you move up the food gets harder and harder to cook. The fact that you have to get all the orders for any particular table out at the same time before they cool off adds to the challenge.

For those readers who have never worked in the food service industry, this is no small task. And yes, until you serve a fellow human a meal, you are probably a bourgeois douchebag. By its nature the game isn’t for everyone. Some people hate to cook. Some people like to get blazed out of their gourd and fire up the Wii. Order Up! will find a small market somewhere in between. At the very least it’s respectable that Cummings designed a game around a passion. It would have been nice to see at least one gameplay mechanic focused around staunching a severed artery. But that would make it a little tough to hold onto the “E” rating.

Order Up! hits shelves July 22nd, published on Green Screen’s Zoo Games label.