Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Title: Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!
Developer: Vertigo Gaming Inc.
Publisher: Vertigo Gaming
Website: http://www.vertigogaming.net/main/portfolio/cook-serve-delicious-2/
Genre: Simulation, Strategy
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Audience: Mild Language, Mild Violence, Alcohol
Release Date: Out Now
Price: £12.99 – Rapid Reviews UK were very kindly provided with a review code for this title.

What the Developers say

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! is the massive sequel to the surprise best selling original, one of the few games that gives players complete control on how they want to build their restaurant.

Features include:

A 60+ hour experience as you build your restaurant from a roach infested eatery to a World Class Platinum Star experience by either running your own restaurant or branching out as a chef for hire, where you take jobs within the tower and various restaurants as you gain experience with the large array of foods, which spans 400 levels across 33 restaurants!

All new gameplay features and additions, with a greater flexibility of difficulty for those who like it casual or insanely difficult.

New local co-op mode! The all new split screen co-op feature allows you to play through the entire game with two players, with the ability for players to drop in and out during your progress within the game.

Design your restaurant with over 1,200 unlockable objects.

Introduction

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! is a unique cooking simulator that takes you on a journey through many kitchens. You’ll get your hands on many different types of cuisine. Your task is to become a respectable Chef and raise your star rating to attract more customers and gain more dishes to add to your ever-growing menu!

Audio and Visual

Music in Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! has a range of different tunes to listen to while your cooking. Each music track is different in each of the 33 restaurants, giving you something different to listen to during each shift. There’s also a lot of sound effects like people talking and the clattering of plates and food being prepared. It sounds quite realistic which makes the experience a lot more believable.

Music is your typical fare of tunes that you would hear in any fast food joint or high-class restaurant. Due to the shifts being short during work hours songs don’t become tedious or annoying listen to. All of the sound effects, cooking, boiling and chopping, are good and make you feel as though you are chief preparing food.

Visually, Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! is pretty decent, especially the food items which all look delicious and incredibly edible. All your favourite meals, sides desserts and entrees are present here, I’ve counted over 200+ food items that you’ll be able to make, prepare and sell to your customers. Graphics are 2D, but they do their job pretty well. As each type of food item looks very realistic and the process of making food is also very realistic which enchants the experience and pushes it a lot higher than most other cooking games in the genre.

The overall presentation and HUD are clear but the text for most of the food is really small which can be sometimes unreadable if sitting far back from the TV screen.

Gameplay and Replayability

Gameplay in Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! is pretty interesting. You start as a low-grade Chef after losing your job at a very prestigious joint. The only way you’re getting back on top is to climb the ladder of success and rebuild the famous Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! restaurant. So go forth with a new attitude and earn money to start anew as you work hard to gain your reputation back at many different restaurants.

Your goal is to earn enough cash to build your own restaurant and learn some new recipes that you can add to your menu to generate buzz within the community. It isn’t going to be easy though as you need to build a new exciting menu, learn how to make and prepare each one of 200+ food items perfectly — satisfying customers and earning BIG bucks in the process.

Working nine to five!

And this is where you’ll begin to learn how to make each new meal by working through a brief tutorial before setting your focus on multiple jobs within different restaurant chains within a huge tower. Will you work at MAX Wieners and prepare hotdogs for the day? Or maybe you fancy yourself as ice cream wizard, if so, may I suggest the Chilly Bowl? Or perhaps you want something more challenging to cook then what about heading down to a Chinese Food restaurant and prepare squid for your guests?

There are 33 restaurants you can choose to work at. As you progress through one of the 400 levels and challenges, you will unlock more jobs and places to work at. Each job/restaurant has several challenges to complete, completing them will reward you with medals and unlock new food items for your menu, and new decorations for your own restaurant.

There is a total of 1,200 unlockable objects to collect as you progress through main campaign, as well as multiple medals for achieving certain objectives during your shifts. You select either standard shifts where you can earn bronze, silver or gold medals doing, completing challenges or you can select Zen shifts which make customer wait times infinite. Meaning they won’t leave even if you take too long to prepare their request. This is an excellent mode if you want a more relaxing experience.

My restaurant!

So time to create your perfect restaurant with the money you’ve earned during other jobs. Need menu that’s going stand out so why not purchase multiple different types of food and drink from the food catalogue. Each food has different price and positives and negative effects in making and cooking them. Picking the right kind of items for your menu will generate buzz meaning new customers and good ratings which will increase your overall star rating. But wait there’s more… not only will you be creating a new menu but also a place where people can come to relax, unwind and eat of course.

Clicking on the designer tab takes you into your construct screen. Here you can place walls, flooring, windows as well as lighting, objects and many other decorations. You can create your very own space, and it’s a nice inclusion. There are 1,200 objects to unlock which gives you a lot of stuff keep playing for. You can also have a max of 8 slots to create eight different restaurants in if you so wish to.

While this feature is an excellent inclusion, the implementation is a little wonky, and some of the interfaces are made overly challenging to use – which is a shame. Deleting things is overly complicated for no reason. It’s a small con on what’s otherwise a great little option to get creative. There’s other useful information in the main menu such as emails that keep you informed on the general buzz of your restaurant and other new items, objects that become available. It’s best to keep a close eye on emails to keep you informed on what’s going on. You can also re-check tutorials here if you need a refresher.

The Tower – Cook School!

One thing that makes Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! unique is its mechanics for preparing and serving food to the masses.

Step 1: Holding stations.

To start any shift you must prepare food. There are four holding stations located at the top of your HUD. These allow you to make food in advance – Which cuts down on wait times and lets you fill four stations with four different types of food. However, each food type within these stations has sell-by-dates which deplete over time. Once food has gone bad or you run out of it, you can either re-make it or throw it in the bin. You can select different types of food with the A button and cycle through 3 pages. The menu is located to the right of the screen.

Step 2: Cooking.

When a customer approaches the counter, their order will appear in a bar located on the left-hand side of the screen. There are 6 order slots available, and orders will line up here. To start cooking, you need to select an item with the direction pad and press the Y button to start the order.

Note: if your order is left for too long, it will begin to shrink meaning the customer is about to leave. If you can complete the action before it shrinks the customer will be served. Completing multiple orders this way will grant you a combo which results in gaining more points and the possibility that you’ll receive a medal at the end of your shift.

Step 3: completing meal.

Each food item requires different inputs with triggers, bumpers and button inputs. These will be shown on the food items which are clearly displayed. Also at the bottom of the screen is a check-list of the current order being cooked. Completing this order to a tee will make the customer happy with his or her food, and you earn perfect, average or a bad rating depending on how efficient you were at completing order correctly. After the meal is complete, tap the B button to send the order out, and the process continues. It sounds difficult at first but thanks to the tutorial and the ability to practice any food item you’ve unlocked, you can prepare for all situations.

Time it!

One thing I should mention is that every food item has a specific timer attached to it. Each food is different, and some will take longer to cook than others. While some may take multiple steps to complete, others may be completed in one step. More complicated food earns you more money but takes longer to cook, which may lead to customers leaving or rating your service bad which could affect your star rating.

So pick and choose what’s suitable for your restaurant. I went with fast foods that I could make easily without too much time wasted on one order. Also, you will have to do other duties including catching rats, putting down roach traps, washing dishes, putting out the rubbish as well as having bathroom breaks. These challenges will appear during your shifts, so there’s going to be a lot of multitasking needed.

Helping hand!

While I didn’t get to play this too much during my time with Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! there’s also a 2-player co-op option available for you and friend to work together to complete shifts. You can play the single player campaign with a local co-op partner. If you enter the co-op option, you can select co-op play and choose one of the many chiefs available, then exit and return to the single player with an extra pair of hands. Having a sous chef helping out is an excellent inclusion, and each person can do all the things that were possible in single player. It makes some of the difficult cooking tasks a lot more manageable, and it is a great laugh to work with a friend or family member.

Handheld is where it’s at!

My biggest complaint is it’s ok on the bigger screen, but the smaller text and button inputs can be slow during services. If you want to experience fast, quick services, then use the Switch in handheld mode, and experience Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! how it was meant to be played. It’s just a better experience, and touching the screen is quicker and more fluid than the clunky control inputs of Joy-Cons or the Pro controller.

Conclusion

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! is a really enjoyable cooking game. With a massive array of food items to cook and prepare, over 1,200 objects to unlock for your very own restaurant, 33 restaurant chains to work at and over 400 levels to complete. Also, the extra cherry on the cake is the local co-op option which great to play with friends and family.

There a lot of challenges in Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! and many different cooking methods to learn but it’s an enjoyable take on the cooking simulator genre. There’s a lot of content on offer, and I could easily see many people putting in many hours trying to unlock everything on offer. There are a few little issues like the repetitive nature of the title and poor implementation of the designer feature which doesn’t feel great using a controller set up.

Furthermore, some text is too small to read if playing on a big TV and sitting far away from the screen. But these minor issues don’t detract from the overall experience. If you love cooking games and want to open your own virtual restaurant and create your dream menu then feel free to live that dream in Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!.

Rapid Reviews UK Rating

You can purchase Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! from the Nintendo eShop on the following link,https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Cook-Serve-Delicious-2–1536015.html