Overcooked! All You Can Eat (PS4 & PS5)

The Ultimate game of Skill and Skillet

Overcooked! All You Can Eat is the ultimate version of Overcooked bringing both Overcooked! and Overcooked! 2 and all DLC into one nice packaged and updated for both PS4 & PS5. Now at the time of writing this, I cannot comment on the PS5 version of the game. Due to a bug or another issue with my copy of the game I was unable to run the PS5 version of it. Now considering the PS5 is still fairly new and many issues ironing out the different versions of these games is still a work in progress, it is something I have experienced with other games that have a PS5 upgrade so hopefully, this is an issue that will fix itself over time.

Overcooked! is a game that has passed me by and is one that I cannot give a good enough reason as to why. If like me you have never played Overcooked! then the premise is simple you take the role of one of many chefs with the goal of making meals in a kitchen with a twist. The Onion Kingdom is under attack from a giant monster made of food with an incredible appetite. To face this formidable foe you must toughen your culinary skills to the best they can be. You take control of a Chef and must start by prepping meals using the ingredients from the appropriately labelled bin, chop them, fry them, serve them while making sure the meals don’t stay on the stove too long enough to cause a fire as well as washing the dishes for the next batch of meals to go out. You switch between two Chefs doing this and can be played either single-player or multiplayer online. Sounds simple enough right? Well at first glance yes, the stages appear quite simple but then more obstacles become apparent and things can get quite complicated and crazy. Each stage design brings new elements in which can alter the level of crazy cooking to eleven. For example one of the earlier stages requires you to cook within the middle of a crossing, a strange place to set up by any means. While cooking you are forced to deal with pedestrians crossing through, some of which are painfully slow requiring you to alter and time your movements and as you can imagine it can get crazy chaotic having to send a chef across the street to put out a fire due whilst waiting for a stream of pedestrians to go about their daily business. Other instances include on a boat where most of the stage moves from side to side forcing you to take a slightly inconvenient detour and a stage where the corridors are narrow and not allowing you to pass each other.

Playing alone in Overcooked! is a completely viable option but just know the number of varying things you must do can become overwhelming, this is why Overcooked! is best played online or with friends. The online feature isn’t as fair as you would imagine either, I tried matchmaking but was put into a match with two players on the opposing team while I was left to fend on my own, I’m not sure if this was intentional because I had to team up with someone with before matchmaking. The offline Story mode can easily be done solo but it definitely isn’t as fun. Getting high scores in Overcooked! requires complete cooperation and anything less you won’t be achieving anything, a lot of the fun in Overcooked actually comes from messing up and watching hilariously as chaos unfolds in the Kitchen. Overcooked! has a very simple but stylish presentation, the chubby style characters with short arms and large heads only adds to the comedy of the game and the large roster of characters mean that there’s always someone new to try. I found something compelling about playing as a French Bulldog chopping frantically whilst wreaking havoc in the kitchen while the Panda Chef is going Crazy trying to clear up the mess.

Overcooked! 2 adds even more craziness to the Menu by dishing up new Recipes, New Levels and Chefs and new ways of Interacting with others and the environment along with new hazards of course. The game is even more unforgiving than before as new perils are ever abundant and stages can change halfway through forcing you to change your behaviour if you are in that automatic mode mindset. While most of the game’s mechanics were given to the first Overcooked! as an overhaul here, they were originally known as a new mechanic only in Overcooked! 2. One of these mechanics is that you can throw ingredients to other players giving you the chance to cut some time walking and the chance to see your teammate hilariously fall down a chasm as they try to catch a tomato. The online feature allows you to communicate via emotes. A very different affair compared to playing with someone in the same room. Putting up an emote of serving the dishes without having checked if someone went and already did that can feel quite awkward compared to if you shouted it to the other player in the room. Overcooked 2! adds more hilarity and madness without taking anything away from the first game while adding unique features and elements while still feeling absolutely fresh.

I would say owning the complete Collection is easily the best way to play Overcooked! I can say this game would be a hard buy if you already own these games as all you are getting is some brand new levels added to the PS5 version aswell as some haptic feedback features and 4k graphics. If you’ve ruined more friendships and dishes than you can remember then you may want to pass on this one but if you are new to Overcooked! all I can say is the best way you can play this game as of now, and unless you really care about your friends, then there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t.