Cook, Serve, Delicious! was (and still is) a great little indie game that combined charming art, an interesting theme, and a frenetic pace to make for a ton of fun. The sequel, understandably named Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!, just released on Steam and looks to take the strengths of the original and turn them up to eleven. It looks bigger and better than ever.
In the original game, players took control of the chef owner of a small restaurant, juggling kitchen chores with preparing meals for an ever-increasing line of customers. The game starts simple, with basic foods like corn dogs and pretzels, but the difficulty quickly ramped up. As your restaurant starts bringing in more money and richer clientele, your repertoire needs to improve. Before long, you have to prepare five star meals to perfect specifications. It is a frenetic, satisfying game that finds that perfect sweet spot of “zen” that some timing based games achieve.
Leave it to Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! to take the original scope and greatly increase it. While the original game had 30 different food options for you to make in your restaurant, the sequel has 180. It also has added greater difficulty control (so you can opt to play casually sometimes, and crazy difficult other times), co-op support, and a campaign that the developers report takes 60+ hours to complete. The newest gameplay addition are the holding stations, which allow you to prep things during down time so that they are ready when the customers start lining up.
Cooking games, if done well, are generally a blast. Everyone loves to feel like a master chef, and games like Cook, Serve, Delicious! and Overcooked are perfect at putting you in that zone. Plus, at only $12.99 on Steam, this sequel is not going to break the bank. It just released, go grab a copy today for PC, Mac, and Linux.
