order up! for wii was a game i got for my nephew that, like carnival games, seemed like it would be worth trying out. order up! is more worthwhile than carnival games, although not by much. like cooking mama (which i had played on DS), order up! is basically an underwhelming collection of cooking-related mini-games. the latter’s motion controls do give it an edge over the stylus-based controls (although i haven’t played the wii cooking mama games) and there is slightly more variety in the form of managing your restaurant. this adds a handful of non-cooking related minigames such as washing dishes (yawn), some assistants that you get to boss around (the majority of whom don’t really provide any benefit), and some small adjustments you make to recipes to suit a particular customer’s taste (e.g. adding salt to the dish). the pacing is also slightly better because you graduate from one restaurant to another and the cuisine changes (for example, fast food to italian), but none of these additions add much to the overall experience. the repetitiveness of slicing ‘n dicing, etc. soon outstays its welcome, so much so that i ended up giving up less than halfway through. definitely a flash-level effort and not a keeper, but it may be suitable for younger and/or less-demanding players.
fast food-level order up! links:
- the game got better reviews than the cooking mama games, but it’s still very limited
- FAQ at gamefaqs
- a version was released for 3DS’s eshop for $10, although i can’t imagine that it’s any better than the wii version
Hmmm definitely not getting this. I don’t even think there’s an EU release.