As an avid gamer, I can usually be found sinking hours into the best PS5 games, and the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3, Ghost of Tsushima, and more. I also own a Nintendo Switch and have logged over 600 hours in both Link-led Zelda games, Mario Kart 8, and others. But you know what game I’ve been obsessed with recently? Overcooked. Which is easily one of the best co-op games around right now. And if you’ve been finding it hard to justify paying full price, you’re in luck: Overcooked! All You Can Eat is currently 60% off at the Nintendo Store.
If you’re looking for a game to play with your non-gamer partner, there are two games I recommend: Untitled Goose Game and Overcooked! With straightforward controls and — let’s face it — an irrelevant plot line, the latter has been living in my head rent-free for the past few weeks. While I’m a hardcore gamer, my partner isn’t, so we’ve been firing up Overcooked! 2 on my Switch every night after dinner.
The premise is simple: you and up to three other players must save the Onion Kingdom by whipping up dishes, from pancakes to pizzas. Chop, dice, slice, steam, fry, bake, rinse and repeat — and don’t forget to wash those dishes and put out the fires lest they burn your kitchen down. Each level lasts only a few minutes, and you can earn a tip multiplier if you deliver orders on time. You can play as various creatures too, and we usually go for dog avatars, but you can also be an octopus or a boring human. Overcooked! All You Can Eat even comes with an Assist Mode where orders never expire and food is nearly impossible to burn, so it’s great for inexperienced players.
Some levels are stupidly easy that we’ve scored nearly 1,000 points on the first go, but some are so hard that we’ve had actual arguments. Phrases like “Why aren’t you doing the dishes?!” and “Please, for the love of all that’s good, throw me a banana!” get yelled out a lot. If we fail a level, we’ll pout and hmph and give each other the side-eye or the cold shoulder for a while afterwards. But we always laugh about it later because we never argue outside of playing this twisted, fantastic, chaotic, pull-your-hair-out fun game.
Recently, we’ve been trying to get four stars on all levels — once you finish the base game, you unlock New Game+ which lets you cook it out for that coveted fourth star. It ain’t easy but it’s heaps of fun. As Overcooked! All You Can Eat is currently 60% off at the Nintendo U.S. Store and Overcooked! 2 is 75% off at the Nintendo U.K. Store until the end of October, it’s a game you can’t pass up on.
