@DarthHistory
Overcooked 2 is a campy, fun game for the casual gamer, or one whose style is more “I play Candy Crush on my phone” than “hardcore console bro-dude”. Playing both this game and its 2016 predecessor gave me flashbacks to playing Diner Dash on my phone while I was supposed to be at work. The basic premise and gameplay is the same as the original, which allows the game to throw you right in with little to no getting-to-know-you period. The horror geek in me loved the storyline in Overcooked 2, namely that the king reads from the Necro-nomnom-icon and raises an army of the Unbread, who you then have to feed before they attack and overrun the castle (I straight up laughed for about 10-minutes about the Necronomnomicon, I’m not going to lie!).
Now, onto the game play. You have the option of playing as a single player, local co-op, and online co-op. As a game that relies heavily on timing and communication, local co-op is probably the easiest and most enjoyable way to play, followed by online co-op. As a single player game, Overcooked 2 loses a lot of its appeal because as the levels progress, it becomes more and more difficult to complete the levels as a team of one (and trust me, I tried). Your chefs must navigate a series of more and more complicated kitchen set-ups to feed the hoardes of the Unbread, chopping, cooking, and plating as fast as you can while dealing with kitchen fires, attacking food, and more.
The controls can be a little unweildy but not enough to throw off game play past the initial level. The graphics are nothing to write home about, but this isn’t the type of game you buy for its amazing visuals — you buy it so you and your friends can sit around, throw fake food at one another, and yell like you’re Gordon Ramsay in Hell’s Kitchen and everone else just burned the risotto.
Because half the fun is the interaction between players in local co-op play, it loses a little bit of fun in online mode, which I only got to experience for a brief time, since most of my gameplay happens in short bursts and isn’t condusive to online matchups. The online play feature is fun but the limited communication between players makes for a little more stressful challenge. Playing as a solo player means you devote most of your time worrying about back and forth switching between the chefs in your kitchen rather than worried about communication between them, and makes the ability to toss ingredients and supplies around the kitchen way less fun.
Overall, Overcooked 2 is a great way to spend some time and is a worthwhile investment if you’re looking for a fun co-op game. 3.5/5 Recipe Books.
-Sarah Obloy
@F7ovrdrv
I know everyone’s caught up with Spidey or Destiny 2’s Forsaken (lol, jk), but I’d figure I’d take a sec to fill you in on how the newest State of Decay DLC is. Goddamn brutal. Daybreak is fun, intense, and a lot more action-oriented than the vanilla game. There’s much more ammo lying around, but don’t let this lull you into a false sense of security; you still have to be quite conservative with wall repair kits, bandages, first aid kids, vaccines, etc.
The waves of enemies are unrelenting. Even when going up in early levels, don’t be surprised if you have to deal with a few Blood Juggernauts overrunning your area while the faster zombies go after your technician (escort). Your team AI is actually not bad, yet with like most games featuring a “horde mode”, you’re better off playing with other players–that aren’t idiots. Oh, I also really appreciate that the technician will dodge, run, and defend herself. 3.5/5 Wall Repair Kits.
-Felipe Crespo
P.S. Good luck getting the Guilty Spark achievement (survive 343 waves).