Order Up! is the beginning, middle and end of an Iron Chef-in-the-making. It doesn’t contain the official license, but you’ll recognize where the inspiration came from, which is not limited to television – Ratatouille’s infamous critic is cloned and dropped into the game for boss battle fun. The, umm, obesity of America is also taken into account, with amusing customers that appreciate your restaurant’s location (one guy loves it for being in between the gym and donut shop) and personal touches (another customer wants gravy on everything and tips well for it). These elements are used to mask what is essentially a new take on Cooking Mama.

Cooking Up a Storm

No one likes the thought of working at a QSR (quick-service restaurant) for the rest of their life. Thus, when Order Up!’s leading chef is forced to work in a hellacious burger joint, he jumps at the chance to escape. His way of escaping isn’t too exciting: he purchases a rundown fast food restaurant called Gravy Chug. Your menu is limited, your skills are lousy, and there aren’t enough dollars to stretch across multiple employees. One employee will eventually be awarded, and you’ll have the chance to hire others down the road to help with your cooking duties. But in the beginning it’s just you, a kitchen, and a whole lot of hungry customers.

When an order for a hamburger and fries comes your way, what do you do? Start by throwing the fries into the frying bin. A small meter appears, with two triangles (facing each other vertically) running from the left, uncooked side toward the right, burning side. When both triangles reach the center (green) part of the meter, you know your fries are ready to go. Yank them out of the fryer and drag them to the plate. All of these actions are performed with the Wii remote.

If there’s a vegetable – lettuce, tomatoes, etc. – you may have to slice them by chopping your Wii remote downward as a red circle shrinks around it (this is a timing game; the smaller the circle, the better the slice). Or dice them by chopping quickly and relentlessly. The game automatically turns the vegetable, allowing the player to keep swinging the remote without having to change positions.

The burger itself must be thrown onto the skillet, which uses the same meter as the frying bin. But since burgers aren’t being fried, you have to cook both sides individually. Once the top triangle (which designates the first side of the burger being cooked) reaches the green part of the meter, you need to flip the burger to cook the other side. It must be pulled from the skillet as soon as both sides are in the green area. If you go past or under, your burger may receive a lower rating than “perfect,” which lowers your income.

Money, as you’ll quickly learn, is the key to expansion. You can’t buy new restaurants without it. You can’t even acquire new spices or new recipes without a little dough (the green kind, of course – the other kind is best served with sauce, cheese and pepperoni).

Spices are an essential part of the Chef’s Special, unique dishes that, when prepared correctly, offer up a massive tip bonus. Tips are your only source of income, so you want to make the customer happy. One way to ensure that happens is by properly spicing their food. If you have a regular customer whose last name is Salty, you can probably figure out what he or she wants added to every dish.

Vampires are a little trickier. Toward the end of the game, after you’ve acquired the third or fourth (and final) restaurant, a guy appears that looks like The Count from Sesame Street. His big fangs are intriguing, but it’s his request that might throw you. His spice icon (purchased for a small fee to show what the customer wants) is a slab of meat. And that’s all he wants – a slab of raw meat. Whatever he orders, throw the meat on the grill or skillet (whichever is available) and immediately take it off. The “perfect” icon will appear, showing that his meat is just the way the vampire likes it.

There are other sneaky customers that aren’t overly clear in their demands. Figuring out what they want is part of the fun.

Inspector Gadget

As the owner and head chef of a restaurant, your duties do not end with slicing, dicing, grilling and frying. You’ll also have to clean seven plates to appease an angry inspector (how seven became the golden number I’ll never know), flick rats off the counter before a customer sees them, and grind a knife that’s become dull – all using the Wii remote. Contrary to the image on the back of the box, the Nunchuk is not used.

When you start your Order Up! career, the game is a little less inviting than Cooking Mama. The mechanics are decent and the mini-games aren’t that difficult. But you have to win to keep playing; if you make a lousy meal, even for just one person at a table of four, you won’t get any tip at all.

This makes the game harder in the short-term but easier toward the end. It won’t take more than a few hours to figure out the gist of Order Up!: follow the recipe and strive to achieve a perfect rating with each ingredient. Since most ingredients work the same (slicing or dicing a carrot is no different from slicing or dicing a pepper), you won’t have to learn a new mechanic every time you purchase a new restaurant. But new restaurants can’t be acquired until the current locale achieves a five-star rating. This is done by cleaning the place (hire a cleaning service to earn one star); acquiring all 12 recipes (two stars); acquiring four of the eight specials (three); earning a specific dollar amount (four); and by impressing the critic (five).

The critic is your most difficult customer: he wants perfection, he wants something special, and he wants it made quickly. This, coupled with the wide variety of tasks (trying to fry, boil and sauté simultaneously while grating cheese and chopping veggies) can be a tad overwhelming – even frustrating – in the first couple hours of play. That’s when hired help comes in handy, but they rarely do as good a job as you. Thus, when you get better at multi-tasking, it’s better to leave the employees behind and do everything yourself.

Order Up! culminates with hilarity and slight dilapidation. Having proven yourself as a chef, you’re now invited to a special cooking competition. The following sequences are funny but the gameplay is questionable: you’ll have to complete three dishes, and none of them have to be perfect. Your opponent won’t be perfect, so beating her is easy. Though you may appreciate the breather after having to prove yourself (four times!) to a critic that will scold you for even the slightest mistake, this seemed like a weak way to conclude a decent game.

Few will be blown away by anything Order Up! has to offer, but if you liked Cooking Mama, you will enjoy playing through this game as well. There aren’t any multiplayer options, and there isn’t much to do once the four restaurants have been completed. Consequently, replay is limited, making Order Up! a fair purchase for the cooking enthusiast but a rental for everyone else.