Okay before I get into this first let me state that this is not a distant relative of Cooking Mama, Gardening Mama, or Yo' Mama. Order Up would still be considered as "casual game" by those who like to use the tag, but the game has a lot to offer anyone who plays it.  While cooking is the main part of the game, restuarant and time management play important roles and offer a little bit more of an experience here.  Plus the designers have a real wicked sense of humor and there's jokes about Star Wars, Iron Chef, Clint Eastwood, Vegetarians, and fat kids.  The game even lets you assault the local paper boy.  Really is there more to life than that?

The premise is pretty simple.  You choose your chef you go to the island of Port Abello looking for employement.  But shortly after taking your first job (the training/instructions) and local fast food establishment Burger Face you realize the government is taking too much of your check and your only chance to earn real money is to open your own restuarant.  It'd like to see Cooking Mama come up with a backstory like that!

You'll open up 4 different restuarants on the island, and deal with different customers who like their food in particular ways.  The more you cater to them, the more money they'll leave.  The fat guy likes gravy on everything (including his pancakes).  The cowboy wants everything he eats slathered in barbeque sauce.  The vampire wants his meat raw. . . yes there's a vampire. Why wouldn't there be?  

The mechanics for cooking are pretty easy but the real trick comes when preparing multiple meals.  You'll have to learn time management in order to have everything finish at about the same time so that no one customer's food gets too cold waiting for the others to finish.

You will eventually need the help of assistants as your restaurants like Ichiro here.  Most of theme are good at one particular task but end up weak in other areas.  Ichiro can chop, slice, and dice but don't ask him to fry anything or it'll be a disaster and possibly a fire.

The assistants are all pretty funny and have plenty of snide comments to offer when they get bored.  Once you complete the game (it's only about 6 hours) you can even hire a trained monkey (who while not great won't screw anything up).  

So now the big question:  Why the hell should you buy this game??  First of all it's a lot of fun.  Despite the short length I do find myself starting over to hire new assistants and see what they have to offer.  Like I said, the game was designed by some pretty funny people and it's tough to not want to see what you've missed out on by not hiring a particular person.  And I'm not the only one whose enjoyed it.  My kids, friends, and anyone I've showed it to (even the type of gamers who would run from a cooking game) have all had a good time with it.

Best of all, the game is now selling for about $15.00 new at Gamespot.  Sadly it was a bit of a bomb, but that does mean it's cheap to pick up now.  Plus it comes with paper hat from Burger Face.  Yes it's your chance to pretend to be a fry cook like you've always wanted to be!