PC Gamer - UK 2020-04)

Some dishes look delicious,
others oddly revolting.

EARLY ACCESS PREVIEW

Cook Serve Delicious 3

EXPECTTOPAY

£11.40

DEVELOPER

Vertigo Gaming Inc

PUBLISHER

In-house

LINK

cookservedelicious.com/yum

NEED TO KNOW

Inanear-futureAmericatornapartbywar,

yourgoalisto...runasuccessfulfood

truck.Asyoutravelacrossthecountry,

youhavetosetyourmenuandthen

(rapidly)geteverythingreadyforyour

customers,tappinglettersonyour

keyboardtocorrectlycookeachdish.

Differentlevelshavedifferent

restrictions,forcingyoutochangeup

yourofferingbyonlyallowingcertain

typesoffood,orrequiringa

minimumnumberofpoints(each

dishbeingscoredaccordingtohow

complexitistomake).

Comparedtothepreviousgames,the

actionhasbeenstreamlined.Youno

longerhavetodochoreslikewashingthe

dishes,forexample,andinsteadofserving

ordersonebyone,youcanhitakeyto

sendoutallyourreadydishes

automatically.It’sashearingawayof

distractionsthatallowsyoutoconcentrate

oncookingandcookingalone.

Atfirst,thegamefeelseasierthanits

predecessors.Theaction’sevenbroken

upintoperiodsoftravelandstopping

pointswherecustomersarrive,givingyou

hassle-freetimetopreparemealsin

advanceandgetaheadoftherush.Butit

quickly becomes clear that these little

mercies are all the excuse the developer

needs to crank up the heat.

KITCHEN NIGHTMARE

Orders come thick and fast, and the

increasingly complex foods you’re forced

to offer require ever more concentration

to get right in a hurry. While you can

pre-prepare foods, there are only limited

holding stations to keep them in – as in a

great strategy game, you’re constantly

making tough choices, even if here they’re

between chicken nuggets and battered

cod. Keeping up with which stations are

running out and what there’s still demand

for, and setting up new mid-rush batch

cooks on top of keeping up with the

grumpy impatience of waiting customers,

is as demanding as making Christmas

dinner for Gordon Ramsay.

Whether it’s actually fun or not will

depend on your disposition. The resulting

loop generates a kind of genuine stress

that I can imagine will leave some tearing

their hair out. And while the ‘chill mode’

difficulty does offer a more relaxed

alternative, its restriction that you can only

achieve silver medals while using it

will for some feel like training wheels

rather than the full experience.

But if you’re anything like me,

you’ll thrive on the rush of the game’s

sweat-inducing default difficulty. Great

cooking sims aren’t about cooking, they’re

about performing under pressure, and by

that metric the Cook Serve Delicious

series is a cut above. Even in this Early

Access release, the ebb and flow is

perfectly paced, never fully letting up but

allowing enough quiet moments to make

the sprints all the more exhilarating when

they come. At the end of a busy shift, as

you rise out of your culinary fugue state,

there’s a palpable sense of satisfaction.

There’s loads still to be added over the

course of CSD 3’s journey through Early

Access – the story is currently quite thin,

progression a little basic, and while there’s

a good chunk of levels already, there’s

room for a lot more to come. But even as it

is now it doesn’t feel half-baked (sorry).

The action is intense, there’s a huge library

of food from all over the world to make,

and the only thing higher than the skill

ceiling is my blood pressure.

Robin Valentine

I

ngames,I’vefoughtwars,escaped

certaindeathandsaveduniverses–butI

don’tthinkI’veeverbeenasstressedout

asIamassemblingaburgerinCook

ServeDelicious 3 .Thiscookingsimsequelputsthe

focussquarelyonhigh-speedfoodpreparation

underpressure.Alotofpressure.

For the sake of my heart, I

should’ve just gotten a takeaway

COOK SERVE

DELICIOUS 3

AS IN A GREAT STRATEGY

GAME, YOU’RE CONSTANTLY

MAKING TOUGH CHOICES

PLAYED

IT