BENGALURU: I absolutely love it when I skip a few items on my daily task-list every workday. It gives a sense of purpose to a weekend, which would have otherwise been spent on the couch and watching live TV and lip syncing to the advertisements. However, the completion of the task-list during the weekend, is dampened by what I hypothesise as the Weekend Time Dilation theory. The weekend clocks record lesser elapsed time in an hour than a workday hour (which essentially means time moves faster -- this is proven by science, albeit extrapolated from a gravitational time dilation theory).
Overcooked is an excellent outlet to channelise the anxious weekend energy. The simulation game was free on the Epic Games store recently, and it also has a second edition. Although the game is relatively old, the hype has not dwindled, and you can play it on the PS4, Xbox One, PC or the Nintendo Switch.The plot is simple -- the Onion Kingdom requires chefs to save it from danger. The game involves coordinated cooking. As a single player, it feels like it requires two brains to synchronise the movements of the multiple chefs to meet the deadline of the recipe.
Make sure you have the in-game music playing nice and loud – it complements the tension of the situation very well, specifically when time is running out. When there are five orders waiting to be served, and your chef is still cutting only their third onion – the music very helpfully reaches a crescendo to get the blood flowing to your brain. It is interesting to note that weekend time dilation stops ceases to work during this tensed 30 seconds, as we end up doing those vegetable chops more efficiently. The game is teaching us an important moral here – deadlines and fast music can help defy physics, use their powers well.
Overcooked has a local co-op option, and an online option – which means you needn’t suffer alone. While the game itself has absolutely no violence, you might find yourself shouting and screaming in frustration more frequently than you would while playing Battle Royale. I think it is because we expect disappointment from the Gulag in CoD Warzone; however, you would not anticipate that cutting onions and flipping steak could induce such wholehearted panic.
Overcooked is unforgiving with its geometrically progressing level difficulty. I will take it a step further and say that you could even master the piano in a week, but most definitely not the single player version of Overcooked. Kids, don’t waste your time on the various Battle Royale formats and their luring lootcrates. Play Overcooked with your friends instead. 10/10 will burn down the in-game kitchen.