Cook, Serve, Delicious: Battle Kitchen and New Game +

Some games are really easy to pick up after some time not playing them.  The indie restaurant/cooking sim Cook, Serve, Delicious is not one of those games.  This weekend I decided to return to the frantic world of correctly filling orders, managing chores,  weird food related dates, and impressing snotty celebrities.  Let's just say that you really need some practice to perfect the keystrokes in CSD.

I also decided to check out the "Battle Kitchen" addition which came out a few months ago.  "Battle Kitchen" includes a bunch of really great features to keep you engulfed in the chaotic world of fictional restaurant management.  Each week a new challenge is added that tests your skills.  The challenges are themed and include a Steam leaderboard.  The challenge this week was themed around meat (namely steak), potatoes (hashbrowns), and beer.  Each order consisted of a steak, some hashbrowns, and a beer to top it off.  The stakes (or steaks!) are high--each time you mess up an order you are penalized time.  Orders must be completed quickly and accurately to earn a good place on the leaderboard.  You can re-try the challenge as much as you want and your fastest time is posted.  My best attempts earned me a place somewhere around 176.  Not that impressive.

Weekly challenge screen.

Besides the weekly challenge there are also other challenges.  The Strike challenge requires you to make as many orders as you can before you make three mistakes.  There are challenges with different food sets that push you to limit your mistakes.  Three strikes and you're done.  The Endurance challenge pushes players to achieve as many perfect orders as they can with rapidly changing conditions.  You are pushed to make a snap decision mid-stream that will insert a new food or upgrade a current food making the challenge much more difficult.  Out of all the new challenge modes I felt like I had the most success in the endurance challenge.

Battle Kitchen also added in several options for up to 4-player multiplayer.  You can play co-op with a friend or challenge a group of friends.  The downside is that you need gamepads for the other players.

Besides the great new play options there have also been some cosmetic changes.  Players can pick from a wide variety of chef themed profile pictures or unlock special characters by earning stars in the challenge modes.  The graphics have been improved and some of the food that looked a little weird before looks much more delicious.

Special unlockable profile pictures from other indie games.

I thought I wanted to start a new campaign and was greeted by the option to create a new game using "new game +" mode.  The selection screen is almost like a warning and they aren't kidding.  New game + is extremely difficult and will wreck your life.  You start off with 6 prep stations and can have "Super Rush Hours" in which orders pour in as fast as you can fill them.  On the plus side, you start off with $15,000 to spend.  I only lasted two days in new game + before I decided to give up.

If you haven't played any Cook, Serve, Delicious you should!  It's a highly addictive and fast paced game that is fun and challenging.  The "Battle Kitchen" patch has added a lot of great content that makes it all that much more fun to play.