I'm always a sucker for a cooking time management game... mostly because I think the cooking games were my first encounter with a time management type gamestyle and I have since fallen in love with the genre. Cooking Trip was like a walk down memory lane for me and it was a blast to play. 

You begin with a cute but short story about a couple named Mary and John who have dreams of opening the best restaurant in the world, bless their little naive hearts. But in order to be the best, they realize, it's not enough to graduate with honors, you have to train with the best. And so starts their journey to train with the best chefs in the world. 

The first chef lets you work in his restaurant, which basically just functions as your own since you make upgrades and such with your own money. I'm assuming since there are 60 levels, that there will be 20 levels per chef you train with. I made is to about level 15 before taking a break and I was still slaving away for chef number one. 

Graphics and Artwork

The graphics and artwork for Cooking Trip were fairly impressive, with a good amount of attention to detail in the setting and the food items. You could see each little apple, strawberry, and blueberry in the crates and it was fun to see the difference in the upgrades to the restaurant. The character design was done nicely as well, as each character was well defined and really took shape as they were introduced. You could definitely tell when the characters were angry at you and boy... they were angry at me a lot when I played. 

Sound and Music

I was pleasantly surprised with the sound and music of Cooking Trip. Normally in these types of games, I can only stand the listen to the music or the repetitive sounds for so long before I have to either turn them down or turn them off completely. However, I never once thought that the music was intrusive and, if anything, they added to the tension of the game, as it gave a energy to the frantic clicking of gameplay. It helped that the music was a jaunty little tune underplayed with a bit of rock, as opposed to some of the carnival music that is the norm for time management games. 

The sounds were also pretty pleasant and helpful as you had so many tasks to keep up with, it was hard sometimes to know when a customer was getting pissy with you and you had to move your butt or they were going to leave the restaurant. I little unhappy blip of sound and you knew that someone was having a hard time keeping their cool. 

Gameplay

I can't stress this enough... Cooking Trip is challenging! Most of the levels I played, I only received a satisfactory. It was very difficult to get the great achievement and I thought I was clicking along very quickly. I almost felt like it was really impossible to get some of those levels without having the upgrades to the restaurant first. 

The game plays along much as you might expect. It's all clicking. Click to give the customer a menu, click to make John cook items, click to pick up food, click to pick up the money. Go, Go, Go!! It was getting to the point where I couldn't even really look at the current task. I had to keep moving forward and plan ahead quickly. Once you get stands open, you can have John precook items so they are ready to go. Sometimes that was the only way to keep the customers from getting cranky, since most of them would start out a bit cranky already before you even had time to hand them a menu. 

And there were so many things to do. It starts off with your basic give the customer a menu, get him a food item, and then collect their money and a tip. But then it quickly escalates to making fruit juices. And then some customers want that juice chilled in the fridge. And then you have to add side dishes and sauces to each dish. I can't tell you how many times I grabbed the wrong side dish or sauce and had to start all over again because there's no way to dump a sauce or side dish once you add it to the dish. You either have to serve it or dump the entire dish. So make sure you pay attention to whether you customer wants ketchup or mustard... 

At the start of each level, you're given a green goal and a gold goal. The green is the bare minimum you need to beat the level. The gold is the extra mile. There's also bonus goals like hand out a menu 3 times in a row. 

Do I Want to Keep Playing? 

This is an easy one.... YES. Yes, yes, yes! With 60 levels to play, Cooking Trip is worth the extra money to pony up for the collector's edition. If you are a fan of the cooking time management games, it's really hard to say no to this one. I enjoyed every minute of it and was completely devastated when the free trial was up. 

If you want to give Cooking Trip a try for yourself, you can play Cooking Trip for FREE for up to 60 minutes by clicking on the download button. Let me know if you love it as much as I did!