Overcooked

This arcade game about cooking is fast-paced, hilarious, and ridiculous. Although some will be upset by the lack of an online multiplayer mode (since the game hinges upon cooperation and collaboration), the fact that it's same-room co-op or single-player assures you'll be working with people you know and trust right out of the gate. Without that trust or ability to communicate effectively, Overcooked devolves into total chaos: Orders come up at a dizzying pace, and it isn't a matter of merely arranging the ingredients to satisfy each order. You'll need to cook dishes or ingredients once they've been prepped, keep an eye on pots and pans to make sure they don't burn the food or start a fire (necessitating quick use of the fire extinguisher), and scrub and clean the plates from orders that have come back after being eaten. If this weren't crazy enough, you'll also have to deal with environmental hazards; for example, on a pirate-ship kitchen, the ocean makes cannonballs and tables drift unexpectedly.

The game is goofy, fun, silly, and weird. At first glance, it seems ridiculous that on average difficulty, you'll only be able to get three or four orders out in three minutes. It seems like you'd be able to prepare more dishes, whether it's tomato soup or burgers. But, as in real life, multitasking deceptively spreads your attention and abilities thinner. Your chefs can only chop, grab ingredients, or saute. Or if they stop, the task is paused so that they can move around. The Nintendo Switch edition adds to the pressure of the kitchen with two new areas, more recipes, more chefs, and a higher challenge, but it also comes at a cost; the frame rate of the game tends to suffer when a lot of action is on-screen at once. Fortunately, the developers are aware of the problem and are working on a fix to this issue. Overcooked requires attention, patience, and the ability to stay calm under pressure. For that, it's a fun game to dive into, but it's also likely to rattle your nerves after marathon sessions.