PC Game Review: Go-Go Gourmet: Chef of the Year

Go-Go Gourmet returns reality TV-style as Ginger heads for an international competition against fellow chefs from seven countries in Go-Go Gourmet: Chef of the Year. We learn the story through the usual comic strip style images with dialog bubbles. Most of us will never participate in the Olympics, but this gives us a little taste of it as Ginger represents USA.

Unlike the typical time management game, we do more than just fulfill orders (judges’ orders instead of customer orders). We must hunt for the needed ingredients, use appliances, cook or bake the food, and deliver the pretty dish to the judges.

Judges’ faces pop up on the screen with their dish requests. The ingredients and instructions appear below the judge’s face so you can cook up a storm. Now, you may juggle two, three, or even four orders at once. While the blender runs for one dish, you might put together another dish and throw it in the oven.

Chefs earn points for their work and mini-games provide opportunities to gain more points. The compare scenes game contains ingredients while the other scene is barren. The ingredients appear on the bottom of the screen for your placing into the barren scene to make it match the other scene. The game is stubborn about accepting the first ingredient. Things improve after the game wakes up.

Another mini-game has players hunting as many of the same ingredients as they can and fast. For example, find all of the onions in the kitchen before time’s up. Succeed to win more points and get ahead of the competition.

On occasion, a judge offers a bribe… well, not officially. But if you serve the dish fast enough, you earn bonuses such as time freeze, which stops the clock for a short time. The faster you serve a dish, the higher you score with ten points being the highest possible score. Go-Go Gourmet: Chef of the Year offers hints by showing you the location of the ingredients for a few moments.

As Ginger wins rounds, she also gets new outfits that give her an edge whether it’s making the judges more patient, helping her move faster, or earning bonus points for dishes. She also picks up souvenirs and recipes you can print and try.

Upon completing all the rounds for the country, Ginger travels to the next one where the scene reflects the country’s food and culture. Go-Go Gourmet: Chef of the Year gets harder as you advance to a new country.

The opening story has a typo as sauté turns into saut and the scenes move too slowly with the constant opening and closing of the curtains. Clicks don’t always take forcing players to repeatedly click until Ginger gets moving toward the clicked ingredient. The problematic clicks can make the difference between coming in first place and finishing third. Because of the clicking issue, the game looses half of a star.

Go-Go Gourmet: Chef of the Year demands a lot of fast clicking and moving. Fingers will get a workout. Nonetheless, the game will please fans of the addicting original with its added components, recipe and ingredient variety, and challenge of competing with other chefs rather than just a race against the clock.

Download the game from your favorite site:

Big Fish Games

Playfirst

Reflexive