Game: My Universe – Cooking Star Restaurant
Genre: Simulation, Lifestyle
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam & PlayStation 4)
Developers | Publishers: Old Skull Games | Microids Life
Age Rating: US E | EU 3+
Price: US $29.99 | UK £35.99 | EU € 39,99
Release Date: November 10th, 2020
Review code used, with many thanks to Vertigo 6
My Universe – Cooking Star Restaurant is part of a series of My Universe games on the Nintendo Switch. We have reviewed a few of My Universe games on LadiesGamers. Yvonne gave us her thoughts on My Universe: Fashion Boutique last year. Earlier this year I took a look at My Universe – PET CLINIC CATS & DOGS.
Customise your Character
So now it’s the turn of My Universe – Cooking Star Restaurant, where, as the name would suggest, you take on the role of running a thriving restaurant. As the game starts you get to choose between three male and three female characters with slightly different skin tone, and hair. Once you have chosen and named your character you get to chose a name for your restaurant.
The restaurant has two floors, but at the beginning of the game, it’s only the kitchen on the ground floor that is open. As you play through the game and increase your reputation level the rest of the restaurant becomes available to use.
Upgrade to Unlock
My Universe – Cooking Star Restaurant plays pretty similar to the other My Universe games in the series with a set of mini-games. You will seat customers who come to your restaurant, take their order. Return to the kitchen and prepare their food order by completing a mini-game. Once the food is made you return to the table to serve the food to the seated customers. When they have finished their meal you then clear their table so it is ready for the next customer.
By continuing to seat customers, taking their order, preparing food and cleaning their table, your reputation increases and you can unlock the other areas in the restaurant. As well as unlocking each area you also unlock a new chef with six recipes related to their home country. It allows you to master dozens of recipes inspired by the six chef’s that eventually end up working in your restaurant, from French, American, Indian, Italian and Japanese dishes.
Thirty Dishes to Cook
You’ll cook a variety of different recipes, thirty in all. From hamburgers, bagel sandwiches to cupcakes and more. As I’ve mentioned, you complete a mini-game for each dish you have to cook. For example, you might need to mix ingredients together by moving your left analogue stick in a circular motion or crack eggs by tapping the right buttons as they appear on the screen.
The mini-game are fine, but they aren’t unique or specific to each dish. So the preparation of each recipe regardless of the actual meal in question is the same half dozen or so minigames. I found that the mini-games got repetitive before I’d even unlocked the fourth chef. However, this game is designed for children, therefore looking at the game with a child’s eye (hope I can remember that far back) I’m sure that they would thoroughly enjoy the mini-games.
Earn Three Chef Hats
You’ll earn up to three chef’s hats on each step in a recipe’s preparation. The more chef’s hats you earn, the higher the quality of your final dish. If you don’t finish making a dish within the set time, the timer will stop but you can continue to complete the dish, though you won’t earn three chef hats.
Each kitchen area you do unlock introduces a new chef with their batch of recipes. Other than the new chef giving you new recipes and unlocking another potion of the restaurant, the chef doesn’t actually do anything. By that I mean they stand around the kitchen and basically get in the way as they don’t make the food, you do! The arrival of a new chef, feels like a filler to me, as a way to open up the new recipes. I would have liked to see the chefs play more of their part in the kitchen.
Visuals and Controls
As you can see from the pictures taken from the gameplay of My Universe – Cooking Star Restaurant the game is bright and colourful. Graphically I like the look of the game, I would imagine the age range the game is aimed at would be delighted with the cartoon visuals of the game. The music is fine if a little repetitive after you have heard it quite a few times.
My Universe – Cooking Star Restaurant is controlled by the joy-cons and they work fine. There aren’t any touch-screen controls, which I think is a missed opportunity as this type of game would be suitable for using touch-screen controls.
Conclusion
My Universe – Cooking Star Restaurant is a decent simulation game for the age range the game is aimed at. I enjoyed my time with the game even if the mini-games ended up being rather repetitive. I think young children would have a lot of fun and get quite a bit of enjoyment with My Universe – Cooking Star Restaurant.
It would be a great game to introduce a young child to the simulation genre as there isn’t anything difficult or challenging about the game!
Final Verdict: I Like It 
You must log in to post a comment.