Cook, Serve, Delicious 2 is without a doubt one of my most highly anticipated games of 2017, and now that it's finally out, I have to admit that I'm a bit torn.

The core cooking and serving gameplay is still very exciting and fast paced. The new holding station mechanic (which allows you to prep some items ahead of them being ordered) and the way sides + drinks are now handled (they extend customer wait timers and give a bonus to completed orders respectively) are very welcome additions and add an extra layer of depth and strategy. There's also a ton of new food items, and all of the art for them looks amazing.

Unlocking items that allow you to design your own restaurant adds a pretty cool customization element, but this leads into my biggest issue with the game being that I'm not sure I really like the way progression is handled in general.

In the original CSD, I really enjoyed the management sim aspect of feeling like you were building up and improving your restaurant over time. Building up your resturaunt from a struggling little zero star resturaunt serving corn dogs and beer up to a five star experience with filet mignon and wine felt satisfying. Unfortunately, that's kinda gone now.

A lot of the focus has now shifted to "Chef for Hire" missions where you tackle a shift in a resturaunt with a pre-set menu and attempt to earn a medal by completing the day with as few mistakes as possible. That progression feeds into your chef level, and hitting certain level thresholds will increase your star rating. You still have your own resturaunt, and leveling up does unlock things like more hold/prep stations and menu item slots. However, your resturaunt could seemingly hit five stars without you ever doing a single day of work in it.

I feel like separating the "Chef for Hire" progression from your own restaurant's progression would largely address my main concern - maybe treating "Chef for Hire" a bit more like the catering and Iron Cook challenges from the first game. I'm sure some people will like the freedom of this new progression structure, but personally, I think some of the charm is lost.

Also take note that this game is coming in super hot and under the wire. I'm confident that the majority of the rough edges will be smoothed out quickly, but just be aware that there are some bugs and deactivated features for the moment.

Good write up. I will check it out soon I just have too many games to play and spend money on. It sounds at the least interesting in how it differs. I also like management stuff a lot but I do kind of think that stuff wasn't there with much actual depth in the first game. It was cool watching the progression over time though and felt fun.

Unfortunately my experience with it yesterday got a bit stunted by the stacking Buzz bug. Seems like it's already been addressed though, so I'll probably start over and hopefully have a better time. Although I have to mostly agree with @chaser324. The assortment of food looks fantastic and the side-dish mechanic (which I got to test extensively yesterday) is excellent. I'm not a huge fan of how some of the food prep has been changed (most likely to accommodate other input methods), and the restaurant progression is quite underwhelming. But it seems like a lot of the issues are gonna get fixed fairly rapidly, so it's probably gonna be much better in a week or two.

Also, is it just me or did he use a sound clip of Ryan in the intro song ? It's near the end of the loop and it's the only part where the same voice says the whole title.

Yeah. I think I'm going to wait a week or two before I play any more. My primary issues are largely design related and unlikely to change, but it will be easier to make a fair assessment of the whole thing once the rough edges get smoothed out.

I think I prefer the Chef for Hire focus, left to my own devices my personal menu is gonna be boring shit that's easy to do and makes a lot of money. Whereas if I wanna do this shift it's Pizza all the way the down best get used to it.

I love that the holding stations make those more complicated foods way more viable though.

@efesell: I'm sure a lot of people will prefer this new structure. It's all going to come down to what expectations people approach the game with.

I'll have to wait on checking this one out. I'm not super clear on the differences to the first but i kind of hated some of the progression in the first game. I remember unlocking all i needed to upgrade but i was forced to play 20 times which just made things feel tedious so i quite playing.

Also, i kinda wanted it to be a bit deeper than it was. I wanted things like inventory management where you'd have to order stock and have it sold before it spoils.

I'll likely get it on a deep sale since it doesn't seem like enough is that different.

I definitely agree that they should have separated out the chef and the restaurant more. Make it so having a high level chef makes it easier to gain buzz and stars or something along those lines. To have one just raise the other at the same time feels off. Other than that thought I'm loving the game play changes. Min maxing your holding stations and keeping up with everything feels a lot more challenging. Also, once I got used to the tab system I appreciated having key overlap for different types of ingredients. With the colors and then being ordered, I don't feel the speed loss.

The design of CSD2's progression feels like it's directly a reaction to that issue, but rather than just attempting to remove that 20 day grind, it kinda just removed the kitchen/restaurant progression entirely. Some people probably won't miss it, but it's definitely making me feel like there's something missing in this package.

This is easily my most anticipated game of 2017. I agree that it does feel like some of the management aspects have been cut down in favour of a more streamlined Chef 4 Hire themed campaign (I didn't play all that much C4H in CSD1) so I am missing some of the upgrades and feeling of progression from the first. With that said, the gameplay is addictive and fun once you get used to the HS workflow, which I will admit, I'm terrible at, but I was always a mediocre CSD1 player. Also, seeing the special thanks to Ryan made my heart feel weak...

An update just went live btw. Supposedly there's another one going out tonight and a bigger one this weekend? It was fun being in the Discord server around launch time and having everyone cheer Chubigans forward when he hadn't slept for 30 hours and his internet died :o

Is there anything stopping you from just playing the custom one only though?

@efesell: No, you can pick what you like. There's just very little structure left to the "freeform" mode.

@chaser324: That's why i wish the game was more like a tycoon sim and money was the factor by which you upgrade to a new restaurant. Make the, "tasks" an optional challenging bonus that multiplies stats such as the amount of customers that show up, or how patient they are. Then i feel like the progression pace would be determined by my choices and skill. I'd be all for this game if they had something of a tycoon mode like that. Maybe i'll have a better impression if GB gets around to doing a quick look.

@sin4profit: It'd be a crime if GB didn't eventually do a Quick Look, but I hope they maybe wait a week for a few hotfixes.

This was my most anticipated game, and then I got it and played for about 15 minutes and haven't touched it since. I appreciate all the work the 1 dev is doing but it really should have been early access or delayed further.

I loved the progression in the first game, not a fan of the new system. Things seem to start out quite difficult from the get-go in this one, doesn't really give you time to get used to the new mechanics.

I'm in the same boat. Not having the progression just makes the game feel a lot more shallow. Which seems crazy considering there is so much more content, but without the old system and the restaurant upgrades it just feels kinda one dimensional compared to the first game.

Sounds like hes making some changes to the CSD mode next week to address some of the progression concerns.

Also mouse support for the menu went in today and that is the actual reason I was not touching that mode at all.

So he finally "fixed" Buzz today, but I don't really know how to feel about it. In the process of balancing it to be playable it pretty much got revealed that Buzz has also been completely stripped down in this game. There is no Buzz rating on food, there are no events etc. It's just your daily Buzz building up day after day. And as long as you're not making any bad orders it'll keep stacking, and if you make a single bad order it'll tank.

Watching this whole thing sorta makes me sad. It just seems like he's done the classic mistake of listening to all the negative feedback and forgetting that there were a bunch of people happily enjoying the first game. So he's custom-made a sequel for all the people who tried his first game but lost interest, and then completely ignored the fanbase. There's just so much effort gone into all the new things that he never got to make the basics that made the first game fun.

To me the only important thing are the foods and learning how to make them quickly and efficiently and that is what has improved a great deal. The flimsy premise of managing the business only ever got in the way.

There's definitely a contingent of people that agree with you, and the food prep is absolutely a deeper and better experience.

I really liked the management sim layer though, and I miss it now that it's almost entirely gone. The sense of progression it gave was cool, and it also gave the game a much smoother and more manageable difficulty curve as opposed to just throwing you into the deep end.

I'm not sure I agree. Yes, the holding stations and side dish mechanic is good, but the food prep itself has taken a few steps back in my book. There are almost no items you cook actively anymore (like you did with most deep fried food in the original), you can't really "slap together" food the way you could with some recipes in the original due to the separated steps, and there's generally very little "flavor" to the different techniques (like how you pulled out corks from wine, washed dishes or chopped ingredients for soup). Almost every recipe follows the "burger model" of stacking the correct ingredients. Sure, most of them are more complex, but they quickly blend together. I started doing the Cook 4 Hire earlier today and some of those days at Max Wieners where you're cooking Corn Chip Pies, Nachos and/or Hot Dogs together it just feels like you're doing the same base recipe over and over.

@ares42: You may be right about that. I've only played a couple of hours, and with there being so many food items, I guess I didn't want to jump to any conclusions about that.

I only have the first game and I'll have to agree that i prefer the management sim than the actual playing the game. I find myself cycling within a few items in the menu cause i cant bother to memorize the other items or they are too complicated to play in a hectic manner cause i always try to get a perfect day. I guess the new game is meant to force me to try everything? The first game already incentivizes that with the ticket system and giving bonuses but i do ignore those if its too hard.

@ares42: That's kinda what I want though, that moment when I've internalized all of those recipes and it just flies out the door with barely a blip.

Currently failing miserably at that with Chinese food though.

@efesell: The Chinese food is very hard.

Enjoying this game quite a bit despite some minor (and some not-so-minor) flaws. There are several annoying interface issues even after today's patch, which adds mouse functionality for the main menu. Although the UI design is very clean and attractive aesthetically, it's not very functional; the worst offender is how there's just not enough at-a-glance information available while scanning through large lists of food items. Browsing the recipe catalog is cumbersome because you can't actually see prices (or even the name of the food) until you click on the item to view its description in a separate screen. There's also no way to view food descriptions/prices anywhere but inside the recipe catalog; it would be nice to be able to see this info through your restaurant's daily menu offerings. These interface shortcomings are especially surprising in light of the fact that CSD1 actually provided options to quickly view prices and other useful info on its lists of recipes. Fortunately the post-release support for the first game was excellent, so I'm confident that the lingering UI bugs will eventually be patched out if nothing else.

Interface issues aside, the core gameplay definitely feels like a meaningful evolution from the first game. Obviously the biggest addition is the new Holding Stations mechanic that allows preparation of large batches of entire dishes or individual ingredients in advance, as well as new Side Dishes that are ordered alongside main entrees and extend customers' wait timers. With effective use of the Holding Stations, it's possible to compose a daily menu of large-volume recipes that are all prepped ahead of time and ready to serve with a single keystroke, making heavy lunch and dinner rushes much easier to handle. I haven't had a chance to try CSD2's new co-op mode, but the idea of one player handling prep at the Holding Stations while the other cooks the finished recipes sounds very intriguing.

Unfortunately CSD2 feels a bit thin on extra content right now, though the developer has already announced plans for future content updates. Aside from growing your own restaurant, the campaign's other major focus seems to be the new "Cook-For-Hire" levels that take place across several other restaurants located in the Teragon Supertower. Each restaurant has a particular theme, such as Italian food or barbecue, and you can select from a list of daily shifts with different food options. Completing certain optional objectives during a shift earns a Bronze, Silver or Gold medal, and these can unlock additional recipes as well as other items for your restaurant. Speaking of which, CSD2 adds the ability to customize the look of your restaurant with hundreds of unlockable objects, wall and flooring options; this is a welcome addition after the very limited aesthetic options in the first game. The game's general art style has also been given a nice overhaul with some truly mouthwatering representations of the different ingredients and recipes you can serve.

Overall I'm very pleased with the new core gameplay and have high hopes for the additions of future content. With a little more fit-and-finish and a few extra game modes, CSD2 could easily surpass the high bar set by the first game for me personally.

I don't get the holding station bit, sometimes when I'm done prepping a food it says it's ruined right away, with those :l smileys all over it, why can I sometimes prep a food and not other times?

@matsemann08: This is something that I've seen a lot of people confused about on the Steam forums as well.

The thing I think some people miss is that the holding stations will also specify an order just like a regular customer. So with pretzels for instance, you have to make the variety that it specifies, you can't just randomly pick one.

Can you still cook the Ryan Davis burger?

Oh yeah! It's one of the more popular burgers with my customers.

@brandondryrock:

Also came here to ask this!

I pretty much never play games on my iPad but I played the shit out of CSD on it and had a good time unlocking items, doing challenges, reading those emails, climbing in the 5 star rating (tangent: just saying 5 star rating makes me want to play SimTower). The original progression gave me a sense of role playing or immersion that I appreciated so it's a shame to hear that that was part of the changes to the CSD formula. Ahh well I'm probably still gonna get it.