Satisfy your hunger with Chillingo's Order Up!! To Go on iOS

If you're a big gamer, you might have already heard of the Order Up!! franchise via the game's release on Wii (by Zoo Games) back in 2008. This year marks a comeback for the game, as it's set to launch (via Ignition Games) on both Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation 3 next month. If you can't wait that long, and want some Cooking Mama-inspired gaming on the go, you can now pick up Order Up!! To Go on your iPhone or iPad absolutely free.

Chillingo brings us this portable version of the cooking game, which offers plenty of entertainment along your road to becoming a top restauranteur. Your journey starts on the island of Port Abello, as you're given access to the tutorial restaurant of "Burger Face," and your first real restaurant in "Gravy Chug." As customers arrive to your restaurants, you'll see tickets representing their orders. Tapping on a ticket makes that particular item active, and shows all of the tasks you'll need to complete to actually serve that item to the customer. In the case of a chicken sandwich combo, for instance, you would need to fry the chicken, slice a tomato, leaf a head of lettuce and fill a soda cup.

As you cook these items, if you're given more than one item to prepare at once (say, a salad and a hamburger), you'll want to multitask on as many like steps as possible. That is, if you can fry two batches of fries at once for two separate dishes, this is much better than doing one batch at a time, as food that has already been completed will sit, becoming cold (thus lowering the customer satisfaction) as you scramble to finish other tasks.

By completing shifts in your restaurants, you'll earn coins that can be used to purchase additional restaurants, and your restaurants themselves will be upgraded based on the approval of your customers (this is cleverly shown as a "Yarp" rating, off of the real world review site Yelp). Coins can also be used to purchase individual dishes that can be served as your restaurants even when you're not playing. This is an entirely separate gameplay feature, allowing you to view your restaurant's menu and then spend coins in bulk on as many servings of a particular dish as you think your customers will demand in a single day. Animated faces show off how popular a dish is with your customers, giving you a better idea of which ones to stock up on, and which ones to skip for that day.

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At any time, you can login to Chillingo's Crystal social network and send your friends Gold Coins that can be used in their own restaurants as premium currency in place of coins. You can also track your stats on recipes via the in-game leaderboards, earning Game Center achievements along the way.

For a "simple" iOS game, Order Up!! actually has a lot going on. Some of the user interface choices leave a bit to be desired, as the menus can sometimes get in the way of the tip windows that remind you how to complete tasks if you've forgotten. At the end of the day though, this one's a pretty great dish.

Download Order Up!! on iTunes --->

Did you play Order Up!! on Wii? Will you try the game now that it's available on iOS (especially since it's free)? Sound off in the comments.