Chef (Game & Watch)

Being LCD handhelds, there is an inherent limitation on what can even happen in a Game & Watch game. The display only has so many spaces for objects to occupy and each one has to be given a set place. Things don’t truly move on a Game & Watch screen, meaning characters can only stand in predetermined locations and any attempt to make things look animated will inevitably fill up more of the available space. Under such strict design constraints, it might sound hard to make a game about cooking entertaining, and Chef certainly doesn’t try to dive into the deeper sorts of food prep that would make it a cooking game. Chef just asks you to keep flipping meat with your frying pan as long as possible, but some simple decisions means even this simple task can reach pulse-pounding levels.

The chef the game gets its name from is the character you play as in this high score chase, and it’s perhaps a bit charitable to say he’s preparing the food involved in play. Having already stepped away from the stove, the chef is now standing in the middle of his kitchen trying to keep multiple pieces of meat airborne for as long as he can. While a steak or fish should certainly be flipped eventually when preparing, the chef’s choice to also hurl chicken legs and sausage links into the air further makes it suspect he’s actually still engaged in food prep, perhaps instead making a game of keeping the food from hitting the floor. Perhaps appropriately then, Chef never sees a meal ending up back on the stove or getting safely delivered, the task being to juggle the food with your skillet as long as possible.

Chef has two difficulties available, Game A only requiring you to keep three pieces of meat airborne while Game B has you needing to cover the whole set of four. Your participation is pretty simple on the surface, the buttons you press move the cook left or right and as long as he’s in place when the food reaches a certain point, he’ll automatically launch it back up into the air, earning a point in the process. He’s not alone in his kitchen though. Hungry mice are eager for the chef to slip up, waiting with silverware to gobble up any food you’re not quick enough to save from hitting the tile floor. You are allowed to miss meat three times before the game comes to an end and your score is saved, and rather cutely a Miss is represented by a happy mouse with a full stomach. However, the mice at least make no efforts to sabotage the food juggling, but the other animal in this kitchen is a bit more mischievous.

A cat waits on a high shelf on the far left, it also capable of utilizing human utensils like the mice it probably should be hunting. With a fork, the feline will lean out and aim to disrupt your meat catching, stabbing the steak to keep it in place for as long as it likes. The cat won’t try to eat the meat though, happy to let it go eventually so it can start falling to the floor after a while, but it does mean at times there will be one less piece of food to worry about. If you get complacent though, the cat may drop it when you aren’t ready to dash over and save the steak, although thankfully the kitchen can be crossed incredibly quickly so as long as the food hasn’t fallen too low, you can usually save any meat that is still visually airborne.

The cat works as a smart little bit of design that interrupts your rhythm but also can give you a breather depending on how cantankerous it’s feeling in terms of dangling that steak. However, where Chef actually earns its longevity is in the very basic act of flipping food. When the food hits your pan, it is launched back up into the air, but not to a consistent height. Sometimes it will go all the way to the top of the screen and other times it barely hops out of the skillet. This variation is what gives Chef its edge, since you can never be assured of where you’ll need to be next. Game A does remain pretty manageable though, mostly because the cat’s frequent intervening means you’ll often be juggling the sausage and fish with only occasional attention required for the steak. Game B though has you needing to watch the flight paths of at least three food items at all times, and the cat’s helpfulness can vary since you always need to have some of your attention on it.

Hitting a score of 200 or 500 will wipe away any Misses you had during a run, but earning such high scores on Game B can be quite a reflex test as you’re constantly trying to cross the kitchen to juggle the meat properly. If the food always rose to the same height you could figure out a rhythm, but the inconsistencies lead to an exciting and hectic form of play where you can’t really sit back since you’re constantly trying to gauge when you need to be in one of the four standing spots. Chef sadly has no pause option which would help with getting the higher scores, although generally Game & Watch games didn’t have such a feature and even made sure to note in their manuals that the TIME button did not pause the action. You could set an alarm on your Chef Game & Watch but not pause it for later play, but that also means getting high scores start to add another pressure as you know you can’t step away without losing all those points.

THE VERDICT: Chef on Game & Watch is very simple and easy to understand and yet it figured out a way to make its food flipping play rather addicting. While fairly manageable when there’s only three pieces of meat in the air, Game B’s four foods lead to intense struggles to rack up points since you’re constantly on guard watching the varying flight paths of each kind of meat. The energy remains high as you zoom back and forth across the kitchen, your focus and reflexes tested well because there is no one consistent rhythm the game falls into.

And so, I give Chef for Game & Watch…

A GOOD rating. Chef’s Game A is definitely meant as an introduction or a bit of a simpler form of play for younger and inexperienced gamers, the cat definitely more a help than a sneaky saboteur in the game’s less difficult mode. Game B though is Chef’s most challenging and exciting format because you never feel that sort of comfortable safety found in Game A. You’re always left wondering how high a piece of meat will go when you next flip it, you’re watching that cat anxiously as you hope it won’t wait for all the other food to be coming down at the same time, and yet you are able to move quickly enough across the kitchen that you can save something before it becomes a meal for the kitchen’s mouse infestation. Plenty of Game & Watch games have consistent and reliable elements, you’ll see an object traveling the same distance every time it moves or an enemy will always have a lead in and lead out for its attack to watch. Chef doesn’t have the food stick to a consistent flight height though, meaning even when all the food is flying upwards, you’re still watching intently because you can’t really be sure when it will come plummeting back down. On the other hand, Chef keeps the Game & Watch formula when it comes to an attempt to make play consistently fair, meaning if the food is all coming down at once it will be possible to save it if you are quick and attentive. A high score in Chef’s Game B is well earned and yet you can always convince yourself you could do better because of this, making it appropriately addictive for a game that you’re meant to buy a dedicated handheld for.

Chef’s spot as one of the more recognizable Game & Watch games is well-earned. It embodies how the handheld can provide simple but fun gameplay quite well and it doesn’t lose its edge because you can’t just rely on a simple pattern of movement to keep racking up points. You need to pay attention and work to get those high scores in Game B, Chef showing that even with a good deal of its LCD screen devoted to cute critters and a rather large Chef character it can still make some compelling play. Rather than focusing on how little space there was for objects to move, it focused on how they moved to make it a game worth coming back to again and again.