Introduction
Have you ever wanted to pretend you were an airplane commissary? Dispensing food and beverages to irritated customers who complain too much about the quality of a vehicle that literally allows us to fly? Yeah I don’t either, and in no way would I consider this working as a game idea: Shakes on A Plane unfortunately exemplifies this thought with its mediocre mechanics, uninteresting story, and clunky controls.
Shakes on A Plane is an indie cooking simulator game created by Huu Games, Assemble Entertainment, and Animera Game, while being published by Assemble Entertainment alongside WhisperGames. While cooking simulator games never really seemed as appealing to me, I could always see as to why they had a fairly large fanbase, but this particular foyer into the genre falls on its face right from the get go. The story starts off fairly vague, as aliens gather around in what appears to be a cooking competition that determines the survival rates of species? (sounds like a Rick and Morty episode, I know) and proceeds with a certain race sending fidget spinner probes into earth’s orbit to find the best cuisine. Can you guess where they decide the focal point of this game to be? Where this alien race, on the cusp of extinction, chooses to harness human’s culinary aptitudes? Planes. You read that right, they choose planes. And this is where the game takes off.
Gameplay
The gameplay does nothing special, nothing enthralling, and ultimately feels as if I am playing a mobile game on my old IPhone 3. The loop revolves around a traditional cooking sim set up (like OverCooked!), what with having a fixed, isometric view of the airplane. The player must manage the wants and needs of customers’ demands, such as making coffee and making ice cream sundaes in order to appease the commuters (what airline serves ice cream in place of dry biscuits? I need to know for personal reasons), and that’s it. The levels get more advanced later on and add more recipes but the core gameplay never deviates from this idea and never grows from it either, just adding more busy work and different recipes to create a monotonous frenzy that would bore any player to near-death.
Music
Music in games is a particular oddity that I tend to fixate on when playing something new, as it usually adds a whole new dimension to the game if done correctly, but like everything else this game does, it is terrible. It literally sounds as if I gave my 2 year-old-niece my keyboard and just let her smash all the keys in a line, and I then put it into the game ( I have actually done this before, and it sounded substantially better than this game’s soundtrack). It drones on in a meandering beat and just frustrates the player more and more, as it feels as soulless as the gameplay.
Verdict
This game offers nothing substantial to casual gamers, or even fans of the genre, as it just does nothing interesting (not to mention using outdated humor. Fidget spinners were funny in 2016, it’s been 5 years, that train is long gone) and just consigns itself with being a blatant rip off of other cooking simulator giants. In conclusion, Shakes on A Plane is a boring, dull, and lifeless game that you should avoid like it just pulled out 6 fidget spinners in a desperate attempt to make you laugh; I would recommend any cooking simulator fan to avoid this OverCooked! that came out grossly undercooked.
For more information, visit: https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/shakes-on-a-plane-switch/
Whether it be diving deep into uncharted oceanic depths, wading through knee-deep pools of demon blood, or taking a leisurely walk through a fictional western frontier, I am always eager to explore previously unknown sectors of the creative space, impatiently overturning every stone begging to be flipped over. Dabbling in both speculative and realistic fiction, with a sprinkle of journalistic fanaticism, I enjoy any game that displays narrative magnificence, or if it's just plain fun!
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