When comparing Don't Knock Twice vs Overcooked 2, the Slant community recommends Overcooked 2 for most people. In the question“What are the best games for the Nintendo Switch?” Overcooked 2 is ranked 36th while Don't Knock Twice is ranked 61st. The most important reason people chose Overcooked 2 is:
Whether you played the first Overcooked or not, Overcooked 2 is easy to figure out right from the get-go. The recipes for each dish are familiar even if you're not much of a chef, so you can remember which raw ingredients you need as you make your way around the kitchen and work with your co-op partner(s). Once you play a few rounds, you should have a good handle on things, helping you focus on getting everything done as quickly as possible from there on out.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Creepy experience thanks to the setting
Exploring the mansion itself is a tense and creepy experience. Everything is unfamiliar, and there's a generous amount of disturbing moments like a bathtub filled with a sticky black substance or watching a shadowy figure get sucked out of a window. Rooms and hallways are incredibly dark, with a lot of ominous corners and shadowy spaces. Occasional scratches and tapping noises can be heard in far off rooms, making it seem like you are not entirely alone. Pictures fall off the walls and windows suddenly explode into showers of glass. There are plenty of carefully placed jump scares that create tension in all the right moments. There is no doubt you are playing a horror game, and the setting enables a very disturbing experience overall.
Pro Constant sense of tension due to creative use of a phone
As you wander around the mansion as Jess, you will occasionally get a text message from your daughter Chloe. It's quite a decent jump scare when you're exploring a dark, silent room, only to have the silence broken by your phone buzzing and vibrating with a loud text. The little burst of fear and subsequent jump you get each time the phone rings in the darkness is a great way to add an extra layer of tension to the game. The messages themselves are rather cryptic and creepy with Chloe often telling us she wishes we were dead. You're never quite sure when or where the phone is going to go off, making it unpredictable and tense for the duration of the game.
Pro Simple to pick up and learn
Whether you played the first Overcooked or not, Overcooked 2 is easy to figure out right from the get-go. The recipes for each dish are familiar even if you're not much of a chef, so you can remember which raw ingredients you need as you make your way around the kitchen and work with your co-op partner(s). Once you play a few rounds, you should have a good handle on things, helping you focus on getting everything done as quickly as possible from there on out.
Pro Hilariously fun couch and online co-op for up to four players
Playing Overcooked 2 with friends is the best. There's so much going on at once in the kitchen, with barriers moving in your way, hazards popping up like cars in the middle of the road separating the two halves of your area, and ingredients, dishes, and half-prepared dishes to move from one place to another. Working together and communicating with your friends through couch co-op or online play is a constant stream of laughter and excited shouting as you mess up, learn, and hopefully get things done. If you don't have anyone to play with, then you can hop online for matchmaking instead.
Pro Fast and frantic cooking action
Overcooked 2 is really fast-paced and keeps you on your toes. You play as a chef in a crazy kitchen with a ton of things going on all at once, with you mixing, preparing, and cooking in between the chaos of moving platforms and environmental obstacles. There's a time limit constantly ticking down at the bottom of the screen; finishing your tasks on time or ahead of schedule earns you a better score in the end. Tossing ingredients to your teammates across the kitchen, or across the moving platforms or obstacles like bodies of water, is a fresh new addition in this game that wasn't in the first Overcooked, making things even faster this time around. It's such a manic yet well-done mix of many different genres and ideas that all come together in the best ways.
Cons
Con Extremely linear gameplay
The game mainly consists of going from room to room, dealing with the frights and puzzles within, and then moving onto the next room. Puzzles are basic, with the solution usually being found within the same general area. The whole game feels like it's on rails, with rooms often sealing off once you've moved to the next one. While the setting and atmosphere is highly creepy, the gameplay itself is almost like a walking simulator with added jump scares.
Con Managing the axe is tedious
In your hand, you carry an important axe that is used to chop through locked doors and other barriers. In order to use or interact with items, sometimes you have to put down your axe. There is no inventory system, so if you put your axe down to do something else, you will have to remember to pick it up again. If you forgot you where you left it, you are left scrambling around to look for it. This is a very poorly designed system that can result in loads of frustration, tedious and unnecessary button presses, and tons of wasted time.
It's also important to note that since it's very possible to forget where you left your axe, and some rooms seal off after you've explored them, it's entirely possible to hit a dead end runthrough and be forced to restart.
Con Very short
The whole game can be completed in an hour, which is a far cry from the developers' claim of a "full length experience".
Con Generic story probably won't hold your interest
It's just another copy and paste paranormal story that doesn't really add anything new or exciting. You play as a mother named Jess, as she is attempting to reconnect with her estranged daughter Chloe. However, Chloe is on the run from some strange paranormal forces who are trying to harm her. In order to help her, you must search a mansion for pieces of a relic that can summon an evil witch. It's about as nonsensical as it sounds. Don't Knock Twice is based on the movie of the same name which was not well received.
Con Can be incredibly frustrating
Trying to work at such a fast pace with so many obstacles and general mayhem going on at once can wear on you after a while. There's a lot to keep track of at once, and it's easy for things to spiral out of control as your mistakes pile up. If your group isn't doing well and you're running out of time, you might find yourself losing your patience with your team and yelling at them. This might not be the game for you if you don't have a team that's willing to be patient and cooperative with each other, even when you're not doing so well during a particular round.
Con Single-player isn't as fun as co-op
If you only want to play alone, then Overcooked 2 might not be the best game to pick. All the fast-paced fun from co-op mostly comes from communicating with your team and trying to pull off your task together before the time runs out. You control two characters at once while playing alone, but this still lacks the team-based chaos that makes the game so addicting. You could instead go online for matchmaking, though you might get paired with people who don't want to talk or work as an actual team.
Con The controls are a bit sluggish
There's something about the controls that feels heavy and deliberate, and not necessarily in a good way. The feeling goes against the fast-paced nature of the gameplay that demands you in one place and then the next. If you played the first Overcooked, you may notice the difference right away. This change shouldn't be too much of a hassle, though it's still noticeable.