Happy's Humble Burger Farm Review (Xbox One)

STAFF REVIEW of Happy's Humble Burger Farm (Xbox One)

Thursday, January 13, 2022.
by Adam Dileva

I don’t think I’ve played something quite like Happy’s Humble Burger Farm before. Part fast food simulator, part horror game, I doubt you’ve played much like it as well. While it has similarities to Five Nights at Freddy’s, there’s actually quite a deep lore and interesting story here that I wasn’t initially expecting. Also, don’t let its look deceive you, it purposely appears like an old classic PSX game for most of the journey, for good reason.

Everything starts out normal-ish, with you heading to your first day on the job at the local Happy’s Humble Burger Farm, akin to any fast food chain you've visited a million times before, but once weird things start to happen, you’re in for quite a ride. The game begins right away with some sort of doctors looking over you as they’re talking about implanting some mind control device in your head. Totally normal for a game about fast food, right?

You start out playing by waking up in your seemingly normal apartment. Looking around, one of the rooms has some weird papers pinned to the wall, though I’m sure they mean nothing and have absolutely no foreshadowing at all. Notes that are creepy, something about being on an island, a nuke that went off and other things that won’t make much sense until you see the credits roll. Once you get a call about how you got the job, you’re told you’ll be on the night shift, alone, well kind of.

You’re going to have to learn how to flip burgers, make shakes, pour drinks, deep fry some nuggies and fries, bake cookies and more, all while the long lineup of customers patiently wait in line. Make sure you don’t mess up their order though, Happy wouldn’t like that. You’re given a short amount of time and very little to no training on how to do it all properly and quickly. There’s a surprising amount of backstory and lore if you take the time to explore and pay attention, one that actually had me intrigued about this odd world that only gets stranger by the day.

You’re going to be confused why you need to actually walk to work each night and why the world looks so dated, but it will all eventually make sense if you can become proficient at flipping those burgers and earning that wage, just don’t go looking where you’re not supposed to. While you’re running the place on your own, technically you have Toe, your neighbor and grilling partner, but good luck trying to understand a single word he says and holding a conversation.

You’re not just the cook though, the boss has also left a list of other objectives for you to complete for a bonus if you want, like taking in all the boxes from outside and stocking them on the shelf, cleaning the lobby and taking out all the dead rats from the traps surrounding the outside of the building. I have a feeling Happy’s Humble Burger Farm isn’t up to code on its health regulations. Before you can start helping customers though you need to clock in and turn on the Open sign, obviously.

Do this and customers will start filing in and placing their order at the till. Here you’ll see their order on the till and you’ll need to make it exact, or else. Get the order wrong or run out of time and you’ll get an infraction. Three infractions and Happy isn’t going to be so happy with you. I don’t want to spoil it, but keep Happy happy at all times.

Manage to get through your first shift and clock out and it’s time to go home and sleep. The next day seems about the same, though the orders become much more complicated and involved, requiring a lot of dexterity and speed if you don’t want to screw up any of the orders. And this is where it felt like the game was starting to fall apart in certain aspects. The controls on a controller are simply terrible. You have a small dot as your cursor, and to interact with any object, pick it up or throw them, your aim has to be exact. Having watched PC players with a keyboard and mouse, they didn’t seem to have the same issues I was with a controller. Do you get used to it eventually, sure, but it never feels great, especially when trying to frantically cook and fulfil customers’ orders without incurring any infractions.

Now, I’ve purposely been very vague about the non-coking aspects of gameplay for a reason. While there’s a few hours of gameplay to be had, the uncovering of the story and lore is the best part about Happy’s Humble Burger Farm. What I will say is that there’s a few jump scares but brimming with creepiness overall, especially once day two begins and your customers are mannequins. There’s got to be a reason you’re able to explore the rest of the small town after your shift right? Maybe you’ll unearth some answers, or even more questions.

While there’s no combat in the traditional sense, the times you need to fend off enemies is done with, well you guessed it, cheeseburgers that you piece together. Doing so isn’t easy in the regular restaurant setting, so imagine trying to do so with exploding mannequins or other distractions. This is part horror game as well, keep that in mind.

At first I wasn’t really a fan of the low-poly graphics, but it has a certain charm to it, feeling like one of those PS1 games that haven’t aged well over the years. Animations aren’t any better and textures are horrendous, but I’d wager this is on purpose, as Happy’s Humble Burger Farm proves it can look much better later on. Again, there’s a narrative reason for all of this, one that I don’t want to spoil. Audio is done quite well, with plenty of creepy sounds and hearing Happy when you incurred your three infractions simply made me tense.

While I do think the asking price is a bit steep, there’s more beneath the surface than I initially expected, well worth the time investment if you’re a fan of the fast-food horror genre, if that’s a thing. Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is best experienced if you go into it completely blind, and while the controls frustrate and never feel great, it’s a genuinely interesting story with an extremely odd and creepy aesthetic.

**Happy's Humble Burger Farm was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 6.0 / 10
Gameplay: 5.0 / 10
Visuals: 4.0 / 10
Sound: 7.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Happy's Humble Burger Farm (Xbox One)

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