There are three restaurants in all, America - 20 levels, Asian - 20 levels and Italy - 20 levels. I completed all 60 levels very easily but got bored after the first 10 levels of each restaurant. The upgrades were limited and pretty much done after 10 levels and most of the food additions had come into play by then too. You spend the last 10 levels of each restaurant doing the same routine, with the same old dishes, over and over, quite mindlessly with nothing to keep your interest, or make it exciting in some way. Game play wise, it reminds me of the old 'Cake Mania' games. The graphics and sound effects were good and the food looked delicious, but I was relieved to finish it.
This is a nice time management game to dip in and out of. You need a lot of patience for it. You have to be in it for the long haul. The rewards are okay if you stay the pace. It is boring at times but it's also old school fun, that you just can't get these days. Some people might say that's a good thing. I've been playing on and off for a year. Mostly off. I'm not sure I'll ever reach the end because you have to serve probably thousands of customers and make an enormous amount of money. I'm not sure there is an end. If it wasn't so old, it would be like the never ending games of today, like Time Gap, which you have to stop playing for your sanity.
I found this game highly addictive. I couldn't put it down. I knew I had to finish it before I could sleep or eat or anything else. It's TOO addictive and bordered on crazy making at times. Not a relaxing game, at all. I must have played some levels six or seven times, but I never gave up. It is strict and challenging and shall not let you pass to the next level until you have completed the former level to its satisfaction. When I first tried it, I didn't like it at all and quit after five minutes of playing. It has a different game play than some of the other cooking games and just takes some getting used to. I went back to it after a month or so, gave it another go, and became hooked! There are 12 levels in The Pancake House. 18 levels in The Burger Joint 24 levels in the Juice Bar.
Good gameplay with interesting and fun HOS, that seemed to be thin on the ground at first, but appeared to be a lot more frequent at the end. Around the time this game was made, there was a phase and fashion when some HOG's gave you a helper, in the form of an animal, or in this case, puppet, to solve problems and get objects up high, or in difficult places. I normally find them quite annoying but I must admit, I have a bit of a soft spot for the joyful, smiling redhead that helps you out in this game. They normally don't help you all that much but this one was very keen. Don't like the painted graphics style and there's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, and no environmental sound effects in the hidden object scenes, but overall, a pleasant, and at times, exciting and dramatic well paced game.
I bought this because in the demo there were quite a few hidden object scenes, but once I bought it, I noticed, as the game went on, the HOS seemed to get less and less and the mini puzzles seemed to get more and more, until eventually, I forgot that there were supposed to be any HOS in there. There are so many mini puzzles in it and hardly any HOS and I'm a HOS fan. There is also quite a long recharge on skips for puzzles, so I did a lot of waiting around. Saying that, it has lovely graphics, very gentle on the eye, with good environmental effects and a relaxing atmosphere, with good ambience and decent game play. There is quite a bit of going back and forth through a large number of the same scenes, but the hint system was good, so there was no danger of getting lost or disorientated.
This reminded me of the very old style adventure games like Simon The Sorcerer, which I absolutely love but...I don't have the patience for all that now, It's time to move on! Like Simon The Sorcerer, there's lots of to'ing and fro'ing. LOTS of going backwards and fowards, sometimes right back to the start and I like more linear games these days. I didn't get lost like I usually do though.There are lots of nice HOS. I didn't like the graphics very much but the characters were good, I liked the noises they made! They um amd ah, grunt and groan, rather then say very much. I'm not a fan of cut scenes and there are a lot of those. The HOS were good and so was the atmosphere and environmental noises. There are quite a few moral choices to make also, with consequences. For example, do you help a poor man steal from a rich man, or do you tell the rich man that he's about to be pickpocketed? Decisions...decisions...
Quite old school, creepy but not gory, with a vampire theme. All the scenes are fairly basic and minimilistic. You won't find too much to do in each scene, but its simplicity is its strength. It manages to stay exciting and atmospheric throughout.
The HOS were great, with beautiful graphics, interesting attention to detail, are gentle on the eye, and yet clear enough to find hidden objects. The game play is exciting and atmosheric with good environmental sound effects. You also have to make moral choices, now and again. For example, do you choose to kill the giant ant, or feed it some cake to make it go away. It's your choice.
I liked it because it wasn't run of the mill. You find objects to begin with and they either get used together, to make up another object, to help set up a puzzle. or are given to someon, to help them. There aren't any HOS in the classical sense but you find objects, so...yep, I guess that makes it a HOG. There are no word list HOS. It's all shapes or pictures. Because of the way my brain works, I much prefer word list HOS. I can't get my head around shapes so much. I hovered over objects rather than actively tried to find them at times, because the mouse icon changes to a hand when you're over a hidden object. Then you just click on that object, to get it. It's a really lazy way to find objects in this game, but also fun. It was a surprisingly short game.I liked the sound effects, the atmosphere wasn't too bad and I liked all the little arcade shooter type puzzles.
I wasn't keen on the graphics, but to be fair, it's an old game. I liked the music. I thought it was catchy and haunting, up until about level 50, when it just got annoying. It's a challenging game, frustrating at times. You get 5 lives per level. There are bonus games within some levels. There are not many drops and I found some of the gameplay elements irritating.The small bat is too close to the bricks and there are contraptions that make your ball speed up to crazy levels. I played it to the end, over several months. I felt it wasn't addictive and was one of those games where you dip in and out. I did enjoy the steampunk genre. There are 105 levels in this game, so you do get your money's worth in that department.