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On a recent visit to my local Gamestop the other day I picked up a lil Wii game called "Fast Food Panic."
Actually, I practically grabbed it out of the salesguy hands! You see, I have been highly anticipating this title, and every time I've been to the store it's been out of stock. That's a good sign right? That must mean that
1.) it's a really popular game and they can't restock it fast enough (another Tickle me Elmo if you will.)
and
2.) it's great fun game to play.
Right? Right?!
Well sadly 3.) should be, they don't even bother to re-order it it's so bad!
Playing "Fast Food Panic" may actually be worse than working in a fast food restaurant! Fa
"Fast Food Panic" aims to tap into the same RTS, cooking game audience that enjoys titles like "Cooking Mama" and "Order Up". The developers over at Nobilis Studios released it for the DS and the Wii, my review is based on the Wii version only.
Feast on greasy meat
Here's the storyline, a pair of chefs named Takumi and Meg (you must pick one) start a new restaurant and struggle to keep up with their many customers. You must prepare multiple dishes at once, while keeping an eye out for new customers to greet, dirty tables to have cleaned, and rats to chase away that could upset the clientele!
Along the way, you will need clear a table, wipe up spills, or make a delivery. You will also need to be especially careful when preparing meals for visiting food critics (just ignore the fact that the most critics don't actually review fast food restaurants!)
Don’t even get me started on it being aggravating! So you are doing all of this stuff mentioned above and you are essentially the ONLY employee.
Sure, you have some girl that is supposed to be part of your staff, but that’s mostly a chore in itself.
She is an absolutely terrible employee, because she is constantly begging for your help.When she asks for your help you must stop and help her or you lose. When you come back, your kitchen is a mess and you fail.
How do you handle trying to keep your customers happy, while cooking ten meals, and helping this girl use a calculator?
Yeah I do realize there would probably be no game without her complaining and being helpless. But still!
Wonky Controls
Using the Wiimote and Nunchuk you will be simulating chopping, stirring, and cutting. The controls are somewhat unresponsive at times,usually during the most busiest time of day, of course!
Junk food for your Wiii
As your character cooks at the grill, the player will be forced to watch as a bunch of burgers cook. After they are assembled and then served, it's back to cooking a few more...and then a few more...and then a few more. By the 10th burger, any last shreds of fun will soon fizzle away.
Sure, the game takes place in a fast food restaurant, but there's got to be more than just burgers to cook.
Try to muster up a happy place in your mind as you flip over and over again-bun, patty, bun, patty . . .egg? This game is also very Japanese, so some may be amazed at a few of the ingredients.
Variety is the spice of life
Anyway back to cooking, after pulling a burger and buns off the grill,you will move over to an assembly station where you will need to put together the order. This involves dragging ketchup, pickles, and all of the other condiments onto the burger following the icon located at the top of the screen.
So it's basically a fast, paced matching game, which feels a bit odd and childish.
Several orders usually come in at once, and you can multitask and hop between dishes you're preparing by flicking the nunchuk. For example, you might throw some burgers and buns on the grill and then switch over to rolling out pizza dough while the burgers cook. By cooking I mean watching a meter as a slab of meat sizzles!
It's a lot like watching water boil in real life.
Fulfilling multiple orders gives you a bonus score and keeps you from falling too far behind. Sending the food quickly is as important as preparing it correctly, and doing a good job adds to your customer happiness meter and successfully completely the level.
I said hold the pickle! Hold the pickle!
Speaking of the levels, there are only 15! it’s like paying for a full-course meal, but only getting served an appetizer.
Most time management games have 40 to 50 levels. I completed the entire game in three days by just playing it for an hour here and there. This is a big disappointment, this game felt half-baked, poorly put together and incomplete.
"Welcome to New York. Satisfy the big American eaters."
That's exactly what you'll hear when reaching the NYC stage, I kid you not!
When traveling around the globe to cook, you'll hear some nasty stereotypes like "picky" Parisians, "stubborn" Germans, and "big" New Yorkers.
And the menu never changes,had the dishes changed to match their locale, this would have made more sense, but nooo, it's yet another cheeseburger after cheeseburger,after ...you get the point.
These tough customers have specific requests of their food, though it's not always easy to tell exactly what sets them off. They just erupt in anger and force you to replay a level over and over again! It is hilarious however watching customers storm out and hearing the AI politely thank them for coming in anyway!
SideNote: I resent the“big American Eater" thing.”
To break up the monotony of the gameplay, the game developers through in some minigames. They're all one-shot games, distractions really in the same frantic fast paced way the WarioWare games play.
They're ok I guess but I could have done without them to be completely honest with you. For example, "Super Hot Food" is a shell game of curry plates. They spin around and you have to find the one that doesn't have hot sauce. It just seems haphazardly tacked on in an attempt to fatten the game up.
Sound
The music is repetitive at best. But hey,this is a cooking game, not a music game.
Graphics
The game doesn't win any points for cutting edge graphics, it is average at best and does it's job.But I will say it's bright and colorful.
The food looks like squares put together that has been glossed up. (yeah, glossed up squares to make it look like food, yum.) With that being said, the "anime style" matches well with the game.
"Fast Food Panic" was nowhere close to being a fun cooking game like "Diner Dash" or "Cooking Mama",with it's head-scratching tutorials and wonky controls it had a rushed, poorly put-together feel to it.
hich allow you to quickly jump in and out of anything you
After about 15 minutes, you'll have had your fill!
Get Fast Food Panic Here |
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Posted by oxyjen on Jul 13, 2010
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