It's no secret that I am a die hard "Diner Dash" fan, but I'll be the first to admit that lately the whole "Dash" series has beeen ...well...not so good.

"Parking Dash" is another RPG, customer service based game from Playfirst about yup you guessed it, parking cars. What? Parking cars doesn't sound all that fun and exciting to you? Really? Yeah not to me either. But that feeling doesn't last long, after about 5 mins. of gameplay, I was hooked! But I'm getting ahead of myself again!

The story starts off as you playing Karma, a funky character who wears a baseball cap and constantly listens to music through her headphones. Anyway, Karma's uncle Henry just died. Ahh! Sad right?

Wait, did I happen to mention that uncle Henry was rich and that he left Karma some property in his will? Yippee! But hold on, before Karma has a chance to get all excited about moving out of her rinky dinky lil ol' apartment she finds out that the property is an empty parking lot! Wow, Karma really is a _________!

Well, it's not all bad, there is some good news- the parking lot just so happens to be located in Dinertown right behind Flo's World Famous Diner! Flo just so happens to be a close, personal friend of Karma's and she convinces her to at least give the business a try and see if she can make a bit of cash.And so begins another customer service based game.

Customers drive in and Karma must hop into their vehicle and move it to an available spot. Of course as in all "dash" games, you should be making color bonuses; which means matching the car colors to the spot colors. The customers all stay for different amounts of time, which is displayed by a clock with a shaded area above their heads. 

SideNote: I know I have said this before but I feel it needs repeating-the clock does not represent their patience level as I originally thought (it took me a couple of failed levels before I realized this!) it only tells you how long they’re going to be so you'll have to stategize how to best place their cars. In fact, there are no hearts in this game that will tell you the happiness level of a person. The only way to tell is by looking at their facial expressions. Rule of thumb, if they have a big toothy grin then you know they're happy.

For example the people that have the bluest clocks should be parked towards the back of the lot since they will be the last ones to pick up their cars. And the people that have the least amount of blue in their clocks should have their cars parked closer to the exit since they will return to the lot faster than everyone else. You get it now right?

Once you start feeling pretty good about your skills as a parking maven, parking cones, piles of garbage are haphazardly placed in some levels, now try parking that stretch limo! This added puzzle element to the tried and true time management really keep things interesting.

Things get a little tougher in the later levels,even with the best parking smarts there will be instances that will involve you moving vehicles around so that you can access ones trapped behind it. As if that wasn't enough, another added obstacle you will have to deal with are celebrities in stretch limos and other vehicles that take up two spaces such as Hummers.Think of it as a sliding tile-like puzzle game. Brilliant!

Y'know, I was pleasantly surprised at how challenging this game became. Not hard, per se, just challenging. Now, now don't look so discouraged, "challenging'' is a good thing in gaming-what fun is it playing an easy, mindless point and click anyway.

Y'know, parking peoples cars isn't that much different than seating them at tables- you still have to be mindful of customer types.

Some customers are patient (seniors) and other ones are in a hurry (businesswoman) and needed their car yesterday! The cell phone guy is back and just as annoying as ever. His car alarm constantly goes off, which bugs all of the other customers, so you will have to stop whatever you are doing and turn it off. Speaking of customers, I found that they were less patient and harder to please in this new "dash" game. If you thought hungry people were cranky, try having to park cranky, hungry peoples cars all day!

Tips & Tricks

•    You can't move a car to the exit spot if no one is there to claim it, you can only move cars to another parking space if you need to pull another car out.

•    If there is debris on the exit, entrance or in any of the car spots, a car will not be able to pass through it until you've cleaned it up.

•    Customers who are angry when they leave will make you lose money. Lots of money! An angry customer can take up to 600 points off your total. Geez Louise!

•    You can reach the goal in the game and still lose the round at the last minute.Points get taken off for people who are upset when they leave.

•    Each type of customer will drive a different car model, memorize what each one drives so you recognize their cars as soon as soon as they show up. It will save you a lot of time.

•    If there are only 3 cars in a lot and 3 people waiting to pick up cars then there's no need to click on each person see which car belongs to them. Just pull all the cars out at once to save some time.

•    Never fill all the parking spots. If all your spots are filled, you will not be able to move cars around in order to get a car that's in the back out. I would always leave one space open at all times.