I haven’t been a tycoon in a while, and I guess that showed when I started playing Restaurant Empire 2 recently, since I failed the first scenario miserably. I was starting to think I might have lost my “tycoon touch” (you know, the one that makes you such a fantastic control freak that you never lose a game) when I decided to start again and listen carefully to all the tutorials… instead of assuming I knew everything I needed to know about tycoon games. Success! I beat the first scenario, quickly conquered the second, and won my first cooking competition in no time.
Restaurant Empire 2 is a game for the entrepreneur in all of us. This title is technically a two-in-one, since you can play the original Restaurant Empire campaign, only a remastered version of the story mode. In it, you play as Armand LeBoeuf, a recently graduated chef who sets out to get his uncle’s restaurant back in business, and in a way rebel against the big chain who is buying out and taking over all the picturesque restaurants around Paris.
There is a pretty steep learning curve and you might get tired of the tutorials before you actual get to play a scenario, but it’s a necessary feature, since there is a lot to manage and pay attention to. You will go from placing decorations and arranging your dining room to hiring the different types of staff, picking the recipes and dishes served, to choosing the fonts and background of your menu. And this is just the beginning, the basics required to open a functioning restaurant.
From here, you will learn new and more complex things. Some special customers will offer you hints to improve existing recipes, entirely new recipes, give you information about food suppliers… for a fee. Some will even offer you deals to boost your staff’s morale.
And then there are the cooking competitions, where you pick the recipe you are most proficient in and test your luck against two other chefs. As Armand cooks, you get to play short mini-games to help him stay focused on what he’s doing. These are simple tasks like following a dot around and clicking when it crosses a certain spot, or order numbers in a particular order as fast as possible. The better you do in these games, the better Armand will score in the competition. Winning competitions will reward you with cash prizes, new recipes and the opportunity to upgrade your restaurant’s exterior.
Slowly, you will open more restaurants and find yourself managing an entire chain.
The new campaign mode is entitled Coffee, Dessert and Sweets Success, a 16-scenario challenge where you guide Armand and his wife Delia through building an empire composed not only of restaurants but also coffee shops. Of course, there is little tutoring involved in this campaign, since it will assume you already know how to play the game, manage your restaurants and win competitions. You will get a brief tutorial on how the coffee shops work, mainly regarding the counter area, which will be your chef’s workstation, and respective tools used.
There aren’t many differences between the two games. The Coffee Shop portion brings new recipes, a few new interior decorative items, new furniture and some new wall and floor options to use in your cafes, but for some reason these items aren’t available for the Restaurant Empire campaign, and you can’t use most restaurant items in the cafes either, which is a shame. There are some interesting exterior decorative themes (chocolate dessert, candy, racing cars, aquatic) and you can now add stages and live entertainment to your establishments.
Furthermore, if you take into consideration the time elapsed between the making of the first title and the release of the second, it’s unfortunate that there has been no major graphic overhaul. The game sort of looks like a lower polygon count version of The Sims 2.
However, the gameplay is solid, and there is definitely a lot to keep tycoon enthusiasts entertained for quite a while, as they attempt to transform their restaurants and cafes into top-notch 5 star attractions.