Its not news to anyone that I’m a Diner Dash fanatic and a big fan of Flo. The news of a sequel literally had me jumping for joy, complete with happy dance and all.
In Diner Dash 2: Restaurant Rescue, our heroine Flo returns to help a few friends. A greedy Tycoon named Mr. Big is threatening to demolish four picturesque eateries in order to build a mall. Enter Flo, coming to the rescue of these endangered restaurants. Its up to her to run things long enough to raise funds so that her friends can keep their restaurants in business.
The gameplay is exactly the same as in the original Diner Dash, so if you were comfortable then, you will be comfortable now with the simple point, click and drag controls. The only difference in the interface is that your score now shows on the top right corner. Once again, a parade of colorful customers flocks to the restaurants, but this time around things get a little more complicated.
Diner Dash 2 introduces four new customer types:
- The Family. Mom, dad, child and baby will require some extra attention, specifically a baby chair and occasionally a mop to clean up the mess. If you dont provide the chair, the baby will constantly cry, making other people around unhappy.
- The Cell Phone Addicts. Those annoying people who dont let go of their phones even while they’re eating. Every time the phone rings, people around them get upset.
- The Joggers. These girls are too busy with their headphones to care about the noise, so they’re perfect to be seated next to Cell Phone Addicts.
- The Bookworms. They’re about as slow as the Seniors that we know so well, but get extremely annoyed if there is noise.
Obviously, these new customers will pose some new challenges as far as seating goes. Gone are the Food Critic, the Hot Shots and the Boys but the Business Women, the Girls and the Seniors are back.
Game progression is a bit different as far as upgrading the restaurant. For each goal you meet, you will gain 2 decor options. If you reach the expert goal, you gain a third option. You customize everything from your tables and chairs to the walls, counters, window treatments in some cases, outdoors, lighting and accessories. The possibilities for each restaurant are quite numerous, so you can play the game several times and have your dining rooms looking different each time.
There are also several new items that will make your job easier. You can add a bench to your line, sitting one group at a time on it (its like an emergency procedure for when they have been waiting for too long, or a good idea to keep a group of Cell Phone Addicts at bay for a while). The baby chair and mop will be on the right side near the dirty dishes bin. Drinks will be on the counter, snacks between the counter and dirty dishes bin, and a new dessert station will be on the left side of the counter. Desserts can get tricky though: a customer might be done eating and asking for one, but if you happen to go to the table without the dessert in your hand, you end up giving them their check. In the middle of really busy shifts, its easy to make this mistake and lose some extra money.
Next to the mop, a phone will occasionally be available, and here is the innovation in the game: you can use it to call one of four staff members to help you out during those customer rushes. There is a busboy that cleans the table for you, a bartender that constantly serves drinks without waiting for the drink station to refill, a hostess that stays at the podium making the people in line happy, and a performer to make people at the tables happier. You can only use the phone once per shift (provided the level has the phone).
A lot of work went into the animations and the graphics. It’s so refreshing to see how the expressions and gestures of the characters change according to the actions or situations. A funny little detail we can’t really get over is Flo’s nose (which seemed to be nonexistant before, but gave her a cuter look).
There are many new sound effects and the music is also new, with a theme for each restaurant, but if you listen closely you might recognize some notes from the old tune we got used to in the original Diner Dash.
Personally, I am very glad with the result in Diner Dash 2. I didn’t stop playing until I saw the end of it (which took me two days of several hours in a row, missing only 8 expert scores out of 50 levels), although I expected a little something more in the final storyboard. Mind you, Flo has some very cool “last words” in it.
Diner Dash 2: Restaurant Rescue didn’t disappoint me one bit, from the artwork to the gameplay itself. Yes, it does get more difficult in earlier stages, but it offers some really good challenges with the new seating issues (damn those cell phone guys!), more demanding customers and awfully busy shifts. You can download the 60 minute trial and see for yourself!
Special thanks to Kirem Weers, Sora Bai and PlayFirst for providing the full version of this game.