Reviewed: June 22, 2007
Reviewed by: Jeff Gedgaud

Publisher
Eidos Interactive

Developer
PlayFirst

Released: May 22, 2007
Genre: Strategy
Players: 1-2

7
6
6
7
6.5

Supported Features:

You need to not only pick the décor but also speedily serve the ever-increasing workload of customers as you dash about taking orders, cleaning tables and serving up the most delectable of meals. Okay so you have no idea if the food is good but you do serve and wait tables in your own diner to keep the customers happy and try to get ready for the next ones.

The main story here is one of simply trying your hand at owning a diner as you start at the bottom and work your way up to a nice restaurant. Starting at the bottom means you have to do all the work in the dining area while your cook tosses the plates out to you through the window.

There will be a couple of tables and a few customers to start with where you need to seat the customers, take their order when they give the friendly little wave and then serve their food when the cook completes their order and the bell rings. You also have to clear the table for the next customer when they have paid their bill.

This sounds easy enough and the first few rounds are but soon the pace picks up when the customers start piling up in the waiting area and you need to find seats for everyone. You can do some things to speed up the process of serving all those hungry customers but it mostly boils down to how fast you can do things on the little PSP screen.

In later rounds of your career you will tend to child problems of seating the youngsters in high chairs and cleaning the floor from the inevitable spills. You will also have upgrades like soda machines, coffee urns and desserts to increase the cash flow and tips you receive as well as the customers’ happiness.

The career mode continues on until you reach a certain level and then you get to increase your status with a better grade of restaurant. The game remains the hectic same, but you don’t have much time to complain as you frantically try to seat people, take orders and well just basically keeping your customers happy.

The Endless shift mode is basically a waitresses nightmare of unending demands of customers wanting more and more from you. There are three difficulty levels of the endless shift where you start the game with a certain number of stars and for each unhappy customer who walks out you will lose some of your stars. When all the stars are gone you’re done for the day and can close up the diner.

The multiplayer section has several competing modes like highest score in your choice of rounds wins or the first to serve so many customers is champion server. There is also a survival mode where the first player to loose three customers looses the game.

Diner Dash is a pretty fun game and one you can quickly pick up and start playing without having to read any rules or how to play tutorials much. There is some simple rules and you will be off and hustling that hash in minutes with the first round being a quick and dirty tutorial.

In the Career mode after every few levels you will receive the upgrades to help you keep customers happy and gain some extra tips. The happiness of your customers is where you win and lose the game. You need to keep an eye on the little hearts and try to serve the customers before they get low and leave the diner.

You also have to be quick on the orders and use your two hands and the quickest routes to your objectives by multitasking everything you do. If you can grab a coffee on the way to a table when you’re as you pass the coffee pot you can gain a few extra seconds for the customer that may keep them in your diner till you get back to them.

When you’re hurried you try to do this multitasking but it may not always work out. The gameplay is pretty good and by the time your done with a few rounds the game doesn’t change all that much, but just like Tetris never changes it’s very fun to see just how far you can get.

I made a comparison earlier about Tetris and am going to do it again, this game is very simple and that is what makes it good instead of bringing it down. The graphics and sound are both simple yet work well for this type of game and just like Tetris the simple things work so don’t mess with what works.

You’ll know when a new customer comes in not only by them popping up but you’ll hear the gentle mumble that sounds very much like a diner. Other parts of the sounds will clue you in to things needing attention like the chime the cook uses when an order is up. They did a good job getting all the parts of Diner Dash as simple yet functional as they could.

There is not much beyond serving the customers and keeping up with the games hectic pace once you get into some of the career levels or further into the endless shift but that is what the game is all about. One thing that I see as a problem with the game is controlling the cursor where you need your character to go. Using the controls on the PSP can get to be tricky as you have to occasionally go a few steps to get the cursor to the right spot which will slow you down when the pace picks up.