Diner Dash 2 - Restaurant Rescue

Published Monday, May 15, 2006 by gamegirlrobot | E-mail this post

Diner Dash 2 is a lot of fun. PlayFirst really made some great and sensible improvements on the new version. GameGirl is impressed with the changes and this version is comparable to Cake Mania.

I think Restaurant Rescue is actually an effort made for "Diner Dash Rescue." As a matter of fact, I abandoned the original Diner Dash when I reached level 32. The original game was nothing but mechanically harder and harder. It was a lot of fun to play the "mid" levels. Yet the game became the training ground for "rapid mouse clicks" later on, without much strategy involved.

In Diner Dash 2, Flo (the main character) is trying to help her friends to earn enough money for restaurant upgrades and paying rent, in order to avoid being bought out by this B.I.G Food Corporation. There are 5 new restaurants. GameGirl likes the fact that PlayFirst development team respected the ethnicity of food in San Francisco. Now you can play American, Italian, Mexican and Japanese restaurants. Each level will come with a new upgrade for the restaurant and you will see some major improvements once you reached the last level for a specific restaurant. Please see the screenshots GameGirl provided here.

GameGirl likes:

More flexibility - now you have the option to "restart level" if you feel that you are not going to make the cash goal for that level, or you've made some serious mistakes
More cuisines - as mentioned earlier, more types of restaurants mean more fun playing the game
More objects - dessert stands are added to later levels to increase challenge. A phone stand is added so you can call a "helper" to help out during busy times. Child seats and floor wipes are added to simulate real life situations in a restaurant
More customers - there are 7 types of customers: old people, young girls, businesswomen, businessmen with cell phones, joggers, families and bookworms
More colorful graphic - you can pick the style of upgrades once you completed a level, you can also unlock "deluxe upgrades" if you reached "expert cash goals"

GameGirl dislikes:

lack variety of interactions - there isn't much I don't like about Diner Dash 2. However a few improvements will make the game the best in its category. It will be very fun if the style of business is a little different for each restaurant. For example, customers can self serve ordering at the counter in a pizza restaurant and sit themselves, the waitress can provide other services; or customers order at the cashier, and self serve taking food in a buffet restaurant and the waitress can provide other services, etc. It seems that Diner Dash 3 can be under development.

GameGirl Tips:

Prioritize your customers - make sure you prioritize the sitting of your customers in order of their patience and eating speed. Businessmen, then businesswomen, then young girls, then joggers, then families, then bookworms, then old people
Strategize your sitting plan - businessmen with cell phones will make everyone around them annoyed and lost "hearts", except the joggers and families. Make sure to sit joggers and families in the middle to segregate the businessmen from the other groups
Discover your strength - there are four types of "helpers" you can bring in. If you are bad at bringing people drinks, call a water boy; if you are bad at noticing waving checks, call a bust boy; if you always forget to stand at the podium, call a podium waitress, etc.

GameGirl thinks that PlayFirst has successfully rescued Diner Dash.

Game Girl Says....