Game Reviews

Diner Dash Grilling Green

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Diner Dash Grilling Green

As has been rammed down our throats by a smorgasbord of chef-based TV programs and books, the commercial kitchen is a microcosm of life. It's fast, brutal, steamy, bloody and only the most foul-mouthed succeed.

Flo, the restaurateur of the million-selling Diner Dash series, lives in a more rarefied place of course.

Sure it's fast. After all, this is a time management game, but at worst the guests will walk off in a huff. There's no effing and blinding. Especially not from granny, who's your mild mannered chef in the iPad exclusive Grilling Green.

Bums on seats

The game's backdrop also is fairly green, as Flo has to meet the city's new ecological requirements before her diner gets shut down.

This doesn't mean much, apart from a focus on healthier foods and a juice machine, which acts as a pick-me-up for customers who are reaching the limits of their tolerance. As ever this is demonstrated by a five heart satisfaction meter for each group, which slowly drains away if their needs aren't fulfilled.

Your job is to keep customer satisfaction as high as possible throughout the queuing, ordering, eating and paying process, so you're rewarded with more points when they leave. Then, you need to clear and fill their table with new customers as quickly as possible.

Providing some variation, different customers require less or more attention, with the smartly dressed business women demanding everything now, while OAPs will munch slowly on their food, hogging tables in the process.

Tricks of the trade

To really maximise your points total, though, you'll have to get to grips with other basic rules. Flo can carry two things at once, and chaining actions such as carrying two orders to granny or clearing up two tables will give you bonuses. Similarly, matching the chair colours with each groups' clothes colour is rewarded.

It's all fairly simple, and the game's requirement for moving onto the next level - there are 20 in all - aren't demanding either. Compared to previous versions, the frantic nature of Grilling Green is fairly benign. Perhaps it's helped by the scale of the iPad screen, and the multi-touch, which makes it easier to set up moves.

This also means you can play with friend co-operatively. It's not something that's specifically supported in terms of modes, although you (or a friend) can speed up the cooking process thanks to the Touch Cooker 3000.

Tapping on this brings up a Cooking Mama-style mini-game in an otherwise unused part of the screen (hence the co-op potential) for each of the seven types of food available.

Strictly speaking, you don't have to do this yourself it as left alone granny manages to complete the food preparation by herself, but taking control certainly speeds things up. What's really important, however, is the ability to stack orders of the same dish together so you only have to prepare them once.

This is vital to do by the end of the game, but as long as you're sensible about the sequence in which you arrange orders - only sequential orders can be stacked - it's not too taxing.

In fact, unlike the cooking prisons inhabited by the likes of angry Gordon and cheeky Jamie, this restaurant is almost placid. Of course, you'll suffer from the occasional frustrating missed selection of an item, but overall, the only annoyance is the game’s generic nature and failure to advance the series in a significant manner.

To that extent, then, Diner Dash Grilling Green is more KFC than cordon bleu: finger licking fun but nothing special.

Diner Dash Grilling Green

Grilling Green follows the Diner Dash recipe to the letter. It's filling and you’re tasted it many times before, but it’s not very inspiring
Score
Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.