Order Up!! Fast Food

The first bite of any fast food tends to be pretty good. The second isn't too bad either. Salt, fat, secret sauce - what's not to like?

But afterwards, when you sit there reflecting on the greasy meal you just consumed, there's rarely a feeling of satisfaction or nourishment. There's just a strange after-taste and a sense of emptiness that only your next proper meal can fill.

That's probably not the association Chillingo was aiming for with its latest snack-sized iOS game.

It's apt though, because Order Up!! Fast Food can't quite shake off its greasy wrapper and offer something more substantial.

One thing about fast food is that it's designed to appeal to the broadest swathe of palates possible.

And sure enough, Order Up!! Fast Food doesn't offer anything you won't have tasted before. It's a grid-based pattern-matching puzzler at heart.

It's not a bad one, though. You sketch out lines to link adjacent food types, which makes them disappear. This causes the rest of the food to drop down, creating new matching possibilities. You have one minute in which to score as many points as possible.

As premises go, it's the equivalent of a cheeseburger and fries. Solid, dependable fare.

There are subtle variations on the theme though. Getting bigger matches fills your RUSH meter faster, which in turn cranks up your score multiplier. Patterns of five or more pieces will create a 'X2' piece, which will double that match's points.

Matches of seven or more are called Monster Combos. They leave a piece of cake in their wake. Mashing this cake with your finger fills up your RUSH meter in no time.

Best of all you get mega-points for filling out the chef's special order.

This is a randomly selected match - four pieces of sushi, for example - that will automatically supply a Monster Combo when fulfilled.

And it means you're not always chasing the biggest match to get the best score. Complete one chef's special and another takes its place.

Order Up!! Fast Food also provides four power-ups, which can be purchased using the game's coin currency.

These do things like freeze time or line up dishes for large combos. You can level each one up to make them more effective, but it costs a lot of currency.

It always feels like Order Up!! Fast Food is trying to get you to buy more coins.

You won't be able to make much of a dent on the leaderboards without equipping power-ups each time you play, and that costs you precious coins before too long.

The focus on getting you to spend some cash is pretty blatant at times, but the game underpinning it all isn't addictive enough to warrant any sort of monetary commitment.

Order Up!! Fast Food isn't junk, but it isn't particularly satisfying or moreish either.

There's just not enough nourishment here, and that's an unfortunate position for a food obsessed game to find itself in.