Success Story

Like the leagues of burger bars competing for quick cash on the street, Success Story makes its debut amid scores of time management masters from Diner Dash to Fruit Juice Tycoon to Cake Mania. Why, then, should you stop for a bite to eat at one of Success Story's restaurants?

The game has you play a new employee of a failing fast food chain. Naturally, it's your job is to work each restaurant, getting them in tip-top shape in order to send profits soaring once again.

Gameplay is about putting together burgers to match customer orders. Ingredients pop up, seemingly at random, on 11 different plates, the idea being to tap the burger's components – meat, lettuce, cheese, etc – in the correct order so that the burger stacks up exactly how the customer wants it.

The key to success behind the counter relies on your ability to spot the right ingredients from the muddled mix on the plates in time, sending each and every fast food fan off happy. Drinks, side orders, and deserts also have to be matched up. Finally, any tips left by customers need to be picked up with a tap. All of this makes Success Story a frenzied endeavour, though not a particularly original one.

Problems arise when it comes to determining just what the customers are after in the first place. Spotting the burgers' make-up, from meat to fish, veg and various trimmings, is unnecessarily tricky. All there is to go on is a relatively small picture of the burger in question. This makes spotting anything other than the main filling in the mix frustratingly fiddly. In the heat of the moment, it's all too easy to see lettuce where you should see onion or vice versa.

There's also a distinct lack of charm laced throughout the whole affair. The cartoon strip interludes that sandwich levels are trite and lacking variety fails to match up to its rivals, most of which specialise in periodically adding elements you move through the levels. In Success Story, additional ingredients are the only new features, and the way they're applied remains the same.

Taken alone, there's no reason you can't have the time of your life with Success Story. When viewed against what's already out there, however, it's akin to a burger served without relish. It's certainly as quick as your average trip to McDonald's, but Success Story doesn't quite have the ingredients to have you lovin' it.