Diner Dash: Sizzle & Serve

Diner Dash is brilliant, not because it gives us a gritty insight into what it's like to slave as an overworked waitress in an understaffed restaurant. Rather, it's brilliant because it presents a slick and fast-paced management puzzle within firm boundaries and rules that manages to teach the player all of its lessons before he or she gets bored and moves on. For those players turned off by the anti-aspirational scenario: never be fooled into thinking that games have anything much to do with their setting.

There’s a compliment buried inside there, though. Diner Dash is addictive enough that you’ll still want to bash through those crazy tough levels. When you’re willing to stick with a game through its flaws, that’s usually a pretty good sign.

It's simplistic, and unlikely to entertain for too long, but the concept is clever enough to deserve a look.

I Diner Dash är tempot högt och spelandet beroendeframkallande. Det hade dock inte lidit av högre svårighetsgrad och fler banor.

The one thing hurting Diner Dash is its price: at the release of the game it's a full-priced DS game and only a slightly reduced price for the PSP. That's far too much to pay for a game you can download in its original form for the PC at a much cheaper cost. In a few months it'll most likely come down to a more acceptable level ($20 bucks), and that's when you should pounce -- the game's fun and frantic, but it doesn't really offer much than its face-value production.

With the touch screen issue notwithstanding, Diner Dash: Sizzle & Serve should keep DS owners happy, providing they don't loathe waiting tables. After all, video games should help people escape reality instead of sending them to work the tables for tips.

Diner Dash: Sizzle & Serve is nothing short of addictive and just plain fun thanks to is simple gameplay that is fantastic in small doses. While the game does get old after awhile, it does a great job killing the time spent waiting for that next burger to get to your table. Die hard fans of the Diner Dash series or simply anyone welcome to the idea of casual games will be nothing short of satisfied, but players wanting more than just a 15 minute game break may just want to ask for the check.

Diner Dash's simple visuals get the job done, but just barely. The restaurants aren't very detailed, and you've got limited customization options to work with. When all your tables are full it can be difficult to see what individual customers are doing or even discern what type of customer they are. The DS version makes poor use of the system's dual screens, and it's tough to keep an eye on patrons waiting to be seated because you have to scroll the screen to see them. The PSP version looks the best thanks to its larger, clearer screen. The audio doesn't offer much to get excited about. There are some helpful sound effects here and there, but there's not much variety to them. Nor is there much variety to the music, which is simple, not all that catchy, and super repetitive.

Diner Dash for the PSP might not be the best portable version of this arcade-styled game but for those who enjoyed it the first time you might want to consider buying this for your Sony handheld. Then again, if you own a Nintendo DS, you might want to buy the DS version instead for the touch screen controls.

Diner Dash: Sizzle & Serve is a pretty good PSP game where fast reflexes will win you the day, or tips in this case. Diner Dash is a pretty addictive game and stands as one of those easy to pick and play games for fun. If you want a simple to play game that only requires reflexes and little thinking Diner Dash: Sizzle & Serve may just be for you.

The one thing hurting Diner Dash is its price: at the release of the game it's a full-priced DS game and only a slightly reduced price for the PSP. That's far too much to pay for a game you can download in its original form for the PC at a much cheaper cost. In a few months it'll most likely come down to a more acceptable level ($20 bucks), and that's when you should pounce -- the game's fun and frantic, but it doesn't really offer much than its face-value production.

At $30 it's difficult to wholeheartedly recommend Diner Dash on the PSP or DS, especially when you can play a limited version of the game for free on the PC or get the full version for just $20. Sure, it's fun while it lasts, but once it's over there's very little here to get you to revisit it.

Despite it's fast expiration date and overly basic gameplay, Diner Dash is a moderately enjoyable title. Earlier qualms over the face of the game's content were unjustified; if you're going to make a game about being a waitress, this is exactly how you do it. The screaming-with-your-hair-on-fire pace tries it's best to ascend Flo & Co to above average heights, but they're pulled right back down by the a non nonchalant lack of depth and borderline ridiculous nature of the control scheme. The game should be hard, yes, but the artificial degree of control imbalanced difficulty is not a welcomed feature. Dine with caution.

Sure, there is some pleasure to be had in completing the game to your own rhythm, but overall this is a title that should have been more fully reworked for a full-price DS audience. There's little use of the reservation system for instance, and the graphics are seldom more than workmanlike (the audio is better).

There's no doubt that there's definitely a few hours' worth of enjoyment to be had in Sizzle & Serve, but its suggested retail price of $30 -- ten bucks more than any other Diner Dash game -- prices it out of the fun little novelty niche and puts it in the range of games that have a lot more content to offer. Before buying it, head over to www.playfirst.com and download the free 60-minute PC/Mac trial version. If the trial version, like Chinese food, leaves you hungry for more after an hour, then you probably won't regret picking up Sizzle & Serve. But if you walk away fully satisfied, then it's probably time to see what else is on the menu.

While addictive at its core, after you plow through the seventy levels Diner Dash has to offer, you won’t really want to go back. That’s not to say that the six to eight hours you’ll spend playing the game up to that point won’t be any fun. If you’re a fan of strategy games and don’t feel cheapened to plop down thirty bucks on a port of a four year-old PC game, then Diner Dash might be worthy of your savvy consumer dollar. Then again, you can always buy the full PC version for a paltry twenty bucks. And even still, once you're about halfway through this game you can't help but want a little more from it. Either way you go, Diner Dash is sure to serve up entertainment, albeit not for very long. Punny.

Making good use of the DS's touch control system, Diner Dash comes up short in other areas. Graphically it's weak but it does have some style even though it doesn't push the DS's capabilities. The gameplay is repetitive, and come to think of it, so is the music and sound effects. The dual screen has to be scrolled through to see the characters that require your attention. This slows the process down considerably, and time is of the essence in this game. When the restaurant gets busy, it can be difficult to discern the various customers due to the one small screen. It's hard not to think of this game as a budget title considering all of the little flaws. You can play a trial version of this game on your PC for free. It's a great way to see if you like it before you buy or rent it. There is a multiplayer component, but this game is designed for the single player.

Overall, you can own up 5 restaurants, each with their own different theme (Mexican, seafood, etc), similar upgrades, different wardrobes, same annoying customers, and all selling the exact same slice of pizza.

Diner Dash, à la fois très sympa et très gonflant. Un cas d'école, quelque part, du jeu de réflexes répétitif par nature mais qui a trop de mal à le faire oublier. A essayer sur le net dans sa version d'origine pour voir si vous accrochez au point d'investir dans une itération de poche.

As you can already imagine, all of this would be made infinitely easier with the use of a stylus. If you are reading this review and own a Nintendo DS, just add a point to the final score. This game should never have been released on the PSP. As it is, you have a challenging restaurant simulator that is probably more appealing to an audience of gamers (namely female) that likely do not even own a PSP. This is a decent, if not very simplistic looking and sounding game, which I can not recommend.

Outside of running through your 50-level career or seeing how far you can get in an endless shift, there isn't much to do. You can customize your restaurant and appearance very minimally, but it's the same old game after a few levels. It's just addicting enough for you to stick it out for the entirety of the game, but unless you're in the mood for a stress headache you probably won't bust it out again.

Diner Dash is a simple and addictive arcade-style game that is easy to get into. I understand where its roots lie but all around the experience didn't feel complete somehow. The gameplay yields little to no variety, the graphics are painfully simplistic, and the sound is very repetitive. This may be a fun one to take on the road with you but unless you're a fan of the series I'd say this is a rental at best.

You can’t expect stellar graphics with a game like this, but even with this mindset, I was still disappointed. The colors are dull. At the end of the level, you are given the opportunity to spruce up the restaurant by improving something- the tables, the counters, etc. You are given choices and you get to pick what you want. The restaurants do not look better after the "improvements". Also, no matter which restaurant you are working in, there only seems to be one dish- pizza. I understand that it would be too complicated to have lots of different kinds of food, but one dish per restaurant is not asking a lot. It’s a little silly to be working in the Mexican restaurant and still serving the same pizza that we were serving in the diner. And you know what they say about pizza from a diner…

The same can be said about the game as a whole. Even though the difficulty ramps up dramatically halfway through Career mode, dedicated gamers will be able to complete the whole thing in a day, if they don't get tired of fighting the poorly designed controls before then. More casual gamers will likely get so frustrated with the impossible pace of the later levels that they'll give up before completing it. And charging thirty bucks for the experience -- ten bucks more than any other Diner Dash game -- prices it out of the fun little novelty niche and puts it in the range of games that have a lot more content to offer. Even if you're already a fan of the series, the PSP version of Sizzle & Serve will likely leave a bad taste in your mouth.