A few years back, I remember the sudden slew of Diner Dash knock-off titles that came out for PCs. Some of them were good, and others sucked royally. But they were coming out in spades seemingly every other week (hmm...inspiration for Imagine? ;) Sorry, sorry...). Some of these better titles that continued to sell well began to be made for consoles and handhelds, and one of these titles was Burger Island.
Released by Destineer Games, I didn't think that I'd heard of this company before until I looked at their list of releases on ther website. They've actually put out a good number of games that I'm familiar with! The Full Metal Alchemist games, Candy Factory, Cate West: The Vanishing Files, Emergency! Disaster Rescue Squad, Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine, Dino Pets, just to name a few. As I've liked almost every one of these games when I've played them, I was expecting a good game, and this one didn't disappoint! (What a nice change from what the usual has been lately...)
The premise is this: You're a tourist visiting a tropical island somewhere or other (it's never disclosed where exactly, but I pretended it was some tiny island off of Hawaii), and you somehow end up washed up on the shores of this island in the middle of nowhere with no hope of recovery. Instead, you make friends with the locals and try to make the best of your current situation. So what better to do while stranded on a strange island than to open your own burger joint, am I right? (Yeah, okay. I don't understand the logic on that move either, but that's neither here nor there.)
You train to learn to cook burgers, fries, and milkshakes. Never together; they always have their own levels. As you level up through the game, you'll pick up newer, more complicated recipes for each of these. The trick is to keep up with the speed of the customers without making a single mistake. Mess one detail up, and they'll get mad and leave. (Harsh critics!) It's not too hard until you hit the final bend on the map - that's when they REALLY speed up to an insane level! (And of course, they never want any of the simpler recipes by that point.) It's challenging and a little bit maddening at times, but in a good way.
The one comment I have to make that confused me is the way they divided up the difficulty system on this game. They aren't labeled as such; they're labeled by the different sizes of fast food meals. Who would have ever figured that "kiddie sized" would mean the hardest difficulty level? It's just a little confusing. With how hard it was on that difficulty, I was almost leery of how hard the others would be....only to sail right through them and go "that's it?".
Overall, I'd highly recommend this game to just about anybody! I'm going to give it a big 8 out of 10 burgers.
You know, from a company such as Majesco, I tend to associate them with high quality level games. Silly sometimes, but usually pretty awesome. These are the people who brought us such titles as the Cake Mania series, Age of Empires (well, the DS version, anyhow...), the Cooking/Gardening Mama games, Operation Vietnam, just to name a few of the large myriad of games they put out. But, for every game company out there, there's bound to be duds. This, sadly, is one of them. A HUGE one.
My suspicions were already raised just from the fact that the cover art for this game looked like a cheap knock-off of the Bratz line (another bad influence for kids, but I digress...), and it was being touted around EVERYWHERE prior to its release. It was on tv, it was on internet ads in kids sites like Neopets, Nick.com, Stardoll, Gaia Online; you name it, and chances are it was there. I noticed there was a huge lack in these ads showing any gameplay or telling much of anything of what this game was about...just that there was a LOT of hype surrounding its release. I figured I'd try it out.
There's a reason you never really heard about this game again after it was released.
It SUCKED.
I'm not saying that to be catty, I'm not even saying that because it's a HORRIBLE influence for kids, I'm saying it because it sucked hard, plain and simple. So, all that cutesy cover art on the box? Forget about it. The only time you'll see it in the game is during the storyline sequences (which are vague, at best). Everywhere else in the game, you'll be subjected to a craptastic barrage of TERRIBLE 3-D art. I thought I'd seen bad in the Imagine line, but good lord. This ranks right up there with it.
The gameplay itself is more or less a virtual, 3-D board game. Every single level is laid out in a fictional mall, with more moving parts than the inner workings of a clock, and so many vibrant colors that it looks like a gay pride parade threw up all over the place. The game spaces span over multiple floors and have elevators and escalators to move between them, as well as shops every so many spaces where you can buy job promotions, BFFs, and/or hot new boyfriends. Okay, I cannot be the only one who thinks that this is a horrible message to send to little girls! Want that big job promotion? Buy them off! New friends? Lavish expensive gifts on them and they'll love you! Hot boyfriend? You can buy those too! Horrible. HORRIBLE message. But what can one expect in such a consumerist society anyway?
Add to this that all during your gameplay, you have to withstand terribly annoying music and even MORE annoying random voice clips that seem to have no rhyme or reason with the characters they're paired with. I had to play the game with the sound off because they annoyed me so badly. Imagine being stuck in a room with 4 valley girls who only say the same 4 or 5 phrases over...and over....and over... It gets on your nerves.
The rest of the gameplay is fairly straightforward. You spin a wheel, move however many spaces that the wheel lands on, and you'll either gain points, lose points/BFFs/boyfriends/secret cards, or have the option to shop. You get a goal at the beginning of each level to complete before the end of the round (oh, did I mention there's only 5 turns a round?) and if you fail to complete this, you'll have to play it all over again until you do. Sometimes your secret cards may help you, but usually...not so much.
To be honest, this is one game I couldn't play all the way to the end. It drove me so nuts with how incredibly stupid the whole concept of the game was. I played through the first 5 or 6 rounds and finally gave up after seeing that it's just the same thing over and over and really isn't even fun. The other 3 girls in the game will do nothing but take every excuse to backstab you at every opportunity that presents itself , and one ends up feeling quite victimized after playing. How exactly does that spell out fun? I'm giving this game a rating of 2 out of 10 raging hormal teenage brats.
Imagine this (pun intended), if you will: You are given an all expenses paid trip to girls only band camp. (Okay, okay, go ahead. Insert the obligatory "this one time, at band camp..." joke here.) Now that we've gotten that out of the way, you'll be spending a week here in this camp. You get to pick whether to join the punk, pop, or rock cabins, and from there, you'll be picking whether to learn drums, guitar, or keyboards primarily for your time here. (You'll end up playing all three at various points throughout the game, so don't stress too much over your main pick.)
Aside from the mostly pointless dialogue (and small assignments) that goes on with the other campers (I guess the makers felt they needed to round out a feeling of the whole camp cameraderie experience), you'll mostly just be playing and practicing music. Just like any other music-based DS game, everything's based on rhythm. You tap along with the drums, strum your guitar (while hitting the arrow keys at the same time to form chords) and plink away on the keyboard. It's all pretty simple stuff, but then, let's keep in mind that this game was made for kids. Even the hardest songs aren't that difficult to play. The game suggests that you put away your stylus and play this game with your fingers, but I ignored the suggestion and just used my stylus instead (and did just fine). I wouldn't advise the usage of fingers on the bare touch screen at any time.
You'll find that even with the endless amounts of dialogue, the game still progresses quickly, and if you don't bore yourself silly playing this, you can probably finish it within a few hours. (I couldn't sit myself through it all at once though, I'll admit.) This is a fairly run of the mill title, easily expendible. I'd skip on this one if I were you. 4 our of 10 guitars.
When I first stumbled across this game, I was expecting something akin to the Imagine: Wedding Designer game, expect perhaps a little more maturely based (judging by the pictures on the box). Having been involved in the planning of several weddings in real life, you could say I've "caught the bug", as it were, and couldn't resist picking this one up.
While I can't tell you that it's even remotely similar to the other title (because it's nothing like it), I can tell you that it IS an interesting game! Your character is a wedding planner who has to help plan 3 couples' weddings. About 90% of the levels you'll play are pretty much like "I Spy" games, but in a good way! They're VERY challenging, even for someone who's quite skilled in these games. The items you find, however, are at random; they usually don't have anything to do with weddings. But that's beside the point! Adding to your challenge is that you are given a 5 minute time limit...not for just one, but completing TWO levels in the allotted time given. It's harder than it would sound, believe me! If you don't complete the second puzzle under the time limit, you have to do them both over again until you do get it. Eventually you'll learn the different hiding spots for most of the different items, which makes the game easier as it progresses, but it takes a while to catch on, since they're not always in the very same spot.
In between these puzzles, you must also fill your clients' requests that they email you (but they'll usually do this before a level, which will often distract you and make you forget what they wanted). In addition, there's other bonus mini-games such as having to bake the wedding cakes, stitch the wedding dresses, do last minute shopping in the middle of hectic rush hour, etc. As these 'disasters' happen in each couple's story, it makes me think one thing: you need MUCH better colleagues! ;)
I only have one real complaint about this game, and it's that the accuracy you need with your stylus is SO overly hyper-sensitive that even with a 100% perfectly calibrated DS (and now I've seen the difference between my old one and my brand new one), you might have to touch certain items a couple times in slightly different spots to get it to register. If your calibration's even a little off, chances are you won't be able to play this game. Most things like the search levels, you can get through trial and error, but for the stitching of the wedding dress? It will render you helpless if it's not precisely on it. (Just thought you should know!) But overall, it's actually a pretty good game. I found through a little bit of searching that there is apparently a whole line of different "Dream Day Wedding" games (although only the one for the DS as of yet) so who knows? There seems to be a whole array to pick from to try next, and I hope Nintendo will release some of these other titles for the DS as well. :) I'm scoring this game a 7 out of 10 wedding bells!
Apologies to any regular readers of this blog for my lacking in updates on this thing as of late. My poor little white DS Lite (whom I'd lovingly bestowed the monicker of "Lennon" to) passed on to the great video game portal in the sky about a week ago. After researching my repair options, it turns out the cost to get it repaired, plus shipping and handling, would only end up being about $30 less than purchasing a brand new DS altogether. So, after a moment of silence for Lennon....
....
......
.........
I bring you...
LIZA (with a Z!):
Sexy little thing, isn't she? ;) (Okay, I'll give; I googled "red ds lite" and grabbed the first picture that came up because I was too lazy to grab my camera. But she looks exactly like this, regardless.) The red DSes came out about a month or two after I purchased my other one, and I've been drooling and ogling over them ever since. I can't believe I finally own one! :D My only complaint is that the touch screen emits a high pitched squeal whenever it's turned on; no, this is not from a game or anything. It does this even with no cartridge in there. Through a little research, I found out that almost ALL the new DSes do this, apparently. So until someone finds a fix (y'know, apart from mailing it back to Nintendo to do it because if it's been going on this long with the newer ones, they clearly don't know what they're doing), I'll just play with headphones on to block that out. (I have mild tinnitus and vertigo, and this particular pitch aggravates it greatly after just a few minutes. Environment-blocking headphones work pretty great for keeping that noise out of your ears. Just a little heads up in case anyone else who reads this suffers from similar problems and has a newer DS.) If anyone could drop me a line if a fix is found, that would be amazing, thank you!
Keeping up with Imagine's line of very female-oriented games, the line has now brought us Imagine: Soccer Captain. (Bet you $5 they never touch on another sport unless it's something else equally as 'feminine', like softball.) Oh! But what's this? We have a celebrity endorsement by Mia Hamm this time around; that must make this one better than usual!
Ummm...no. There is nothing particularly special about this game whatsoever. In fact, I'm not sure if Mia Hamm even knows her name was borrowed for the cover - even in the game, the only hint to her likeness is that the coach's name is "Coach Mia". (You never once hear a last name.) Her character also looks NOTHING like her, might I add. Wowwww. Talk about false advertisement. Imagine is always finding new ways to re-define that term!
But back to the game in question. True to typical Imagine style, they've designed this game so that there is no real knowledge of actual soccer needed. Playing by their rules, all you have to do is run a ball up and down a field and know which goal to kick it into. Period. No caveats. Now, I'll admit that I have zero sports knowledge in pretty much any given sport, but even I'm pretty damn sure there's a hell of a lot more to the game of soccer than just that. In a line that prides itself on allegedly being "educational", it seems that they should be teaching ALL of the rules of soccer.
This is another Imagine title that depends solely on 3-D graphics. The opening title sequence is very misleading, as the animation used there is in fairly good quality, but not one bit of the rest of the game looks A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G like this! There are some characters you'll encounter that look semi-decent, but then others - your own character included - barely even look human. For the customization options being so limited, why are the graphics so terrible?? The music in the game is about the same: sounds fantastic at the opening screen, and lousy everywhere else. What a let down! I was expecting more with how it started.
You're placed onto a team with very cliched other players. There's a totally stuck up snob who's only on the team because her daddy owns a (rival) soccer team, a timid girl, a gamer geek (who seems like she was only included to throw out free PR for Nintendo), and one other fairly normal girl who's supposed to have been your character's best friend since grade school. Sure, the mix sounds pretty realistic to real life, but in execution, it falls flat. Every team you play against is the same way: you have a team of over-caffeinated speed junkies (I'm NOT kidding!), a team of old grannies who should be in a retirement home, a team of girls with anger management issues, a team of midgets, a team of Amazonians, a team of hippies, etc. The first time you encounter each of these teams, they seem a little interesting. However, for how long you'll be playing this game to completion, you'll grow VERY sick of them quickly.
You'll play through an entire season of 14 games, plus a championship game. I assumed this was where the game would end.... That's what I get for assuming. (You all know the old phrase about what happens when you assume!) You enter season 2, only to find that ALL the dialogue with other teams is now being recycled and shortened to the briefest lengths possible. Had the dialogue stayed fresh, I wouldn't have minded wasting almost a week on this game, but it didn't. I figured that surely, the game would end after season 2... NOPE! You play for 5 seasons, with the option to retire or continue playing. As I figured the storylines would keep on going if I continued, I opted not to retire. Big mistake. (Now I'll never know how the game was supposed to end. :p)
Each season has a new dilemma for your team to face. In the first season, your character and Amie get swept up into a bitter popularity contest of their fans, all of which sparked from a stupid comment Amie had to make on a public blog. Season 2 sees Sasha and her father through their differences about his loyalties to his team and why his daughter doesn't play there. Season 3 is spent on a reality show following your team around and starting drama just for TV ratings (the producer looks suspiciously like the Supernanny, AND her name is Mary Jo. Coincidence?). Season 4, the team owner dies and as his son takes hold of the reins, he wants to relocate the team. The local community barely scrapes up enough cash to keep them local. And then season 5, groundhogs have ruined the stadium grounds and a crazed groundskeeper blows everything to bits in an attempt to get rid of them. Seems like an odd place for the game to end, doesn't it?
The gameplay itself is less than incredible. In addition to the lousy graphics, the controls aren't up to snuff either. Your players don't turn on the stop of a dime (which makes navigation difficult, especially when the other team's players are surrounding your active player), can't aim worth a damn, and the methods for shooting and blocking are pretty lame. To shoot into the opposing team's goal, normally you'd have to aim, then are brought to a screen where you adjust the strength of your kick, and you have to line up the ball with a specific pre-determined point inside of the net. If you're off by a little bit, you will not get the goal. Even if you DO line it up, more often than not, the goalie will still block your kick. Your other option is a quick shot where you just aim and shoot while running, but it's virtually impossible to make this method work, so you may as well stick to the long way of doing things. To attempt to block a kick from going into your goal, you're brought to a screen with a grid of about 12 squares. They'll light up at random, and you have about 5 to 10 seconds to hit them all as they light. Miss some, and the team will probably make their goal. Get all of them, they still might make the goal. Somehow, this game is seeming VERY one-sided, doesn't it? Take into account the redundant quick tips that appear on the upper screen before each match, and you'll be frustrated with this thing in no time.
As you rank up through the different matches, you'll earn points for each win. Every time you wi the fan popularity meter, you'll unlock a new sponsorship. This seems pretty cool... until you find out that these sponsorships are just leading up to a game deal with Ubisoft, who RELEASE THIS VERY GAME. Um, excuse me....what?!
I can't imagine (pun intended) anybody going wild over this game. Soccer enthusiasts won't have their needed adrenaline rush that makes soccer a wonderful and exciting game for them in the first place, and non-sports buffs will quickly lose interest. Who was the target audience here, then? Once again, I will issue this open plea to Imagine: PLEASE, hear our cries to just slow down on trying to crank out as many games as quickly as you can, and focus on putting more emphasis into the QUALITY of your games! You'll get much further with fewer high quality games than many crappy ones. You're just shooting yourself in the foot. Thank you.
I'm giving this game a rating of 3 out of 10 soccer balls. Honestly, do yourself a favor and don't even waste your time.
A few years back, I remember the sudden slew of Diner Dash knock-off titles that came out for PCs. Some of them were good, and others sucked royally. But they were coming out in spades seemingly every other week (hmm...inspiration for Imagine? ;) Sorry, sorry...). Some of these better titles that continued to sell well began to be made for consoles and handhelds, and one of these titles was Burger Island.
