DS Review: Jane's Hotel

Ah, Jane's Hotel. Another PC to DS crossover that I saw coming a mile away. I remember playing the demo of the PC version the day it hit the Zone download site, and I can safely say that the DS version is more or less identical to this...except harder the maneuver, since you have such a tiny screen to work with, whereas on the PC, you have it all laid out before you and don't have to worry about scrolling. But, I digress...
This is the story of a little girl, searching, searching, for she knows somewhere, there is a someone for her--wait a minute, that's not it at all. (Pardon my Judy Garland diversion.) This is the story of a girl who dreams of starting her own hotel chain to live out the dreams of her grandparents. Thus, you start out with a small bed and breakfast and set out to turn this into the Plaza Hotel...or something like that anyway.
You run around, checking hotel guests in, then attending to their every need: wanting the phone, newspaper, coffee, their room vaccuumed, etc. Depending on how quickly you attend to them determines just how much they'll tip you. As you level up, you'll be unlocking new items...but also new needs. Everything from a restaurant to tv to wanting fresh fruit to having their dry cleaning taken in to having a pianist play for them to watering the plants in the hall to having you bring liquor to their rooms...you get the picture. This doesn't sound so hard, and for the most part, it isn't. It's mostly just the last couple of levels per hotel that you work in that you'll probably have to re-try a few times before beating.
TIP: Try to pair your actions off in chain reactions. You'll get more points for doing so, and in the later levels, this is often the only way of making hitting the daily cash goal attainable.

This game is another game in the realm of Diner Dash-esque time management simulation games...which, if you're into that sort of game, you'll probably love this. If you hate them, you'll hate this, simple as that. This one has a certain flair to it as it seems to have been designed by Brits....everybody in this game has an accent. (It's beautiful.) For that...personally, for me anyway, I'll give it a bonus point for that.
One thing that I couldn't help but get distracted by though, and this is just because I am the way I am, is what Jane looks like. Sure, there's a lot of people out there with big eyes and short, cropped hair, but the fact that in pretty much any shot where she's shown close up, she's doing jazz hands, dressed in a suit, has dark red lipstick on.........I couldn't help but draw my own comparison here. And it made the game SO much more interesting as soon as I did. ;)

The unedited version...

And my version. Much more interesting! (C'mon, you know you saw this coming!)

Overall though, the game is pretty fun. I wish it had been a little bit longer, but then, this type of game usually never seems to last long enough for me. I'm going to rate it a 7 out of 10 hotel chambermaids.