Diner Dash: Sizzle & Serve (Nintendo DS, 2007)

Worn down by stress, an overbearing boss, the daily grind of a 9-to-5, or a combination of all three, many people have fantasized about quitting their jobs and setting out to do what they love. Such is the premise of Diner Dash, where you control Flo, a young woman who quits her desk job and opens a restaurant. Diner Dash's premise is quite simple, but the gameplay is fast-paced and fun. Unfortunately, though, the game is short on depth and there's little to keep you coming back for more once you've finished the main course.



Things go from calm to hectic in the blink of an eye.

Diner Dash starts off with a tutorial level that teaches you the basics of running your restaurant. At the beginning of each day you're given a monetary goal that you must reach or otherwise do the level over. When customers enter the restaurant, you take them to a table. When they're done reading the menu, you go to their table, jot down their order, and deliver it to the kitchen. When the order is ready, you take it to the table, wait for them to finish, take their payment, and bus the table. Customers' satisfaction is conveyed by a heart-shaped meter that empties every time they're disappointed. If it's completely empty, they'll walk out and you'll probably fail the level. Conversely, the fuller the meter, the more money you'll earn.

This sounds easy, and at first it is, but things quickly get hectic. You'll have to juggle multiple tables at the same time, and the eight different types of guests each have their special needs. Families will need a high chair; patrons with reservations will need to be sat at specific tables; and any finicky restaurant critic who comes by will require extra-close attention. Seniors are slow eaters and bad tippers; bookworms are patient but hate noise; and the mobile-phone addict eats fast and is noisy, but is a good tipper. You can improve customers' moods by bringing coffee to the table or by hiring entertainment, but the true path to success--and the challenge--lies in staying organized and chaining tasks together. For example, rather than taking one plate of food from the kitchen at a time, you'll want to take two plates and drop them both off while you're out on the floor. Once you've dropped those off, you might want to bus two tables simultaneously. You don't necessarily save a whole lot of time this way, but you do earn a bonus, which is sometimes the difference between passing and failing a level.

The PSP and DS versions control differently, but the objectives are the same. On the DS you simply use the stylus to tap an item or person and Flo will go there. It can be difficult to seat guests on the DS version, and the screen is so small you'll sometimes mistap something, but for the most part the DS controls much better than the PSP. On the PSP you use the D pad to maneuver a cursor around the restaurant and then press X to select the highlighted person or item. The basics are easy enough, but having to tap the D pad until you highlight the appropriate item wastes valuable time. Holding down the L or R buttons to seat people or clear dishes isn't exactly difficult, but it makes the controls a little more complicated than they need to be.

It's a great game!!!!!!

This is a really fun game for girls of all ages. Once you start playing, you get hooked and can't put it down. My five year old daughter and I both love it. This game is about a lady who gets fed up with her office job and decides open a restraunt and run it herself(along with a cook. She runs the resturant herself. Greats customers, seats them, takes their order, serve them and try to keep them as happy as possible in order to keep them comming back for more. If you reach your goal you get to move to the next level that's more chalenging. And as you go along, you get to unlock different things like new uniforms, and resturant stuff. This is a great game and I highly recommend it for girls.

I love this game. It's very addictive !!!!! Imagine running your own restaurant and being your own boss. You decide where people will sit, you decide if you will serve them drinks or not, and it's up to you how much of a tip you get by keeping them happy. There are a lot of different characters to deal with, some of which are so slow, you want to boot them out. Just kidding ! ;-)
The only thing I don't like it that the whole room doesn't fit on one screen. You have to go back and forth to check for people and you can sometimes miss out on a request from one of your sitting down patrons because of it.
Other than that, I'm all into this game. I've already gotten through 3 restaurants and working on my forth and I've only had the game since Friday !!! And I like that you can play an endless shift to help you get better at your service. The only thing I don't like about the endless shift is that it gives you the upgrades for you, you don't get to decide what you want to upgrade.

Great game !! Can't wait to see if there are other versions for the DS as there are for the PC.

i love playing diner dash on my pc so of course i wanted the game for my nintendo ds. yeah i guess its fun but i do gotta say im not to happy with it because it seems like they made the game way to easy to beat and there's no challenge in it. i just wish they could of made it a little harder to beat because it just seems too boring to play because i win every board right away no problem. so if your new to playing diner dash it would be fun but if your good at playing diner dash you might get a little bored.

I absolutely love and recommend this game! It is better than the computer version and you never get tired of it. It doesn't get boring and the levels aren't that easy so it makes you keep coming back to finish it, but at the same time, it's not that difficult so that the levels become more of a challenge. This game is great.