Game Review: Restaurant Empire

I turned on GameTap the other day, which is rather rare for me, and decided to give one of the simulation games a try. Restaurant Empire seemed to be the best choice at the time. You have just graduated culinary school and are about to take over your uncle's restaurant. From the furniture and design of the restaurant to customizing the food you serve your customers, the future of the family business is in your hands. There are some good and bad things about this game. I like that you get a lot of control with the culinary recipes. You can change up the minor ingredients to change how the food tastes but that also takes the chance that your customers will hate it. On the other hand, you don't seem to get a lot of control on the floor of the restaurant. I frequently had customers complaining that their food was taking too long. Meanwhile I had a ton of servers but I couldn't hire any more cooks. I'm assuming my guy can only cook so fast. There should be a better way to deal with customer complaints. I know I can't make all of them happy but the complaints that I can fix seem to be extremely difficult to fix on the first level.

I'll probably keep playing it for awhile to see if it gets any better. I passed the first few levels though I imagine the challenges will get harder in the later levels. Hopefully the game will help a bit more with the waitstaff and customer complaints.

Game review: GameTap

I have been a GameTap subscriber for a long time. GameTap is an online video game service. They don't rent video games. Instead you download games through their software and play them on your computer. For $10 per month, you can download as many games as you like. There is a huge variety of games available. My five-year old daughter can play educational games such as Arthur's Kindergarten: Trouble in Arthur's Treehouse, most of the JumpStart game catalog and Millie's Math House. Though the kids' games section isn't completely filled with educational games. There are also fun games like Pajama Sam and Putt-Putt. I've found these games to be a wonderful addition to my daughter's collection.

GameTap isn't just for kids though. I have played a majority of the Sam & Max games, which are exclusively available on the GameTap service. For those of you looking for a bit of nostalgia, there are older games too. BurgerTime, Zaxxon and Space Invaders are all here along with the ever-popular Worms games. And if you really need to let off some steam, try one of the 82 fighting games. In total, there are almost 1450 games available right now on the service.

This really is one of my favorite monthly services that I subscribe to. There is something that every member of my family would enjoy playing and they are adding new games all the time. It's definitely cheaper than buying new or used games at the store and you don't even have to leave your house! A win on all sides.