Playfirst has a hit with its Dash series, so it makes sense for the company to capitalize on more Dashes. This time the action occurs on a farm. Even Diner Dash‘s Flo appears in Dairy Dash, but that doesn’t help Dairy Dash win me over.

Oh, Dairy Dash still entertains and adds a component few have: multiple characters. We’ll get to that later. In the meantime, we meet the Smith family consisting of Mom, Dad, Emily and Ethan. They’re not quite the farming family. In fact, they’re the opposite and enjoy technology as much as any other modern day family.

One night, they go out for a family dinner at — where else — Diner Dash Flo’s place. Dad hears from Uncle Bill who reports his farm could go under if he doesn’t get more help or buyers. After talking to Uncle Bill, Flo tells the family she knows restaurants in need of good organic produce. Being the supportive family they are, the Smiths leave city life behind for the quiet and hard-working farm life.

Dad Smith starts feeding the animals, milking them, gathering eggs, making cheese, and growing crops. Mrs. Smith joins him and the two work in sync. The action feels frenzied from the get go and chaining feels unnatural. A little practice helps, but chaining doesn’t work as well as the other games. Furthermore, the game won’t let you cancel an action. At least, you can click a few actions ahead.

They call Emily to help when they discover Uncle Bill has another farm, but she refuses. Mom and Dad continue working on their own. Eventually, Emily and Ethan join them. The later farms don’t change much — things shift a little, but not drastic. In fact, drastic describes the fourth farm, which looks like something from 2010. Oh wait, that’s less than two years away.

A mini-game enters every few levels for a break from running around. One uses match three to sell produce, another involves picking good apples before they fall, and another catching fruit in a basket. Nothing spectacular, but not boring as some mini-games can be.

Story mode works as expected — hearing a story and making your way around four different farms for 52 levels. To move to the next level, you need to reach the goal score before the rooster crows. You can also challenge yourself to surpass the goal score and aim for the expert score.

Also, Flo calls from time to time with a request, so you never know when the phone rings. Mr. Smith occasionally has to stop farming to fix the truck so they can deliver the goods. These factors keep the game from becoming predictable and repetitive.

Endless mode provides three levels of difficulty. This one’s endless mode should please plenty as it begins with a goal score. When you hit the goal, a new goal appears along with more elements to increase the challenge. I’ve never been a fan of endless mode, but this one has a good set up instead of having players play until they falter.

The Smiths can fill up on lemonade for a boost of energy to move faster. Unlike most time management games, you can’t bribe the animals to make them happier. The game requires little strategy as the best thing to do is click and act as requests come. Because of this, Dairy Dash might be an easier game for the youngsters than other Dash games.

The animals look pitiful when they’re hungry or thirsty and not much else. In other Dash games, the characters ooze personality. Dairy Dash doesn’t have the charm or personality that we’ve come to expect of a typical Dash game. Moreover, farm-themed games have been milked to death, so Dairy Dash feels ordinary by time management standards. Nonetheless, time management fans will find it a joy to play thanks to its multi-characters and variety.

With the price of groceries going up by the minute, Supermarket Mania offers a great deal in keeping you busy for hours avoiding a trip to the grocery store. Like the coffee shop on every corner, Torg has supermarkets all over town giving Nikki little choice but to go work there as a stocker.

Nikki doesn’t like the looks of Torg when scary-looking robots greet her on her first day of work. After four days of excellent work, Mr. Torg fires her and her cashier friend. He activates the robots to run his stores. The girls find a better place in a run down pop store (well, there’s no mom as far as we can see) run by Mr. Clarence. He trusts the girls to run the store alone.

The girls deal with different types of customers who have different styles of shopping. Granny takes her time and has plenty of patience while teens have zero patience and move quickly. Kids tear up the place until you have your security guard friend, Mr. Barefist (I wonder how they came up with that), blow the whistle to stop their antics. Barefist also comes in handy in stopping brazen thieves.

You have two ways to catch a thief. Notify Barefist while the thief has a circle over his head to stop the thief who moves on to the next attempt or leaves the store. Or be patient and let the circle over the thief’s head fill and shake — alert Barefist at that time and you earn a cash bonus. However, the shaky thing doesn’t happen every time so waiting for a full circle could lead to thief getting away with … well, theft.

Upgrades are present ranging from better products that sell for more money and a gumball machine for more tips to a faster loading stockroom and the most expensive one, a bigger cart. As you advance levels more upgrades show up to help keep customer patience from spiraling when so many require your time in stocking the shelves.

Occasionally, a celebrity shops at the store catching the attention of all shoppers who stand by snapping pictures. While the celeb works around the store, Nikki must keep shelves stocked for celebrities as they don’t wait long. Another unique feature in Supermarket Mania is Super Shop. Click the thumbs up symbol at the right time (when you have as many shoppers as possible and as few thieves as possible) so that everyone buys a bunch at once. This drives up sales and Nikki’s carting work as she races around refilling the fast emptying shelves.

The action spreads across five shopping stores including Torg’s for 50 levels. That’s right, Mr. Clarence somehow comes up with the cash for more stores. Nothing illegal mind you. He’s good people.

The game lasts a couple of sittings and gets nutty at times. I’ve yet to beat a Diner Dash (but I made it through Wedding Dash), and I finished Supermarket Mania. It meant repeating a few levels, but all in a game reviewer’s work. So I think the difficulty is on target for the average casual gamer.

Animation and cartoon-style graphics are bright and attractive. The music upbeat with good effects. Decent variety of upgrades and a nice even pace. Animation and cartoon-style graphics are bright and attractive. The music upbeat with good effects. Decent variety of upgrades and a nice even pace.

Supermarket Mania probably falls in the middle of the time management games. Far better than those at the bottom, but not quite as good the best. You’ll spend less money on the game than in a five minute trip to the grocery store and have loads more fun.

Yeah, yeah… this game has been out for a while. Having played the preview, I didn’t play it again since I moved on to other games that needed reviews. Flo is so popular that she hardly needs reviews for attention, but when I play something — I review it. Flo doesn’t disappoint as Diner Dash: Hometown Hero (DDHH) adds new buildings, twists, and features to keep the series from becoming more of the same.

But I also wonder why some things don’t get better with the newer releases. The customers still come in crudely drawn monochrome (by today’s standards) colors — blue, green, brown. Wedding Dash proved it’s possible to create interesting looking customers without looking like stick figures.

Diner Dash games continue to be the hardest ones to play in its genre and it doesn’t stop here. I don’t get very far before they have me banging my head on my desk. I can’t be that lousy of a player at these games since I manage to get through other tough diner games including Turbo Pizza — an insane one.

Flo returns to her hometown to find it in near ruins, so she and Grandma help at the restaurants to try to drive up attendance at a variety of locations. She starts working at the zoo and makes her way to the ballpark, museum, and amusement park. Customers also don’t always order, eat, and tip since some order more food.

Beware the game comes in two different versions for PCs. Diner Dash: Hometown Hero Gourmet Edition, which comes with online multiplayer mode, new restaurants for purchasing, and other features that require connecting to the Playfirst server. The Mac version only comes with the basics — no connections or extras.

This game is the first to have meta-transactions where you can purchase more diners, waiters, and restaurants from the boutique. A restaurant costs $4.99 in real-life bucks. Items like clothing, accessories, and décor mostly cost less than a buck. Unfortunately, it requires having the Gourmet Edition to take advantage of these features.

Online multiplayer mode lets players compete against one other player by racing around taking orders, picking up tips, putting away dishes, and all that. Or for those jumpy about competition, try cooperative mode where both of you work together instead of against each other.

Flo also gets an assistant who is more of a pain than helpful. You can’t help but feel like you’re racing against the assistant. Plus, you don’t know what the assistant will do that you start to head to a table only to have the assistant beat you there.

As usual, players earn bonuses by chaining, seating customers by color, keeping customers happy, and placing customers at the right tables so they stay far away from customers at nearby tables who like to chat on the phone or having crying babies.

I’m not into changing outfits, but many others enjoy the feature and this one comes with plenty of new outfits. As you progress in the game, you get to choose the style for upgrading the counters, floors, tables, walls, plants, and so on. However, sometimes the game might only provide two choices instead of three if you don’t reach the Expert score.

If you haven’t played other versions, it’s not necessary to play those before this fourth release. Those who buy the regular edition will feel like the game hasn’t changed much other than new locations, different story, and taking care of customers with reservations. Though most of the new features come in the Gourmet Edition, the regular edition keeps the Flo franchise going strong.

Gamezebo has tips and tricks as well as a walkthrough guide for DDHH. Thank goodness. I went bonkers trying to get through a few levels and these came to my rescue.

Download and try Diner Dash: Hometown Hero

System Requirements

Windows OS

• Windows Vista, XP, 2000
• Pentium III 700 MHz or faster processor
• 128 MB RAM
• 800 x 600 minimum screen resolution
• DirectX 7.0 or later
• 30 MB available hard disk space
• Internet connection required for Together features (multiplayer, sharing content – PC only)

Macintosh

• Mac OS X 10.4 or newer
• G4 800 MHz or newer processor
• RAM: 128 MB
• Minimum Screen Resolution: 800×600
• Hard Drive Space: 50 MB

Thanks to the success of the Diner Dash series, the marketing folks decided to take advantage of the popular game and replace Flo with SpongeBob Squarepants to create another hit. SpongeBob’s version closely resembles Flo’s with one difference: You can change characters. In one level you can be the loveable sponge and in another play his best friend, Patrick.

In the first SpongeBob Diner Dash, his goal was to expand the chain of Krabby Patty restaurants. In SpongeBob Diner Dash 2, SpongeBob tries to save the restaurants from the greedy Sharkey Two-Times. Like other Diner games, the game comes with restaurant upgrades, power ups to make customers happier and two game modes: story and endless.

First, I loaded the game on a Vista-based laptop (let’s not start counting the ways we don’t like Vista — this is a game review not a Vista review), and I had to install it in an XP Pro laptop after playing the game for two seconds on the Vista laptop. A purple box appears with the mouse pointer, which drove me batty. I checked the forums for a fix, but nothing so far.

I finished Wedding Dash, but never finished Flo on the Go.  However, Flo was the first Dash game I had played and reviewed. Maybe I could win now after all this practice. Despite having played many Diner games, it didn’t take long for me to get trapped in SpongeBob where I had to repeatedly play a level. I finally made it through and got stuck again on the next level. The level of difficulty was almost identical to Flo on the Go.

One of the power ups was a podium so SpongeBob or Patrick can chat with waiting customers to prevent their happiness from taking a dive. But I was so busy serving and cleaning up after the seated customers that I could hardly reach the podium. When I did stop by, it hardly made a difference and I failed in my mission. I tried to more time than I normally would to reach the goal, but gave up after a warning from my cramping hand and arm. I made it to a second restaurant and served five different types of customers.

Customers include the Groupers, a family in which the baby needs a high chair and the family requests a mop for cleaning spills. The baby can get noisy and that bothers the Goldeyes big time. Goldeyes are quiet, patient and bookish types. Quillbacks and Whippersnappers don’t like noise, but not to the same degree as Goldeyes. The Rubberlip Seaperches are the best tippers of the group, but they’re also mucho noisy as they rudely talk on their phones. Assigning these picky customers and trying to keep them away from each other keeps players swimming in rough waters.

Anyone who loves Diner Dash or SpongeBob will jump into this one. SpongeBob Diner Dash 2 gives Diner Dash fans their fix as they wait for another release. If you can only play one or the other — just pick the one with the character you like better since the experience is the same except for the changing characters feature in SpongeBob. Families can enjoy SpongeBob together except that the younger ones might get mad when they can’t get past a level — but then again, we older folks do, too!

Try SpongeBob SquarePants Diner Dash 2

System Requirements: Windows

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista
• Pentium III, 700MHz or faster processor
• 128MB RAM
• 800×600 minimum screen resolution
• DirectX 7.0 or later
• 17 MB available hard disk space

System Requirements: Mac

• Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer
• G4 800 MHz or faster
• 50 MB available hard disk space
• 800×600 minimum screen resolution

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Meryl Evans

Flo can’t get enough of working in a diner as she returns for her third dining adventure. Actually, she’s ready for a vacation and goes on a cruise in Diner Dash: Flo on the Go, but loses her luggage and needs to get some cash. Sounds like a scene from my busy family life only without the vacation.

The game comes with two modes of play, one where Flo works endlessly serving customers and the other with goals and levels. The week I played the game was a long one between the kids having Monday off in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and then having another day off thanks to sleet that appeared unexpectedly. So it was good to take a break with Flo.

Having played a few variations of these games — the only differences being the job and locale — Flo and I got annoyed when we had nothing to do but wait for the diners to finish their meals. The tables were full or no one was waiting to for a table and no one needed help. The other games had a way to keep me busy.

A few levels thwarted my attempts to meet the goal and move on to the next level. It got irritating when it took more than five times to reach the goal as I’m an impatient gamer with little time on my hands. I know Diner Dash: Flo on the Go needs to challenge me so I don’t reach the goal easily every time, but over five times of repeating the same level makes a player crazy.

I liked the variety of customer types (nine) from families and couples to young kids and moms only. The restaurant also gets upgrades every couple of levels, but some upgrades like the pool and umbrellas don’t help with the game play. Adding special drinks was a nice touch giving Flo a way to turn angry customers into happier ones. The upgrades should contribute to making customers happy.

After 10 levels, I earned a change of scene from ship to train. Once again, Flo left her baggage in the cab — back to work on the choo choo. 13 is usually a lucky number for me, but not this time having done level 13 over 10 times with no success. I started to feel like those customers who express their anger, and switched to Endless Mode for a change of pace. All in all, Diner Dash: Flo on the Go is a challenging game and Flo fans should relish this third edition.

Download the game from your favorite site

• Amazon
• Big Fish Games

Other editions

• Diner Dash: Hometown Hero
• Diner Dash

In Flower Shop: Big City Break, I step into the role of Meg, who left the city for a quieter locale to open a flower shop. Though I’ve played the owner of a similar game that took place in a bakery, it didn’t prepare me for this one. Hence, it was good to have a tutorial guide me through the game to get started. As I warmed up and found my way around, the game added more features and explained what to do.

The game contains over sixty levels and each level represents a day in the life of the florist. The game provides a goal to reach in order to advance to the next level — actually, two goals. One for advancing to the next level, and the other, “Guru” goal, for the extra challenge. Whenever I reached the Guru goal, I earned a star on the map that appears between levels to show Meg’s progress. The number of stars I earned is puny, but it was exciting to win them.

I prefer running a bakery to a flower shop, but this game played better than the bakery version. Halfway through the bakery game, I got stuck on a level and couldn’t get past it. With Flower Shop, I failed to meet the goal a few times, but made it on a second or third try. This one also contains bonus rounds for a change of pace and bonus points.

A level typically involves taking orders, fulfilling them and grabbing the dough. Starting was easy as I planted flowers, bundled them and gave them to the customers. With each advancing level, I had more work to do before I could complete an order. Some flowers require watering before blooming and others require watering and fertilizer to bloom. I’ve never been a fan of daisies until this game because they don’t require anything to grow — thank you, daisies.

The bakery game involved buying and upgrading equipment. This one takes care of the upgrades for you, which was fine with me as my mind was spinning from trying to do loads of tasks. I could give Meg many steps to do before she actually does them. Occasionally, I would hear a rude buzz when I tried to do something that I couldn’t do – even when it was a legitimate move. During the wildest moments, my brain felt like it was doing multiple processing at once, but that made the game stimulating and fun.

As if growing flowers and serving customers wasn’t enough to keep me busy, I had to watch out for flying clocks and flying creatures as an opportunity to get more time on the clock or more cash. One annoyance: The bugs. I could do without them, but they’re a real problem for gardeners and florists, so I understand their inclusion in the game. On the bright side, I’m thankful the game didn’t include eight-legged web-making creatures — then an arachnophobic like me would never play Flower Shop.

Download the game from your favorite site

• Big Fish Games
• Amazon

Other related games

• Cake Mania
• Diner Dash Flo on the Go
• Diner Dash