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6.0 mid-normal
Thanksgiving is coming up in the United States and that means family get togethers. Oh joy. Family get togethers mean someone (a great aunt, most likely) is going to bring one of those horrible Jell-O salads... you know the ones: lime green Jell-O spotted with marshmellows and lots of shredded carrots. What crazy person came up with this recipe? Drew Barrymore, if you're reading this, you know what I'm talking about - your great aunt Ethel (the one that turned down Winston Churchill's marriage proposal) was a big Jell-O fan.
What I'm trying to say is that today's game reminded me of the horrible Jell-O salad desserts I was force fed during Thanksgivings in my youth. Cake Shop 2, from EleFun Games, is a time management game that features some truly disgusting looking gelatin-packed cakes.
You play as Emily, a cute beach bunny who without warning is put in charge of Federico's beachside smoothy bar. Federico's grandmother is getting married for the seventh time and as his best customer you're the only one he can trust to run his business while he's gone for the next few months. Little does he suspect that you'll be swarmed by business consultants, construction contractors, and bakery supply salesmen... all of whom more or less force you to transform Federico's little beachside smoothy café into a series of cake shops! Oh well, that's what he gets for putting his trust in someone he barely knows.
As you can tell from the screenshots, Cake Shop 2 is an obvious clone of the Burger Shop series, though noticably lacking the tongue-in-cheek sense of humor or even grammatical competence. (Get ready for yet another game poorly translated into English, with misspelling included.)
Inside your shop, ingredients - mostly different styles/flavors of cake layer - make their way down a conveyor belt toward a recycling bin. Customers skate up to the counter and place their orders; it's your job to click on ingredients and prepare the cakes and drinks and other goodies they ask for in their word balloons. As soon as you remove something from the conveyor belt, everything behind that item slides forward and a new ingredient coasts into view at the tail end. (Emily is not represented onscreen - your mouse pointer, capable of holding only one item at a time, acts as her hands.) Once you've completed a cake or snack, drag it onto the customer or use the right-click shortcut to toss it to them immediately. (All the same as Burger Shop, in other words.)
Cakes usually must be assembled in order, from the bottom layer first. Let's say someone orders a cake with a chocolate layer on the bottom, lime green gelatin in the middle, and a plain cake layer on top. Yuck! You must click on the chocolate, lime, and plain layers in that order. If you make a mistake and create something no one asked for, you'll have to drop it into the recycling bin. It's easy to make mistakes when you're clikcing frantically... especially before you get used to the way the conveyor moves.
Only a handful of different customers, all rather ugly 3D Poser characters, visit each day. (One of them looks exactly like Andre Agassi.) Each arrives with five hearts, indicating their satisfaction with their cake shop experience. Their hearts slowly fade as they wait. The faster you complete their orders, the larger tip you'll receive. Each day has two target scores to meet. The first earns you a silver star. The second earns you a gold star. Either way, the money you earn is used to purchase new equipment (like cappuccino machines, carmeled popcorn dispensors, etc.) or begin construction on the next café Emily will run. Won't Federico be surprised when he comes back from the wedding and finds some beach bunny created a cake empire out of his smoothy bar?
Bonuses sometimes appear on the shop conveyor. These must be purchased before they're unlocked. They take the form of powerups to instantly prepare a single food item, speed up your kitchen gadgets, slow down time, relax impatient guests, etc. Don't let them sit for too long on the conveyor, for if you don't use them you'll receive a small penalty!
Cake Shop 2 is fairly polished when it comes to the time management gameplay. The kitchen looks great and all the vending machines and food preparation gadgets are shiny and fun. Unfortunately the confusing story, poor English, and ridiculous Poser people keep the game from being anything better than just a forgettable Burger Shop clone. If you can overlook some very confusing demerits this game might be worth downloading. But I can't say I enjoyed playing it.
If you're ever in line at a bakery and someone in front of you orders a chocolate layer cake with a lime gelatin center... ask for their phone number and then forward it to me. I have something I need to explain to them.