Super Secret details about the My Game Space program: details here
5.5 mid-normal
Well, it's April 17th. Survivor is on tonight and supposedly someone makes a pact with Ozzy and a lost tribe is discovered. I'm in awe. But all that has to wait because today marks the beginning of Foodville's Annual Restaurant Row Chef's Challenge! Holy smokes, has that time of year rolled around again?
Every year Foodville holds a contest where they take all the famous restaurants in their dining district and cram each eatery full of random objects from the local recycling shops. Then the chefs have to come in and, using only their wits and a crisp new $100 bill, find hidden objects. Objects like compasses, gnomes, spiders, sabretooth tiger skulls, boxcutters, halogen lightbulbs, and the special ingredients needed to create a perfect meal. This year you've been chosen for the contest... so Tivo Survivor, or just download it via bittorrent or watch it on CBS' web site. That's what I do.
Cooking Quest is a hidden object game from Gunnar Games. As with most other hidden object games, gameplay involves hunting through a room filled with clutter. Find objects then click on them to scratch them off your list.
Regular readers know I'm a big fan of random clicking. I even made a special T-shirt in support of it. Unfortunately, Cooking Quest is the most strict hidden object game I've yet seen when it comes to random clicking! You only have a few chances, and when the penalty kicks in, you lose not only time, but money! That really sucks, because money is the only way to win Foodville's Chef's Challenge.
Why money? After completing a room, you're given a chance to use some of your money on an ingredient upgrade. Instead of using the generic boxed linguine you found, for example, you could spend $48 on handmade fresh linguine. Finer ingredients mean a higher score from the food critics that serve as judges in the contest. I don't need to tell you that fresh, hand-rolled linguine could mean the difference between a four star meal and a five star meal.
But don't go spend-crazy! You might need that cash. If you can't find an object, you can buy a hint for $20. That's outrageous, and really cuts into the $100 you're allotted at the beginning of each restaurant. I used to work part time selling hints out of the back of a truck. I charged $5 and even that was considered expensive in those days. What the devil are Gunnar Games and Big Fish Games thinking?
Here's a free Cooking Quest hint: Find two or more hidden objects without clicking on them. Then, click on them quickly one after the other to get a $5 speed bonus. That's the only way you'll ever make it through this game, because it's impossible to finish without using the hint system. Some objects are just too difficult. If your name was Mozzy Mozzarella and you lived on 112 Mozzarella St. in Mozzarellaburg, USA... there's still no way you'd find the fresh mozzarella in Mama Mariella's brick kitchen. (I'll save you $20: it looks like a white ball.)
After you complete the four rooms in a restaurant and assemble enough ingredients to prepare the four facets of a meal (drink, appetizer, main course, and dessert) you're given the chance to cook. Sort of. A meal is prepared by dragging raw ingredients onto tools such as knives and corkscrews, or into kitchen appliances like ovens and blenders, and then finally only the customer's table. The kitchen appliances take a few seconds to do their job, and you must remove food from them at just the right moment to get the highest possible cooking score. Unfortunately you don't get a funny smoking oven/fire department scene if you overcook a steak.
I found one really annoying bug. Using my "find many objects and click on them all quickly" strategy, I racked up enough dough to buy every expensive special ingredient at Mama Mariella's, the second restaurant you have to complete in the contest. However, the meal didn't go off smoothly because I was stuck with some blended peaches and nothing to do with them. The hint system said, "No hints are available at this time." Gee thanks, useless hint system! Insert unhappy face here. Since I know you'll reach the same point and get stuck just like I did, here's a tip: dump the blended peaches into the champagne.
The backgrounds in Cooking Quest are very well done. (We can forgive for the moment that all the restaurants share rooms. Probably some kind of 4th dimensional thing in Foodville. I'm not a topologist so I don't really know the details.) However the actual hidden items that are placed in the scenes often look unnatural, with odd perspectives and shading. You may have flashbacks of Abra Academy. Furthermore, Cooking Quest just seems more "muddy" or "blurry" compared to similar games with the same resolution. (Note to hidden object game designers: you can switch to 1024x768. You have my permission. No one is still limited to 800x600. No one. Trust me, I'm an expert.) Sometimes you click on the "clear" middle part of a hidden object, and the game doesn't recognize that you've found something. Sometimes you click on a hammer but the game wanted you to click on a different hammer. Hey Gunnar Games, if you're going to put two hammers in a scene, either one should count as a "hammer."
Every scene has a looping ambient soundtrack. Some are fairly seamless, while others (I'm thinking of you, kitchen ambient track!) have distinct elements that become distracting after ten or more loops.
I'd be a big, fat liar if I told you Cooking Quest is worth your money. Or that it's anything more than an attempt to cash in on the hidden object slash cooking sim craze going around these days. Unless you're an addict and have played every other hidden object game known to man, there are better games out there.
The idea of this game is ok. But its not ok to pay full price, for a game you can finish in an hour! That sucks….
HAHA! Thanks for the hint on the peaches. Indeed, we were stumped as well and left with no hints. Thanks a lot!!