Game Rating: E for Everyone
Game Publisher: Alawar
Platform: PC
Release Date: 2009
Buy this at: Alawar, Amazon

One of the best things about my job is that I get to review things. Anything is a potential topic for me, but one thing that I love to review is computer programs. I love casual games especially. It’s not that they are my favorite type of game, because they aren’t. It’s more that they allow me plenty of goof off time that I can still technically call work. When I get tired of writing other reviews and need a few minutes to myself, I just load up a casual game. I’m not loafing or being distracted. No way! I am working! Life doesn’t get much better than that.

The most recent game that has kept me sane from work madness is Amelie’s Café. Filled with many positive and a few negative aspects, this game from Alawar is sure to be one of their new hits as the year rolls on. The game offers above average graphics, a cute storyline, and plenty of fun to be had all around. There are a few things I would have changed, especially what happens the deeper into the game you go, but we will save that for later in the review.

Story:
Amelie is a nice young girl that is trying to do everything to keep her grandfather’s café alive and running. Short of cooking, Amelie is in charge of management, serving, cleaning, and even decorating! While grandpa is away travelling the world, the task of fixing up this rundown shack of a café is all up to Amelie. In order to make the café a success she will need to balance managing duties with waitressing and just about everything else, otherwise the café will be sure to fail!

Enjoyment/Fun Factor:

Features:

Amelie’s Café is pretty basic when it comes to one of the food genre games out there. You’re running a restaurant and you’ve got to do it well to move on. The only big problem I see here is that they add quite a bit of tasks and some of them do not feel like they go together. For instance, it is your job to task your chef with making a certain food. At any given time you have about five chef stations.

Depending on how messy your chefs are (they have their own personalities and can be upgraded to be less messy) you will need to clean their station by clicking on a brush before they will continue cooking for you. This is fine, but no matter how many brushes you need, you can only carry one at a time. If this was the rule for all items, I wouldn’t be complaining, but since you can carry two food items I don’t see why you cannot carry two brushes. If that had been the case the game may not have been so frustrating at times.

Don’t get me wrong I love a good challenge. I just don’t like inconsistency very much. One other thing I am having a hard time grasping is the bonus system. There is a matching aspect to this game that allows you to have special additions that are meant to make your game easier. These things include the ability to freeze the customer’s patience level, to clean the grills, and to add extra money to your total. When you complete chains you receive these icons and need to match them up three in a row to get any of the bonus options. In most cases they end up being a pain though. Freezing people and extra money are nice, but in cases like the grill cleaning, I noticed that the grills (which are all cleaned at once) are never clean enough to make a difference.

There are three cafes to play and anywhere from 15 to 24 days to play in each café, so there is quite a bit of game play here. This doesn’t include the endless play option, which allows you to play without moving levels.

I had plenty of fun playing Amelie’s Café. I think I would have liked it more if it wasn’t so hectic and there were a few more options that allowed you to do more at one time. Still, I had no problem moving up on most levels and I did have a good time. In the diner game space, this is a pretty good addition.

Replayability:

Controls:
In this situation it seems unnecessary to even write about control usage. Your mouse serves as your controller in this fast paced, point and click game. Other than your mouse, no controller (not even the keyboard) is necessary.

Ease of Use:

Visual Quality:
I didn’t have any problems with the visual aspects of Amelie’s Café. The graphics are cute and they manage to compliment the story quite nicely. For a casual game the graphics are top notch with good colors and a nice level of detail. Granted, this isn’t something you would see from the likes of a Playstation3 game, but for a casual game this works just fine. Overall things look pretty darn good.

Visual:

Audio Quality:
Amelie’s Café offers your average happy go lucky, casual gaming experience music. I try to block all of the casual game music out, but when I am reviewing I will leave it on long enough to know how good or bad it is. Amelie’s Café wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t standing out either. I was actually able to ignore it being on without much of a problem. While that works perfectly for me, if you like game music it might not be for you.

Audio:

Bottom Line:
Alwar offers the try before you buy download that lets you test out a game for an hour before you buy it. I highly recommend downloading Amelie’s Café and playing it for an hour. You can get pretty far in the first hour and it will give you a nice glimpse into what to expect from this game. If you like the fast paced, food service games you should like Amelie’s Café. Overall this is a fun and challenging game with nice graphics. Alawar continues to do a great job of making entertaining games in the casual gaming space.

Overall Rating:

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