I have been a Diner Dash fan since the days when Flo took over her first restaurant. When she became a Hometown Hero, I was on the sidelines cheering. I have played all of her games, so when Flo got her own Avenue and was taken in a somewhat new direction, I was there waiting to play the game to see what she had in store for me. Sadly, I have to admit I am majorly disappointed in what is offered in Avenue Flo.

Avenue Flo uses many of the Dash characters (Flo’s friend, Quinn is a major player here), to create an adventure. Gone are the days of the pressured, frenzied dash to get the restaurant fixed and filled with paying customers. Now it’s more about a friend helping out another friend. You travel the neighborhood (Flo’s neighborhood) in search of items. Your adventure is not timed, though playing leisurely still only equals about three hours of game play on the main adventure. When your main adventure is done you can play in activity mode, but if you’ve beaten the game you’ve already played through these activities before and you may find (like I did) that it was pointless to replay these sections.

The only benefit to activity mode is that each activity, which is taken directly from activities you have to do in the main game (dough rolling, bead patterning, boxing up pet supplies, organizing clothing displays, etc.), is timed. The goal is to get the activity done in expert time. You can redo these activities if you don’t get them done in expert time the first time you play, but the second time around, doing them seems so easy it is pointless. Each activity has ten levels of play. They are supposed to get progressively harder as you move up through the levels, but if you do the activity for each level once, redoing it makes the task simple.

The idea behind the story is that Flo and Grandma are running a diner together. Quinn, who is Flo’s roommate, calls in a frenzy because she is working on a wedding and everything is going wrong. The cake isn’t working out, the bride’s dog is missing, the butterflies all flew away, the dress has problems, and the rings are missing! Quinn can’t leave the ship where the wedding is being held and the bride doesn’t know that there are any problems, so it’s up to Flo to save the day.

Part of the depressing part comes in the over-casualness of the game. There are no time limits. You are given specific duties (find dye-remover, get dog treats, find the butterflies, etc.) and you have as much time as you need to get these things done. Along the way, you collect bottles to recycle them. When you do, you can cash them in for tokens to use on the subway. The subway advances you to new areas once you’ve completed all the tasks in a specific neighborhood. There are three neighborhoods where you go and once you’ve finished up you get on the boat to deliver the final items for the wedding to Quinn.

As you play, the story develops to give you clues as to who the wedding ruiner is. If you’re using any thought process at all then you should figure it out within the first 30 minutes. It doesn’t take long. The daughter of Mr. Big, a big time executive, is marrying a pizza maker, so a lot of people could be seemingly unhappy with this match. Not only is dad a suspect, so are some of the ex-boyfriends. Like I mentioned though, it’s not hard at all to spot the culprit.

The graphics are on par with the other Diner Dash/Playfirst games that have been recently made. The voice overs are competent enough and the music is as annoying as ever (never fear, it can be turned down or off). It’s not the game production that fails, it’s the length and the storyline that I wasn’t fond of. When you only get 2-3 hours of game play (when taking your time no less), $19.95 seems like a big price to pay for any game.

If you are a Flo addict and feel the need to play this game, I would highly recommend downloading it and playing the free trial. Sure, you only get an hour’s worth of play, but in that time you could be on the second or even the third and final level. There is no point in paying for something that was thrown together as quickly as thus was. I am all for an adventure Flo storyline, but they needed to put more work into this and until they do I just cannot recommend purchasing it.

To check out the game for yourself, visit the Playfirst Avenue Flo website.

Holiday Recommendation Rating: .5

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