Success Story Review

We don't envy the hard-working folks toiling in the kitchens of our favorite fast-food joints. Their demanding work is tough enough, but Success Story seems to delight in tormenting them even more with unnecessary obstacles. Trays of toppings will disappear without warning, glass covers must be busted through, and every customer wants three burgers of the same kind. No offense, pal, but maybe you could afford to skip a meal.

It may be a strange concept, but this frantic burger-building sim does keep things interesting in a game that seems geared more towards younger servers than the coffee-fueled Diner Dash or Sally's Spa. If you like those titles, you'll appreciate that the simple gameplay in Success Story ramps up nicely, until you're constructing sandwiches that would make Dagwood Bumstead wince.

Every customer that comes in wants three of a certain type of burger, which you make by tapping on the ingredients, in the correct order, like bacon-eggs-cheese. After their burgers are done, they often want four side dishes, which will appear next to your normal burger ingredients. These items, like coffee and popcorn, stand out from the other burger toppings and are an easy request to fulfill.

Even though the gameplay is simple, we still enjoyed it. Customers will lose patience with you if you take too long to make their food, and it's possible to forget to pick up your tips from the counter because you're too busy making more meals. The visuals pop out nicely and make the menu items look downright appetizing.

A few pages of comic-book cutscenes tie the story together, but it's a mostly forgettable affair. Also, the game is set in different restaurants, but this affects the backgrounds only and not the menu or clientele. More impressive were the array of powerups, like a radio that will keep your customers from fleeing your poor service, or a handy robot who will give you a break from making burgers for a short while.

As far as time management games go, this is definitely not the most complex or brain-busting of them. We breezed through the game in about 3 hours, only failing a mission once or twice. If you don't mind the overall lack of challenge and want a simple, pretty game that promotes unhealthy eating habits, try out Success Story.