A Review of Restaurant City by Playfish

Restaurant City is either one of the most difficult games on Facebook or just the worst. Let me start my saying that I'm an online gamer. Over the course of the past seven years or so, I've played various games on my computer: The Sims Online, Second Life, Zynga's Mafia Wars, Yoville, Cafe World, an assortment of farm games including Farmville, Sorority Life, and a wide variety of word, puzzle and other games all with a certain degree of success. Restaurant City? I just don't get it.

It could be because the interface stinks or because I have a low level of patience, but I'm not convinced that's it. It's been at least a month now and I still can't make something out of the "starters" menu and am stuck with the automatic dishes my silly looking character cooks up. Yes, silly. The graphics are horrific to top everything else off.

All I know is that to play the game you start off with a very small restaurant. As with most other games of this type, having neighbors helps you to succeed. I'm not failing because of a lack of neighbors though. I'm failing because a huge majority of them joined the game and apparently have given up. Well, that would be one reason. A lack of ingredients and coins is another.

In order to get ingredients it seems you have to do the following. I say it seems because there is no "guide" to explain how to do this. First one must hire a waiter or two. Presently I have a waiter and a janitor. I am the chef and we work a 3 hour shift, after which it costs coins for me to feed the staff or as I discovered the other day, I can put us all to sleep and close the restaurant for 3 hours. During that time customers come in (the door remains open) and they throw trash in the restaurant! No worries, during that time you can travel around the streets of Restaurant City in hunt of coins and or ingredients. As you visit someone's restaurant for the very first time you will receive an ingredient. You may also come upon the "king" who will give you an ingredient. I only discovered that by accident. While visiting someone's restaurant you can receive a very small amount of coins if you help put out a fire, kill skunks, chase the sleeping bear or fix their plumbing. A friend recently told me that if I take the time to scour the trees around and behind the restaurants on the street I can shake all the trees and an occasional coin will drop. Once your first visit is over you will never get ingredients from that restaurant again. You can however share or trade ingredients, but only if you and the other restaurant owner have them unlocked in inventory. Well one day last week I went to 100 restaurants and not one of them had any unlocked ingredients. You have no idea how time consuming all of the above is and for very little gain.

This is really all I know about Restaurant City from Playfish. I'm sure there is more but I doubt I will ever find out. I'll be too busy tending my island in Tiki Farm or building a crime empire in Mafia Wars.