Cake Mania and Burger Island Free Online Games - Thumbs Up!

I remember the days when MSN Games was the MSN Gaming Zone complete with ZF messaging capability. Checkers and Backgammon rooms used to have little tables and chairs and if you clicked on a chair, a person icon came up claiming your spot in that game. Or how about the lovable MSN Ants game. Building fires, stealing food and all trying to eat the little cheerio looking candies for the extra easy 30 points.

MSN Games isn't so bad these days. There's a lot of cute games for children and adults. Many of them you can play on-line for free. Many of the free on-line games offer a deluxe version but often are only trial versions and you'll need to pay to continue playing. One alright game is called 'Burger Island'. You might have seen this game in other places besides MSN such as Yahoo and Games.com

When you first begin in this game, you are introduced to a French waiter who goes through the steps for beginners on how to play the game. In the first round the french fries are ready for you. All you need to do is make burgers with ketch up for the customers and make as many as possible before it's closing time. Make sure you pay attention to the little thermometers next to the customer's order. They represent how happy the customer is. If the thermometer gets too low, you'll end up losing that customer and their money. After you finish for first round, the game will re-load and start in about 15 seconds. In the next round you need to cook the fries and put pepper, salt and ketch up on them. In level three you go back to making burgers again.

To save yourself some time, you can try cooking more than one burger at a time and once both patties are finished around the same time, grab the ketch up and squirt both before getting a bun. In level 4 you have some buying options with your money. You can either buy a cheeseburger recipe and or jalapeno french fries. The only thing that may get on your nerves is the same music playing in the background. Perhaps it'd be better if they included a few songs to continue playing throughout the game. For now you can turn down the volume of the game under the options menu.

Cake Mania is another free decent game from MSN games. You help Jill, a graduated culinary student who sets out to start her own business. You begin with the first month of the year and have a basic customer. In the beginning Jill takes you through on how to bake a cake, frost it and then delivery it. Each cake costs around $34.00. In February you'll have cupid as your customer. In March you'll be upgraded to having two baking ovens. In April and May you'll have a cranky Easter bunny character, a grandmother customer and another frosting machine. Each customer has hearts next to them. This indicate how happy the customer is while waiting for their order. If they become angry, you could end up losing a dollar or two in sales each time. Also make sure you have the correct cake type and frosting or else you'll end up throwing away cakes. Each cake thrown in the garbage costs around $30.00.

In Cake Mania 2 Jill's bakery is a bit more sophisticated and also the characters are a little more humorous. For example you'll have an elderly women with her cat stroll in sweet as can be until she's been waiting too long, then her poor cat gets a surprise each time she gets angry. Or a rich socialite who becomes flustered in the face after waiting in line for a while. Also in Cake Mania 2, you get a chance to earn cake toppers such as hearts and soccer balls. Each cake topper adds around $10-15 additional dollars to the costs of your cakes and don't take too long to put on. Cake Mania may be better for the younger crowd since it's slower paced than the 2nd version.

Both games are family friendly and can easily be play on MSN with a Hotmail or Windows Live account to save your scores. Now you can earn badges every time you play and reach a certain score. Badges represent your skill level in a game. Make sure you are signed into your account to earn badges! Currently you can't unlock hidden levels, games or win anything no matter how many badges you win. Below are the current direct links to both games. If you have some time, check out the MSN Games for these and other games @ http://www,msn.zone.com

http://zone.msn.com/en/cakemania/default.htm
http://zone.msn.com/en/cakemania2/default.htm
http://zone.msn.com/en/burgerisland/default.htm
http://get.games.yahoo.com/proddesc?gamekey=burgerisland
http://www.games.com/game/burger-island/