Stand O’ Food 3 Review (iPad)

Games like Stand O Food 3 by G5 Entertainment are my not-so-secret-anymore guilty pleasure. I wouldn’t like to admit to the amount of burgers I’ve flipped, beauty salons I’ve managed and huffy customers I’ve placated with cups of coffee. There’s something incredibly addictive about time management games. Memory recall, quick thinking and a flair for interior design are good skills to have along with the patience of a saint when it all goes to shit for the umpteenth time.

G5 have a strong pedigree with titles like Virtual City 2. Stand O’ Food 3 doesn’t disappoint. The visuals are cracking on the iPad2 and the controls are mostly precise. Sometimes however, the finished product won’t be served up without a few seconds of standing around looking vacant. This resulted in a few questionable moments where I ended up getting my minion in a muddle, adding cheese instead of lettuce and presenting the customer with a twenty stack high burger because I was busy working ahead and didn’t notice the cheese snafu.

There are three different flavours of restaurant to look after: burger, lasagne and for the sweet-toothed, cake. This is one of the things I like about this game. Even though you’re theoretically engaged in the same task, the fact you’re doing it with different combinations keeps your brain on the hop. It’s a better design choice than say, just adding recipe upon recipe until the player is overwhelmed with information they need to retain. Interspersed with the stacking puzzles are mini games that offer something a little different for the grey matter, often asking you to catch things before they fall on the floor or other time-based fare.

Each restaurant is upgradeable and the new additions stay with the restaurant regardless of Italian, American or… cake based products. Some feel more useful than others. The hotplates, for example, are a necessity for sorting out Man v. Food sized portions gone awry and the crane (which is a once per level bonus item) can be used when you need to grab items from all over the conveyors whilst having a nervous breakdown.

There is a storyline connecting the various stages of restaurant together but it mostly seems to center around girl meets boy, girl is impressed by boy’s culinary prowess and special sauce, boy goes on to even bigger and better restaurants. It doesn’t add to the experience.

Something I’ve not seen before in an iOS game is the addition of social networking links. You can now thrill all of your Facebook friends by sharing that you used ten correct condiments in a row. Even though these kinds of updates are deeply annoying I actually like having the functionality there. There’s something good around online gaming worlds being connected rather than the disparate mess we have at the moment.

Stand O Food 3 is one of the best games of its genre. It’s slick, nicely challenging without being endlessly frustrating and for £2.99 totally worth the time you’ll spend on it. Even if you’re not a massive fan of these games it’s worth a look for those times you want something quick to entertain you, though beware: if you’re on a diet, this game will seriously dampen your willpower.

Stand O’ Food 3 is available now on iPad and Android

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