Gourmania 2: Great Expectations

In the new Gourmania 2: Great Expectations game Alawar Entertainment continues its experiments with blending time management and hidden object genres. Like the first installment of Gourmania serious this title delves into a cooking theme but occasionally involves seek and find tasks.

Gourmania 2: Great Expectations does not bring anything special to the these genres but still can boast of its challenging gameplay. Do not expect a strong story in this game because that part of the title is the weakest one. The primary object is the same: run on your restaurant business and satisfying customers with your cooking skills. The time management part of this installment is quite hard. It turns out to be extremely challenging to get 6 stars per level. Hidden object puzzles are not very difficult and it is always clear where to spot.     

The artwork and scenes are all pretty good, though much of the character’s speech animations look rather strange sometimes. The music background is hardly noticeable in the background that is why it is not very irritating. With unlimited opportunities to try and get expert scores, Gourmania 2: Great Expectations has a good replay value. Unfortunately, the gameplay is too short for this sort of genre. We hoped to have at least five hours of captivating play but in fact we finished it in one hour. To our mind it is extremely too short for such an addictive game. We would have nothing against to give this game much more of our time. It seems the developers just wanted to tease us. Probably, they have lost a spark of inspiration. Still, let’s enjoy this really interesting premise. 

5, November 2010