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Taco Master HD
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Graphics & Sound:
I'm normally not one to really care all that much for aesthetics. Sure, I like nice graphics in a game and I applaud developers who try to do something different, which is what they tried to do in Taco Master HD. However, when the resultant design choices tend to make me a little ill while I am playing, then I really feel like I need to talk about it.
Your goal is to be a Taco Master and you are working with a man at a taco stand whose partner left him high and dry. The look is a bit "graffiti," with cel shaded edges and a cartoony aesthetic. You will be making tacos using a basic soft shell and up to four different main ingredients, with two salsa choices and an onion/cilantro blend to jazz things up. My problem comes with the main taco fillings. There's bean, a chopped sausage mix, something purplish that may be a strange vegetable or possibly a meat (could it be tongue?), and then some other pineapple/carrot mix. Maybe. While the purple veggie/meat thing really disturbed me the first time I saw it, especially since there is no explanation as to what the filling is, I dismissed it and kept on playing. However, the more I played, the more sickened I became in preparing the tacos because the fillings just weren't appealing at all. I know it sounds picky, but I just felt it was worth mentioning. Aside from that, the salsa bowls and grill look good and the onion/cilantro mix looks authentic, while the characters have a lot of attitude.
The sound effects played a small role in making me a bit ill as well. The sloshing sounds as you slide the toppings onto the taco shells are a little odd, but I did enjoy the comments that the taco boss would say when you screwed up. The music was very peppy and full of energy, but it looped too often. I enjoyed it, but I just got tired of it. |
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Gameplay:
Taco Master HD will start off pretty slow, with only one type of taco filling for you to use. Orders will appear at the top of the screen and will show how many tacos are needed to fulfill the order. Then you'll tap the order to see specifically what the customer wants. As you add filling types, salsas and the onion/cilantro mix, the orders will become more complicated. I found myself forgetting the specifics of a convoluted order after I started preparing it because you can click it to view what is needed, but once you start prepping the food, you can't see the order anymore without clicking it again, all of which costs you precious seconds. Once you have completed the taco order, you slide the tacos onto the order ticket and if they are correct, they go away. If they are wrong, you get an annoyed sound effect, and if you take too long to fulfill the order, the order ticket begins shaking violently and you lose that customer. Lose too many and you lose the level and must replay it.
You can choose to play Career, Arcade or Time Attack, but Time Attack won't open unless you gift it to three of your friends first. Career has you going through each level, adding fillings and sauces as you go, with the difficulty ramping up. Arcade feels exactly like Career mode, starting off slow and moving on up, except that you don't have the little storyline behind it.
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Difficulty:
Taco Master HD starts off pretty easily, but as the orders become more complicated, it becomes harder to play. The basic premise is easy enough; sliding ingredients onto taco shells. However, as you gain additional fillings and sauces to work with, ones that are of similar coloring to others you already are working with, you may begin to second guess what you thought the order required. In other words, if an order asks for two bean tacos with onions/cilantro and two sausage tacos with green salsa, after you close that order ticket and begin working on it, it's easy to forget which sauce goes where, because of the similar colors. While that might not sound probable, when you have four different orders on the board, things can get hectic. Add to that the fact that new orders will appear in the spots where you just completed an order, and you can easily forget the order you need to prep the food requests, leading to customers leaving because you took too long. Again, keep in mind that you have a very short amount of time to prep an order, so it's tougher than you may at first think.
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Game Mechanics:
Taco Master HD is all about the finger tap and swipe. You tap an order to open it so you can see what they are requesting, then you swipe taco shells from the grill onto the prep area. Then you add the taco filling by sweeping them to the shells and then sauces and toppings, if needed. You don't have to fold the tacos over or anything, just slide them onto the order ticket and if they are correct, the ticket disappears, to be replaced by a new order. You have a certain number of orders to fulfill to get past the level, so even if you lose a few customers or make some tacos incorrectly, you can still recover. There's a recycle bin in the corner where you can throw away a mistake taco, but it is often faster and easier to leave it be as you will more than likely get a request for that type sooner rather than later, due to the limited number of fillings to choose from. I didn't notice any sort of penalty for putting two servings of filling into a taco, so at least you don't have to worry about disposing of a screw-up if your finger slipped and you added too much filling.
Overall, I just wasn't crazy about Taco Master HD. I really liked it initially, but after a long play session where I got to Level 14 or so, the look of the taco fillings and the sound effects really got to me and made me feel ill. Since there was no real way to tweak the difficulty, if the game gets too difficult for you, it's easier to turn it off rather than to keep playing. If you can find a demo to check out to see if it is for you, I'd recommend that first, but again, it took a long play session to turn me off of the game.
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-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
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