Donut Games is one of the unsung heroes of iPhone game development. Their games are nearly always "casual" at heart, yet feature enough addictive simplicity to appeal to anybody. With a wide range of curious arcade-style titles, Donut is easily among the best devs that iTunes has. You won't find many to say that, though.
Superstar Chefs is one of the Donut's neatest little offerings. It's a platform game that feels like the original arcade Mario Bros. thanks to its small arenas, platform design and lack of screen boundaries.
The aim of the game is to collect the designated number of fruit and then collect a key to complete each of the 60+ stages. Racking up scores for fruit combos, enemies, and special collectibles is the key to replayability, although there's more than enough content for one playthrough to justify the 99 cents.
Gameplay starts off easily enough but it can get pretty tough, especially once the spikes and the watery deathtraps come into the picture. The heavy handling of the chefs can lead to a few frustrating deaths, but only occassionally will the deaths seem unfair, and no one stage is truly insurmountable.
To cap it off, Superstar Chefs looks good and has a lovely, if repetitive, soundtrack. All this for a mere buck makes it well worth picking up. Buy it from the iTunes storehere.
Aug 31, 2010
