Review Cake Mania 2 Developer: Sandlot Games Publisher: Sandlot Games Genre: Casual Game Release Date: 2008 Platform: Review by Karla Munger February 8, 2008		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

We thought it would be fun to review some of the casual games we currently have available in our JA Casual Game Center. Needless to say, these games are very addictive and while our enthusiastic reviews are, for the most part short, the time spent playing these games is not. Once you have read the review, drop by the JA Casual Game Center and download a free trial version of the game for yourself, but remember - you have been warned!

I don't enjoy writing negative reviews. But unfortunately, the negative aspects of Cake Mania 2 far outweigh the positive.

I've invested considerable time and effort in trying to play and review this game. I've given it every chance to look good to me. I've also given careful consideration to what I'll be saying here.

I've seen other reviews, mostly by players, singing this game's praises. I can almost guarantee they were written by folks who hadn't played the game through all six of its paths, as I have (more about this in a minute). Doing so took patience, tenacity, and close to four months.

Space doesn't permit my going into everything I found wrong with Cake Mania 2. In a word, it's buggy. Seriously so.

The worst offender is the arbitrary disappearance of money and upgrades. I repeatedly ended up in situations where goals were unattainable because I had suddenly lost everything I'd accumulated. My only recourse was to start over, and I did so many times. In view of the game's 204 levels, this is no small matter.

Jill the Baker spends a year at each location, with each level consisting of a calendar month. But the game can arbitrarily truncate months. For instance, I encountered 29 days in both December and June, and 30 days in July. This leaves players less time to meet a month's specific goals. In these instances, no closing bell sounds nor does a "Closed" sign appear. The game just stops and gives you your totals for the month.

Something I consider as bad as its bugginess is Cake Mania 2's abstruse complexity. Even worse, players are left to figure out most of the confusing things about this game on their own.

For example: There are branching storylines (the aforementioned six career paths) for Jill to follow through the game. Each yields a trophy. At first glance, this may sound like fun. It did to me.

It's execution, however, is a nightmare. Neither the game's Help files, the Sandlot site nor the Cake Mania 2 mini-site offers any information whatsoever about proceeding through the paths, which are confusing and convoluted to the point of being undiscoverable by any method except trial-and-error.

If you do manage to win one of the trophies, the game will tell you only this: View your trophies in the Main Menu. Collect all six! That's the game's only mention of trophies; it's merely repeated if or when subsequent trophies are won.

This leaves players to engage in time-consuming guessing games, and it's possible to screw up paths repeatedly. Even if one manages to find a valid path, there's the risk of losing upgrades and cash and being unable to complete it.

Further, each path has an ending and plays through as though it's a complete game -- except it isn't. After winning a trophy, if you start a new game in hopes of winning another, all you'll do is lose the one you have.

You must instead choose "Continue Game" and be taken to a World Map showing the game's six locales along with a structure with a red roof (this is Jill's own bakery). You must click on the red roof to start another path. This is completely counter-intuitive, and players are told nothing about it.

To add to the confusion, the paths as reflected in the close-up view of each locale in the World Map have arrows pointing not to where you're going, but to where you've been. This makes no sense.

Many paths between locales must be traversed more than once in order to gain all six trophies, so you'll find yourself traveling across the same ones a second or third time. In these instances, it's possible to click on January and end up in December. This is also where the game most often loses track of current money and upgrades.

All of this is really a shame, because Cake Mania 2 could have been a terrific game. It's possible that others will have better luck than I've had with it. If you decide to give it a try, the best place to get help -- which comes from other players -- is the game's forum.

In summary, Cake Mania 2 is overly ambitious in concept and sloppy in execution. There's no way I'd feel comfortable recommending it.

Instead, I'll just say this: Ye pays yer money and ye takes yer chances. You may end up with $20.00 less in your pocket and an unplayable game in the trash bin.

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