by Andrew Fink

Created on: June 14, 2008   Last Updated: November 17, 2010

Game Review: Dairy Dash
Developer: Playfirst
Overall rating: 4/5

The Lowdown: Dairy Dash is an arcade game where you work to manage a dying farm, taking care of the animals and crops, and trying to meet your daily quota. It has a cute story and inventive, diverse game play, but the nice exterior disguises a game largely devoid of skill and strategy, even if it is a good time.

Game play (4/5): You play as Mr. Smith, a man helping to revive a distant relative's farm. Each day, you have to perform a variety of chores (feeding the animals, weeding and watering the garden, etc.) as fast as possible in order to keep everything happy. As the game progresses, you move to larger farms, and you have to take on more chores. Every so often, a short, no pressure minigame is introduced to break up the otherwise relentless amount of moving and clicking. The game adds difficulty at a good pace and in diverse ways to keep the game interesting, however, the amount of skill and strategy required is lacking. The game is really a measure of clicking speed, more than anything else.

Graphics (4/5): The graphics are cute and well presented. The story is progressed by comics that explain what's going on with the Smith family, both on and off the farm, as well as the other characters in the story. All of the aspects of the farm are well animated, and the visual clues that show how you are doing are easy to find and clear. While unimpressive, the graphics fit well within the overall feel of the game: cute and fun, but still lacking some larger substance.

Sound (2/5): The audio is lacking, with the obligatory ho-down music that verges on irritating after the twentieth repetition, and a variety of farm sound effects that tend to grate the nerves. All of the sounds tend to annoy rather than add to the game's overall enjoyment. If everything had been toned down a notch or two, it would have been more reasonable.

Fun Factor (5/5): All that said, Dairy Dash is still an incredibly fun game. Even though there are a lot of other similar games out there, it manages to take a theme and extend it to a large variety of tasks so that everything seems new and enjoyable. That, coupled with the goal oriented gameplay (both trying to advance through the farms and gain trophies for special achievements) make the game hard to put down. The addition of an endless mode and minigames make Dairy Dash into a very worthwhile purchase. While it may not have depth or strategy, it still provides a good amount of enjoyment.

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