Imagine if you will, a lone diner out in the middle of the dark desert. The secret of this diner: It was constructed above an ancient Native American burial ground. The spirits of those in the ground now haunt this diner. Unfortunately, it is your job to keep the diner clean while dealing with these irate supernatural forces. This is Joe’s Diner, by the folks at Visual Imagination Software and UIE GmbH.
Joe’s Diner is an atmospheric, amusing ride in the shoes of a lone diner working attempting to keep things clean and ready for customers as a battle between two opposing spirits rages on. Things start out creepily enough, as small things start occurring in the empty diner to introduce you to its simple game mechanics (mainly consisting of interacting with things via the ‘E’ button). Appliances will mysteriously turn on, trash will appear on tables out of nowhere, and other things, which I won’t spoil, happen to keep you from completing your cleaning task. Unfortunately, after playing through the game’s first couple levels, whatever creep factor I had quickly went away. It was replaced with a repugnant hatred of these two spirits. How dare they mess with my job! What a bunch of “A-holes”! If you wan’t to fight, take it outside, not in my diner!
So, Joe’s Diner is not so much of a horror game as it is a Tapper style experience – run here, run there, interact with object, keep everything moving. The challenge in this process comes from the noise you make and the chaos that one of the spirits causes. This noise irritates one of the opposing spirits and, if he gets angry enough, you die and have to start the level over again. It should also be noted that if you die during the first level, you have to re-watch the long into sequence over too – an added torment! So, you have to clean quietly! There is a noise indicator that you have to keep a close watch on to aid in this goal. Unfortunately, the gameplay gets repetitive after a while, as working in a diner would.
Overall, Joe’s Diner is a momentary, if not amusing diversion to pass some time with. Unfortunately, the creep factor gives way to the player becoming indignant and angry at these spirits instead of afraid. If I had a proton pack available, I would be going to town on those two rude ghosts. Joe’s Diner retails for $7.99 on Steam and that’s not a bad price for it. If you are looking for a quick, creepy diversion, I would pick it up. It’s not perfect, but it is also only an $8 dollar game!
[easyreview title=”Joe’s Diner Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”2″ ]
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