The cast of the Dash series is brought to life via quality voice acting and several animated scenes, including a big musical number at the beginning of the game. It's so nice to interact with the various characters, many of whom have had their own spin-off games, but even extras get face time and even a few lines. Even if you're not familiar with DinerTown, you'll quickly start to feel at home amongst the cast.
Aside from the standard gameplay of locating objects and solving puzzles, you also have a series of activities ranging from rearranging clothes to teaching an arobics class. They vary from fun to agrivating, and unfortunately for Avenue Flo the least enjoyable are also the ones that end up getting expanded versions in Activity Mode. Six of them appear in this section and each have sixteen stages to conquer under a rather strict time limit.
In Adventure Mode the minigames do not have timers, so I keep thinking their inclusion in the other is an attempt to appeal to the longtime fans. Whether they succeeded is probably subjective. I got through two and a half of them before ultimately giving up, since a couple relied heavily on luck or trial-and-error. The Pet Supply Box one, for instance, has no reset button and it desperately needs one.
The game itself has a little too much hand holding for some people. I personally don't care, and in fact think that makes this a great game for younger players because the spoken dialogue mean very little reading is actually required. On the BFG forums, there were complaints of the game being too short. It took me about a day to finish going at my own pace and occasionally stopping to try out the Activity Mode. If someone genuinely beat this game in four hours I would have to say they were doing something wrong.
For the price ($6.99 with Game Club Membership at Big Fish Games), I found the length to be acceptable. Heck, they have sales all the time on the site so you could probably find it for even less. I laughed on multiple occasions and had a great time, bar a few unenjoyable activities (like Chicken Singing). I'll more than likely play it again in the next few months. If you're a fan of the DinerTown series, or you just want a light-hearted distraction, you could do a lot worse than Avenue Flo.
Oh yes, I ought to point out they have a demo so there's always that option. When it comes to PC games, I always say "try before you buy."
