iPhone Game of the Day: Star Wars Cantina

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Serve it up Tattoine-style in the galaxy's most infamous cartoon-cute space bar

Game: Star Wars Cantina
Price: $0.99 / £0.59
Size: 31.6MB
Buy it now from the iTunes Store:US/UK

You know times are tough when even the bars in Mos Eisley, the galaxy's most wretched hive of scum and villainy, can't bring in enough business to keep the doors open. Luckily for the barkeep in Star Wars Cantina, all that's really needed to turn the business around is a beehive-haired waitress with the speed of an Olympic sprinter and the balance of a Chinese acrobat. It's about time we got a Cake Mania clone that enabled us to retain at least a little manly dignity...

For the two or three people out there who've never played Cake Mania or any of its legion of imitators, this is basically the old arcade game Tapper on steroids, astripped down, single unit real-time strategy game disguised in bright colors and charming characters. Customers flow into the bar almost non-stop, and as waitress Nia Adea, it's your job to seat them, take their order, deliver the drinks (to the proper tables), then collect the empty glasses. If you're fast enough with all that, you get tips. If you're not, they leave in a huff and youget stiffed, eventually closing down for good.

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Over time, you add more tables and encounter a greater variety of clients with differeing personalities (Hutts drink a ton, Rodians are blaster-happy, moisture farmers are cheap), but you can also purchase enhancements like fans or a bar droid to help counteract these greater demands. Bopping back and forthfrom tableto table to sink tobar (the screen scrolls up and down to show the whole playfield) can get a little frantic, but there's no denying you can get deeply hooked on what seems to be a simple little game.

Oct 01, 2010

Eric Bratcher
Eric Bratcher
I was the founding Executive Editor/Editor in Chief here at GR, charged with making sure we published great stories every day without burning down the building or getting sued. Which isn't nearly as easy as you might imagine. I don't work for GR any longer, but I still come here - why wouldn't I? It's awesome. I'm a fairly average person who has nursed an above average love of video games since I first played Pong just over 30 years ago. I entered the games journalism world as a freelancer and have since been on staff at the magazines Next Generation and PSM before coming over to GamesRadar. Outside of gaming, I also love music (especially classic metal and hard rock), my lovely wife, my pet pig Bacon, Japanese monster movies, and my dented, now dearly departed '89 Ranger pickup truck. I pray sincerely. I cheer for the Bears, Bulls, and White Sox. And behind Tyler Nagata, I am probably the GR staffer least likely to get arrested... again.