Haute Cuisine Slot Machine
Not many online games leave you feeling peckish, but Haute Cuisine from The Art of Games will have you salivating as you play, so make sure you don’t actually drool on the keyboard. As with all of their products, The Art of Games have packed this menu full of treats and made it a tantalising restaurant that you’ll want to return to again and again, even if you’ll be spinning the food rather than eating it.
Of course, games like this are ten a penny, so The Art of Games knew when creating it that they needed to make it the right mixture of visually appealing and fun to play, otherwise it would just be another one in a busy crowded market trying to get the attention of gamers. Have they achieved that, or is the whole food theme a bit overcooked? Let’s see…
The First Taste is with the Eye
Any dish that gets served up to you needs to look good if you’re going to try it, and Haute Cuisine certainly catches the eye when it loads, with a whole load of things leaping off the screen at you. Cleverly, they’ve included some animation in the top left corner where your eyes will naturally land, and the tail-twitching sleeping rat is a nice touch, even if its presence is a little worrying when it comes to the hygiene standards of this eating establishment.
There’s barely a wasted inch on screen, from the fast food style menus at around the title to the fizzy pop cans and styrofoam packaging around the sides and the squeezy sauce bottle buttons in the bottom corners, although again the spilled sauce and fries on the counter make you wonder exactly how haute this cuisine is (BTW ‘haute cuisine’ means ‘high-quality food’, not ‘hot food’, in case you were wondering). It also has some classic arcade-style music and sound effects to help build the atmosphere.
Fine Dining?
As you might have guessed from the descriptions of the layout above, this haute cuisine wouldn’t win many Michelin stars and the food on offer here is very much of the fast food variety, making you wonder if The Art of Games staff maybe needed our explanation of the definition when they were coming up with the name. But who really cares, we’re not eating the food, we’re spinning it around to try and win big, and the rotating junk food is still visually appealing and fun to play with.
The more important aspect of quality comes down to whether the game itself is good, so is it haute, erm, iGaming? Well, it’s not without its issues, with graphics glitches showing up when you win anything, meaning that small areas of black space appeared on the game. None of it was damaging enough to make the game unplayable, but it was still unfortunate and slightly off-putting to see.
Buckets of Fun (and Fried Chicken)
Haute Cuisine might be a diner that has a few code violations but as a game it’s simple and fun and effective. You can pick it up quickly and get spinning, with clear buttons allowing you to change your bet per line and paylines, if you can take your eyes off the gigantic burgers, buckets of fried chicken and ice creams rolling around the screen. The pay table is cleverly located in the till while the order notes at the side of the main screen are put to good use too.
When you get three or more Mini Games on a win line you’ll trigger a - wait for it - mini game that takes the theme a step further by getting you to cook some fast food. Like the rest of the game, it’s no frills fun but fun just the same, and at least teaches you useful things like how to cook a cheap-looking burger. It’s nothing that will change your life and is the kind of thing that you’d expect to find in a cheap mobile game for kids, but it’s a nice break from the main game.
Tasty Stuff?
Haute Cuisine is a deliberately (surely) name for a game that features very un-haute cuisine and at times the game itself is a bit rough and ready, but there’s a definite charm to its retro music, graphics and sound effects, while the gameplay is simple but effective.
It has decent pay-outs, tantalising offers and enough variety to keep you coming back for more, and that’s the kind of satisfying dining that keeps you coming back for more, rats or no rats.
