You play as Ms. Jill Evans, coming back with the love of her life to her home town of Bakersfield. Not all is well back at home however. It seems that Main Street's wonderfully array of shops have fallen victim to Baker's Corner, a massive mall that has every shop in town beat out. With the help of some of your long time friends, you decide to work and put Bakersfield's Main Street back on the map and back in working order. With everyone in town behind you, you begin your journey through your old bakery and move on to hamburger stands, hot dog stands, the park, and much more to get your old town back pumping away again. You have to help set up these new shops to attract new people into town to keep it alive. The fun thing is that you can play these new attractions as you buy and unlock them in the game. So, you aren't stuck making cakes the whole time, and you get to try out different areas of the town to see which you are better at. Sandlot Games did a great job of mixing in some old favorites from other Cake Mania games into this new, updated story line to keep everything interesting and fresh for those that have, or haven't, played any games in this saga.
While the storyline is similiar to the other Cake Mania games out there, it is also completely different in the fact that there is so much more depth to the story in this version. I give the storyline in this one a full 5 out of 5.
You start out in the bakery, baking different cakes and keeping customers happy. From there, you gain enough money and points to unlock the Burger Barn. Once you gain enough money, you'll unlock the flower store, garden, bridge, and much more. The more you can open, the more people will come to your town to visit and spend their money. And when you aren't playing the other shops, they still earn you between $5-$10 a day.
All of the different shops basically have the same gameplay, your customer arrives, you take their order. Then, you have to put their order together in that specific way (i.e. bun, hamburger, ketchup, bun) so that they are happy and pay for it. The faster you do this, the more money you make. And, the happier your customer is, which means that they will tip you more. There are so many great ways to go about playing the game, that you won't get bored at all with the gameplay in Cake Mania Main Street. If you are getting frustrated with a specific shop, head to town and choose another one. It's so easy to switch back and forth to get a great game going quickly. Plus, keeping your ever changing customers happy is enough to keep you on your toes - especially since each shop has a different customer that will change the other customer's minds, so you have to be careful to watch their orders and get them out of your shop as quickly as you can.
You will quickly find that the game play in this edition of Sandlot Games favorite Cake Mania is different than the others as it's got so many great ways of keeping the game fresh all the way through. And, they replay value here is awesome, as there is so much to do, that it will take you a while to get through the game completely.
Because the game play in this one varies so much, and there is so much that you can do and work toward, I give it a full 5 out of 5 as well - even if it deserves more!