Despite looking like a cheap tycoon game this is far better than you might expect
Gameplay
At first everything looks rather daunting and confusing, and you'd be right in thinking that. There's a lot to learn about this game and the instruction manual is essentially useless, so diving straight in to the sandbox mode isn't a good idea at first. However the developers encourage you to start with the campaign mode and the tutorial, which turns out to be a Godsend. The tutorial teaches you everything you need to know as you progress through the core part of the game - a story with 18 tutorials which essentially involve meeting certain criteria to move on to the next scenario, making a certain amount of money, serving a certain amount of customers and so on. Even when you've learned everything you need to know Restaurant Empire is still is difficult game to get to grips with even early in the game, I'm personally struggling on the sixth scenario and it's only set to get harder.
Graphics
The game is approaching five years old now but the graphics still aren't particularly brilliant. They do enough to keep you visually satisfied but certain aspects are a little rough around the edges, particularly with the character models.
Sound
The sound and music featured in Restaurant Empire are a mixed bag. On the one hand the usual sound effects you hear in a restaurant from cooking sounds to the sound of customers eating are fine, but the music only kicks in at random intervals and doesn't really fit the mood of a classy restaurant. Another review mentions that the tracks seem to be directly taken from a pornographic film, and that's the best way to describe what you hear.
Value
As I mentioned I picked this game up for about £8 as part of a deal, and upon browsing various websites you can buy it now for about £5 which is a great price to pay for this game. Sure, it's not perfect by any means but there's more than enough about this game to keep you happy and warrant whatever you might pay for it.