Joe's Diner | Wii U

Well, well, well, if it isn’t an early candidate for worst game of the year: Joe’s Diner on Nintendo Wii U.

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​By Rob Holt

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​@acousticmagic

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Platform(s): Wii U, PC
Developer: VIS Games
Publisher: Joindots
​Players: 1

A poorly narrated (but drink-coming-out-your-nose-funny) introduction sets the scene; you’re a lonely waiter, tasked with cleaning tables in a diner built on an ancient Indian burial ground. It gets worse though, as the diner is haunted by rival chieftains whom despised each other in life, and positively loath one another in death!

The game’s billed as an arcade-horror experience, but within the first five minutes it was evident that there was nothing fast paced and fun about it, nor was there any sign of the macabre. A first person dull-a-thon, Joe’s Diner has you clearing tables, whilst simultaneously turning off whatever appliance the ghosts have turned on. You’ll also need to manage the level of noise you make, as if the meter at the bottom of the screen spills over into the red, you’ll be greeted with the flash of a truly ghastly image of one of the chieftains. No doubt it’s an attempted jump-scare, but it couldn’t be less effective - especially when it lasts all of a millisecond.

The controls are basic: left stick to move, A is your action button and ZL runs. It works, but all the pleasantries of a clean, efficient control scheme cannot redeem a truly abhorrent turd of a game.

Within seconds you’ll be peeved by the bloated loading times, which seem completely unnecessary when you actually see what’s taken so long to ship. Muddy, basic visuals, and a framerate that huffs and puffs more than me after fetching cake. The sluggish character movement generously grants an extra point of annoyance, as you’ll frequently trip back and forth from the kitchen to deposit your rubbish. You’ll also have to stand in precisely the right location for the door to work. As you can only clean one piece of rubbish at a time (something that will aggrieve anyone who’s ever done a waiting shift in their life, or at least picked up two or more things at once), this process of putrid, protracted play will make you want to positively punish yourself for ever reaching into your pocket.

We toiled in earnest to find something enjoyable about this game, but no matter how hard we tried, the well ran dry. The audio sounds cheap, bland and totally uninspiring, the gameplay is downright gruelling,  the design is plain bad - somehow it even runs terribly!

Ultimately, we found ourselves running down the timer by staring out of the window at the poorly implemented horizon, praying for release from a world of heinous banality. Even at £5.99 this game is massively overpriced; go and watch some paint dry instead.

Pros

• B Movie introduction is so bad it’s good

Cons

• Sluggish movement
• Abysmal framerate
• Muddy visuals
• Dull, dull, dull gameplay
• Cheap sounding audio
• Long loading times

Score: 1/10

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