One of the best tycoon games I have ever played!
Reason is, I keep coming back to play it. Even though this game is very old it still has an element of play that is easy and entertaining compared to a lot of the new tycoon style games.
Opening the original box you receive a CD and an instruction book. The instruction book Is quite handy and has all the tips and hints you will need. Including the all-important "Recipes" these will actually be used in the game for the base Pizzas you will create. Everything is done by weight and when you are on the Pizza building screen, you can count the weight of each item you place on the pizza so you can match the recipes.
The game starts with some Italian style music playing., you then get to choose the name of your Pizza Empire ( as well as your competitors if you so choose). And pick a character for yourself to play. You can choose a character that has a lot of money but low popularity or less money and higher popularity (all have funny name such as sheikrattlenroll) The more popularity you have the more people will want to come to your restaurant but the more money you have means you can buy better quality items, employees and advertisement. It's best to go middle of the road with this one.
Next you will be shown a map of the pizza world, famous world locations such as Italy or New York to start your business. Once you have chosen that you will be given a city map and you can use the pull down menu to decide where you want to place your business. You can choose from a lease or ownership of a building.
The computer automatically picks locations for your competitors and they will be off selling pizzas before you even get your store open, so work quickly! Set up the kitchen with a pizza oven and decorate your restaurant. Hire staff and buy supplies, make a few pizzas of your own (or use the recipes) and open!
Once you are open guests may arrive. You can click on them to see what they think of your establishment. You can go out to the street and buy advertisements from fliers to TV spots. If you run out of money for all this you can take out a loan from one of many strange looking businessmen through the telephone. You can decide now if you want to focus on selling pizzas or work on your underworld status.
If you sell pizzas, the more money you make and the more trends you follow will allow you to purchase more buildings and open more pizza parlors around the world or in the city. If you choose to follow the underworld you will spend time doing jobs for the local mafia (picking up parcels on time and delivering them) or sabotaging your competitors pizza places. Either way you will end up with a visit from the local thugs and make payments to them to avoid having your restaurant smashed up by them.
All around it's a fun game. You probably won't become dedicated and want to play every day but it's fun to sit down once in a while make some pizzas and see where you can go with it. Simple graphics but not so bad that you will find it distracting.. We have to remember how old this game is! Either way it's a fun tycoon game and one of the better ones.