When I think of MicroProse, I think of top quality strategy games, games I can't seem to keep off my hard drive for more than a week at a time. Civilization. Master of Orion. Yeah, that type of stuff. Microprose's strategy games have never been on the cutting edge of technology, but I'm drawn back time and time again because some of them rank high on the list of the best games in existence. When you and your biggest rival are neck and neck in the space race at the end of Civilization, you don't care that the game doesn't have SVGA graphics or digitized cut scenes starring Marlon Brando. Yes, MicroProse does veer off into role playing games and simulations now and again, but to me their name means strategy games you can lose yourself in for days on end.
Sadly, that image is starting to fade in my mind. For some reason I don't quite understand, MicroProse insists on importing games from their European affiliates into the US. These games no longer carry the MicroProse UK moniker, because that is equated with the kiss of death, and rightfully so. The occasional good game will come from MicroProse's European labels, such as X-Com and Transport Tycoon, but these are the exception, not the rule. Starlord. Zeppelin. That's the type of game I'm talking about, along with a host of other games that have not floated across the ocean (thankfully). These games may cut it in the European computer games market, but here in the States they're widely considered to be ugly, cumbersome, and often downright boring.
That's the niche that Pizza Tycoon falls into, which I was honestly surprised to discover. Along with every other strategy enthusiast in the world, I've come to expect great things from the . . . Tycoon line of games, but this culinary disaster is part of that series in name only. Building and managing your own chain of pizzerias sounds like a good premise for a strategy game, but the best sauce in the world can't save a pie covered with fetid cheese.
Most people probably have the impression that Pizza Tycoon is a cute game. It's premise leads you to believe that Pizza Tycoon would be a fairly simple but fun and addictive strategy game filled with brightly colored cartoonish graphics. That's wrong. A hundred and eighty degrees wrong, to be exact. Pizza Tycoon is about as cute as Newt Gingrich in a studded leather teddy. ("Bring out the Gimp!") It's very hard for me to review this game without comparing and contrasting it with Transport Tycoon, so I won't make an effort to resist. Remember the beautiful 3D SVGA artwork of Transport Tycoon? I do, and Pizza Tycoon's graphics make me wanna blow chunks. They're ugly, dully colored, and ugly again. Try to imagine The Magic Candle or Ultima I turned into a strategy game, and then realize that this great artistic endeavor was created months ago, not five years ago.
The interface and manual are equally abysmal, so I'll bitch about both of them at the same time. If you've been misfortunate to play Zeppelin, you know what a bad interface of European design is like. Lots of buttons with ugly non-intuitive icons, multiple menu levels that sprain your mouse finger whenever you want to look up some useful information. The info you're looking for is never where you want it to be (on the screen), and by the time you follow a trail of breadcrumbs through about eight pages of menus, you've forgotten why you were looking for it in the first place. The manual is certainly no help in this matter; not only does it present what information it attempts to convey in an almost purposely vague fashion ("If you're confused, please turn to Chapter 8. If you cannot find Chapter 8, please turn to Chapter 11C. If you cannot read English, please turn to Chapter Semprini."), but it reads like an adult education textbook of water utility rates. It even makes changing your character's name sound complicated! A simple rule is: if you get confused while playing the tutorial, something's amiss. Bad manual writing is an evolving trend at MicroProse; don't think the world hasn't noticed, guys.
The actual game itself is the least awful thing about Pizza Tycoon, which is like saying that bubonic plague is cooler than cholera. As an entrepreneurial hopeful, you get the extremely detailed task of doing every little thing under the sun to run your restaurants. This includes making the occasional pizza by hand (which is only gratifying if you get to eat it afterwards), wandering all around the city to find a suitable storefront to rent (my idea of a good time), and shopping for ingredients (smell the adventure in the air!). It has occurred to me that I don't find any of these activities fun in real life, so simulating them with bad graphics isn't too enjoyable either.
As if running a pizza joint wasn't enough of a responsibility, Pizza Tycoon also makes you into a mobster wanna-be. Not long after opening your first restaurant, three "mob guys" who look like Nixon, Groucho Marx, and John Candy appear and request some protection money. You eventually get roped into underworld dealings like buying and selling weapons and laundering money. (You never get to whack anyone; the game isn't that daring.) The making of a gangster is a topic I'd love to see turned into a serious game, but the whole underworld element seems out of place in Pizza Tycoon. And even though my family tree has never seen a drop of Sicilian blood, I had to cringe at the game's inference that any traditionally Italian-owned business is in cahoots with the Mafia.
Pizza Tycoon is a game with no real redeeming qualities whatsoever. It shoots off in a hundred directions at the same time, leaving you wondering where the fun is. Ugly graphics, depressing music, and practically non-existent sound effects are only the minor sins of this woefully non-fun piece of Euro-trash. With the money you save by not buying this game you can pick up some fresh ingredients and make some REAL pizzas. And then you'll have the pleasure of eating them.
