NESpresso: Game Reviews \ PC \ Pizza Frenzy

Game Stats
System: PC
Genre: Action
Players: 1
Memory used: Approx. 12.5 MB's
Playtime: 00:05 / 02:30
ESRB Rating: Everybody (6+)

GameHouse games gives you a taste at how hecktic the pizza business can be in their latest fast-paced game.

As the story goes, the Strombli Family was the first Italian family that made fabulous pizza. Then the invention of the assembly line came along & people stopped caring about great pizza. Now, with the last 4 remaining members of the Strombli Clan, they vow to revive their family name & show the residents what a truely great pizza suppose to be. They have hired you to be their delivery manager for their pizzerias. It's your job to quickly pick up the orders & route them to the proper kitchen while avoiding the troublemakers to keep the Strombli Family Pizzerias in business.

The graphics in the game won't win any awards, but they relatively functional. You'll have a bird-eye view of the area that you have to manage as orders pop up on the screen. On the right side of the screen, you'll see your level status, which includes # of deliveries remaining, your sales goal & the most important thing of all, your business rating. On the top you'll have your specialty coupons that you can use to help extend a combo.

The sounds of the game is decent, but you'll hardly hear the game music as you'll most likely get flooded by the call of orders. You usually will notice that the special characters (good OR bad) will have a special call. Unless you have trouble distinguishing calls by sound, you could get away by turning the sounds off.

The controls of the game are pretty simple as you'll only need the mouse to play. As the orders pop up on the screen, you click on the to pick them up & click on the right kitchen (or the police) to complete the order. You can drop orders by right-clicking, but you'll eventually will have to pick the dropped orders back up.

The object of the game for each level is to complete as many orders as possible while keeping your business rating above zero. Every time you complete 10 orders or get a speed bonus, your rating goes up. However, every time you mess up an order (by taking too much time to pick up orders or routing an order to the wrong kitchen), your rating drops. If you mess up too many orders, the game ends. In each level, you try to make as much money as you can as well since you have a sales quota. When you complete a delivery, each person will give you a tip that you'll have to pick up. Once you complete the level, you get to keep all the cash above the sales quota. You can use the pizza coupons to change a person's order, in case you forget an order or what to keep your combo going. However, each pizza coupon is expensive to use (starting at $200) & it's taken out of your sales, so use sparingly.

Pizza Frenzy is a pretty fast-paced game with three different modes: Speed, Memory & Simon Says. Speed mode is frantic pased game where you try to complete as many orders as you can. In Memory mode, you try to remember who ordered what pizza. In Simon Says mode, you have to remember the order of orders. Between each area, there's a bonus "pizza making" game where you try to recreate the pizza on the right quickly & accurately to make some extra cash.

Pizza Frenzy has a bunch of unlockables such as extra toppings & higher quality toppings. Once you unlock enough toppings, you can start making your own specialty pizzas. You'll have to play the game a lot to unlock these extras.

Pizza Frenzy is a good fast-paced game, but you will want to try it out before you actually buy the game. You shouldn't spend $20 on a game that you're not going to play.