Review: Pizza Frenzy July 17, 2006
Posted by Jesse in : Game Reviews , trackbackGame: Pizza Frenzy
Developer: Sprout Games
Version: This is a review of the full version of the game. (Speed mode.)
Recommendation: Try the demo
Back in college I worked as a pizza delivery guy. It was a fun job. You get to drive around all night, listening to music in the car, and deliver pizzas. And people are (almost) always happy to see you coming. I felt like Santa Claus. In Pizza Frenzy, you are in charge of the delivery crew for Stromboli Pizza, which is trying to revitalize the world’s interest in good pizza.
The gameplay is reletively simple, and if you’ve played games like Diner Dash then you’ll pick this up pretty quickly. You see a map which shows houses, pizza stores, and a police station. When you get a call for a pizza, you have to click on the order, then click on the appropriate pizza store. A little while later, a tip will appear at the house that placed the order, and you need to click on it to pick it up. The faster you take the order, the bigger tip you’ll receive.
The combo system in the game gives you extra points as well as upgrades. If you deliver five of the same type of pizza in a row, you get a frenzy. (Levels are Pizza Frenzy, Double Frenzy, Triple Frenzy, Super Frenzy, Mega Frenzy, and Ultra Frenzy.) As you score frenzies, you’ll be able to take multiple orders of the same type at once, though you’ll never be able to pick up order of different types at the same time.
You also need to watch out for a few different special customers. There are crooks, prank callers, and graffiti artists that you need to report to the police. If you deliver a pizza to them, you’ll be penalized. There are movie stars who give good tips, but are impatient. The gossips will get everyone to change their orders to the same thing so you get easy combos. Clowns will convince everyone to switch to a new pizza at random. Monks will meditate and slow time. Bankers will help you collect your tips.
Between towns, you’ll get the chance to score extra points in a bonus round. You’ll be shown a pizza, and you have to drop toppings on a new pizza to try to match it. You’ve got a time limit, so hurry!
What I liked:
The graphics are nice and clean. In other games of this type, I’ve had trouble distinguishing between background items, and things I needed to click on. There were no such problems here. The music was fun, and the voices and sound effects were well done. I liked the different types of customers, both helpers and hindrances. I really like the user interface.
What I disliked:
Click ambiguity. Sometimes when I go to click on an order or a tip, it’ll hit a different nearby item instead. It’s not a big problem, but you need to be careful where you click, and on some of the harder levels, you need to move really fast. The only other thing that bothered me is that it felt so similar at first to other games I’ve played before. The special customers help to differentiate it, and there were two other game modes that I didn’t get a chance to play. The developers are clearly very talented, and I really look forward to checking out their previous games and anything else they come up with, though.
Games it reminded me of:
I felt it had alot in common with games like Betty’s Beer Bar, Diner Dash, and Mystic Inn. If they’re all considered in the same game genre, then Pizza Frenzy is definitely my favorite of them.
Recommendations:
I probably wouldn’t have registered, but my wife had a blast playing it. I ended up playing it for several hours too, so the purchase was definitely worth it. Pizza Frenzy is a very well made fun game. So I’d really recommend giving the demo a try. The only problem is that you might get hungry for pizza. Don’t play it if you’re on a diet!
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