Review Funny Pizza Land Developer: S. Roman Hosch Publisher: N/A Genre: Adventure Release Date: 2002 Platform: Review by Alexander Tait February 10, 2005		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

Surely in the running for strangest adventure game ever made is this 2002 entry from private developer S. Roman Hosch. It is what initially appears to be a weird and second-rate third-person action-adventure title (surely a record for hyphenated descriptors for any adventure game!). Playing for a few moments, the initial impression is wrong. For this is a quest-based third person adventure game that involves interaction with other characters. And, strangely, it grows on you.

As the protagonist, Pedro, owner of a small restaurant on the brink of bankruptcy, you are given the task of finding the Global Media Monster so that you can collect the reward, thereby returning your business from the red into the black. Unfortunately for Pedro and fortunately for the adventure gamer, this involves trekking from one side of the forest, meeting weird characters, completing quests that they ask of him.

As this game was developed in Germany and marketed in English, there are numerous chuckle-worthy expressions in the accompanying literature. The player is invited to “visit strange characters and nice ladies” and “enjoy many fantastic locations in a world like a painting”. S. Roman Hosch brings to the game an avant-garde style particularly in the cutscenes, which are a mix real video footage and amateur animation. Just look at the ugly yet strangely compelling character of Pedro. You would not see a character like this in a Sierra or The Adventure Company game! And the animation of cow was priceless!

The game uses the GameStudio A5 engine (the precursor to the current A6 engine) and it suits this homegrown game well. The graphics are certainly not groundbreaking but S. Roman Hosch has done a lot to make the environments unique as well as eerie. Character animations are also unique and refreshingly different. I can honestly say that I have never played a game in which I drove a pizza van before.

The game is quest based and the puzzle is figuring out where to find the particularly item you are looking for. The are a couple of times where the player is required to make Pedro jump from one platform to another but a little patience and even the least dexterous adventurer could manage this game. Despite the slight action elements, Pedro can not die or fall to a point from which he cannot continue the game.

None of the characters Pedro meets interact verbally. All interaction is text-based. Some of the meaning is a little skewed from the original verbatim German but for the most part, the message is conveyed clearly. Icons on the screen indicate when Pedro can interact with the environment and give indication about what characters want of him.

It is a shame that there are some irritating “flaws” to this game. The introduction, albeit less than thirty seconds long, becomes irritating as the player must sit through it every single time the game is played! The menu is somewhat awkward and a large (almost a third of the screen) menu bar sits continually at the right hand side. It would have been good to be able to switch this off. Likewise, other cutscenes cannot be skipped. The third-person camera does not rotate around Pedro when he goes around corners so the player must either send Pedro blindly onward or use the “WASD” keys to shift the camera. In addition to this the keys do not scroll the camera smoothly around Pedro but need to be pushed repeatedly until the desired camera angle is reached.

It is a very short game, easily playable in a couple of hours. The ending is initially predictable but there is an “after word” that I am not really sure about. One warning though. There is graffiti at one point in the game that has language that may offend sensitive players.

The game’s website can be reached here (www.funnypizzaland.com) or here (www.monsterleuchtturm.de). The game comes on an unlabeled disk in a CD case with inserts for $9.95 US or 9.95 euro including postage and handling.

The developer can be contacted at s.roman.hosch@t-online.de.

Overall, this is a short and very original game that may not be quite worth the ten bucks. Lovers of originality will find something to cherish but hard-core gamers are going to wish it were about four times as long. The game deserves a C.

Final Grade: C
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System Requirements:

• Pentium 500MHz processor
• Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
• 128MB RAM
• 835MB hard drive space
• CD-ROM drive
• 16MB 3D graphics card (DirectX 8.0 compliant)
• Sound card (DirectX 8.0 compliant)