Nothing says loving like a pizza pie fresh from that old brick oven. The aroma is so rich and mouthwatering. And the sight of that golden crust dancing with fresh ingredients – tomatoes, mozzarella, octopus and mincemeat – scrumptious!

Well, it may not sound that tasty to you, but you won’t know how the patrons of your tiny restaurant in Venice feel about it unless you do a marketing survey. And that is conveniently broken down into age category. Depending on your target group, that pie may be just the thing you need to step away from the competition. Which means you may either expand from that one restaurant to a worldwide chain, or lose your shirt and have the bank and its enforcers knocking at your door.

Fast Food Tycoon from Software 2000 and Activision is a challenging foray into the world of small business. With its Sim City-style setting, the game delves into the various aspects of entrepreneurship, and even covers some things that most people probably never thought about.

The game starts with you floating a loan at the bank. You have to choose which bank you are going to use, as some are nicer to work with than others. From there you find a building to rent. Then you must select the décor, make sure you have the right ovens, and storage space for ingredients, plan a menu (which can include creating your own pizza with more than 80 different ingredients to choose from), hire employees, and order stock. Once all that is done, you are almost ready to open your doors to the world. You have to think about advertising. Are you going to hire a company that specializes in print ads and posters, or do you want to spend the extra money and advertise on television? What about a slogan for your business?

Once you have made all these determinations, it’s time to throw open the doors. Your employees are the first to arrive, and quite a cast of characters they are. The chef, with his big moustache, looks like a run-away from a Mario Brothers game. Customers will file through the doors with little pizza icons above their heads. These can change and give you an idea about what you are doing wrong.

As stated, this game bears a striking similarity in graphical style to Sim City games. And like those games, this is a lesson in economics, except that you are not managing an entire city and its resources, but a small business, trying to compete against other similar companies. The game is goal-oriented. As you begin, you have a limited amount of days to capture a set percentage of the consumer base. And therein lies the challenge. You will see money floating out the door faster than it begins to come in. If you think that the only thing you have to worry about is your business competition, think again. The underworld (as in gangsters) is lurking out there in the shadows, ready to begin blackmailing you, offering protection, and various other services that will have their hand firmly ensconced in your pie.

The little animated characters are quite delightful to watch, and there are 140 interactive characters per city (20 international cities in all). Click on them, and they will have something to say.  Graphically this program is very good. The player interface is scattered around the borders of the screen, and uses icons, which immediately identify which options you are engaging. The game itself is controlled with the mouse. And there is a nice little tutorial which will give you the rudiments of game play, then casts you loose in the realm of the cutthroat and enjoyable pizza business.

Even the game intro is fun. When you launch the program, you hear the gulping bites of someone who appears to be eating your monitor screen (dissolving it to black with huge bite marks).

The sound is solid, and the soundtrack changes for each country you are located in.

Fast Food Tycoon is a terrific little program that combines fun with education – though the fun is paramount in this program. It is rated for Teens due to mild animated violence (the gangsters), and does not support multiplayer gaming.

Install: Easy. This program only wants a 200 MHz processor with 32 megs of RAM and 150 megs of hard drive space – allowing the game to install quickly.

Gameplay: 8.5. While there may be some frustration in wanting to open your restaurant now, the game is quite meticulous about all the aspects of the business, and you will appreciate it all later. Moving around the city is incredibly easy and the game moves from one aspect of business to the next seamlessly.

Graphics: 8.5. If there is a failing it is in designing a pizza. Those graphics are a little too two-dimensional. Other than that, this is a good-looking program.

Sound: 9. The sound of this game is exceptional.

Difficulty: 8.5. There are so many aspects of the business world to consider, and a few fun elements (like the bad guys) thrown into the mix to create a game that can be quite challenging.

Concept: 8. Taking the economics-style game down to a smaller level, populating it with solid graphics and gameplay, is a terrific idea.

Overall: 8.5. This game looks great, plays great and may have you munching on some pizza of your own, or totally abstaining from it, as you play. The mild violence, which garnered the Teen rating, is a minor aspect of this program. This game will having you yanking on your hair as you come close to bankruptcy, smiling as the profits rise, and grimacing as you mix octopus and mincemeat on a pizza. In other words – this program is very entertaining.