Not currently worthy of its name.

Pizza Connection 2 felt like you were truely running a Pizza Empire with side of Gangster if you wanted it. Pizza Connection 3, feels lifeless.

Let me get the good parts mentioned first:

- The visuals are superb in general. Few little visual bugs, such as people sinking into the ground, walking through walls instead of doors and the overall lack detail when it comes to gang attacks.
- Pizza Truck, oh how I love this thing. You can only have one, but you can place this little popup Pizza Stall in busy locations around the map and sell Pizza, just a genius addition to the game.
- Pizza Creator is fantastic, visually superb and the pizza you design can actually be seen, how you designed it, being delivered to customers tables.
- Research system is a good idea and provides small things to aim for, just a shame the AI can cheat and unlock what ever it wants when ever it wants.

There are a few other good bits, but not enough to really mention.

The negatives:

- Graphical bugs that should have been fixed before release. People sinking into the ground, walking through walls and then just randomly vanashing.
- Can't buy properties to turn into Restaurants or Warehouses. You can only us pre-set locations. This is boring and make competitors pointless as they are too far away to make any difference to your locations. In previous titles, it was great spending a huge ton of money buying the apartment next to your competitors biggest restaurant, then building your own and running them out of business.
- Very little control on how your advertising is targeted, previous titles let you aim it a certains groups of citizens, this seems like generic marketing and it appears to make little effect.
- Difficult to understand data. I had two restaurants making a lot of money, yet everyday the data came back saying only 2% of the ingredients were making it to the store and this issue was critical!!! WTF? No obvious was to fix this and I couldn't actually visually see this being an issue at all, my storage was usually nearly full and my cooks weren't complaining of not having ingredients.
- Guests visit and leave usually within 20 minutes, which is way too fast. Almost as soon as they order, their pizza is ready and they eat it in seconds. It's unrealistic. Previous titles showed them order, wait, the cook made the pizza, then the guest eats the pizza slice by slice, then waited to pay.
- Very little feedback from guests - Basically you guess why your business is failing or succeeding - GOOD LUCK
- No guards - Yup, when your competitors attack (which is constantly, literally, you'll get fed up with it), you have no way to defend yourself. Only way for gangsters to be stopped is IF a Police officers happens to be walking by. You can install some cameras in your restaurant, but that only slows down their attack.
- Politics - GONE
- Can't rotate restaurants, so when you change the layout (which is actually a super feature) you could end up with the largest room, at the back of the building facing a factory, while your storage room and kitchen have a view of the Eifel Tower. Cannot actually understand why a rotate option was left out, seems obvious
- Gangsters are pathetic, they arrive, they do an odd animation and then vanish in to nothing.
- Bombing is lame, it blows up the chairs and tables, not much else, and the animations for it are awful.
- Making Pizza's targeted for different groups is very difficult, you follow all the clues and guides and it is hated by the group you want and loved by others. Then you put it on your menu and everyone buys it anyway. They don't actually seem to care. I release a Tomato Sauce pizza with blocks of cheese on it, sold it for $60 and the entire city went nuts for it.

This isn't a full list, just what I can think of now.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hate the little things that seem to be missing that we have seen in previous games.
- No Mayor / Townhall
- No Headquarter
- No Healthoffice, employment agency
- No stars for good restaurent
- No special characters (VIP, FatMan)
- No possibility to train employees
- No personality for employess
- Normally Customers took some time before they left (they had also patience "more or less)
Everything is now InstantEating,InstantCooking,InstantTakingOrder
- No Trash and No cleaning if the Restaurent is closed
I am sure that their is even more than this missing."
---------------------------------------------- Thanks to another reviewer for this additional list

The devlopment team have actually said on the Steam Forums that they wanted to make this game easy, if they wanted an to make an easy game, then they don't understand their target audience. Pizza Connection 2 released 17 years ago, the vast majority of people buy this title will be around 30+. we have brains and we like a challenge. 17 years I go, Pizza Connection 2 was challenging and remains a challenge, this game is pathetic and should have been a Mobile Game.

Honestly, this game isn't worth the price if you have played the previous games, stick with Pizza Connection 2. Maybe the devs will sort this game out and I hope they do, they have a superb game, but it isn't finished.

If they want to make an easy game, then use difficulty sliders, Pizza Connection 2 had a huge amount difficulty levels, if they can make that 17 years, you can make it in 2018.

I played for 9 hours yesterday. I am a fan of the series and was excited about this installment. However, it seems as though it has been dumbed down. It wasn't "bad bad," just lacked so much of PC2. Also, I think that the negatives wouldn't be so strong if the game had been more reasonably priced for what you get. The most annoying bug revolves around receiving ingredients from warehouses. I believe the dev is already trying to rectify it. The problems with the game aren't bugs really, but gameplay.

One of my favorite things was always pizza creation, but the limit on ingredients makes that MUCH less fun. Any store with more than 10-12 ingredients is handicapped by storage space. That's silly and seems like such an artificial wall to ... make the game more challenging? Maybe, but it doesn't seem like a realistic limit and it makes things less fun. There is a distinct lack of detailed sales information and feedback. Even when you research "Market Reseacrch" all the way, it's pretty poor feedback. Even the lack of variety in furniture and styles is disappointing. Where's the jukebox?

You can really "game" this game! I found a popular pizza very quickly and was able to sell only that to tourists, research and advertise. Then the whole thing became a sit and stare at the screen simulator. There needs to be a real challenge to success, not the artificial limits mentioned above.

I'm hoping that this game continues to be developed. I'm willing to close my eyes, for now, and imagine that this is a beta. The game looks great and with further development could be very good. Unfortunately, with the reviews the way they are, I doubt sales will be sufficient for much more game development to happen. For now, I have to give this game a thumbs down.

Mamma mia... this game isn't done yet. Don't buy it.

Do yourself a favour and download the original Pizza Connection (aka Pizza Tycoon). It may be old but it's still the best game in the series.

I really had to give it a few weeks of thinking before sending in a review. I have played all the games in the series besides the first one. With each one getting a little bit more in-depht and interesting. If not, at least trying things with another perspective on the subject. I can't stay absolutely objective, because I compare it to previous games, which I loved to hell.

This is a much harder decision for me, than I actually wanted to admit, since I am trying to work in the game industry and I just know, how hard it is to make the right decisions, so it'll appeal to most of the audience and possibly expanding it further. I get behind that. It is a very hard job, and the developers, despite doing their best, have done some grave mistakes. They tried to reinvent the game so much to fit a specific demographic (Casual gamers), they forgot about the people having most to say about the game. Which is the people loving the game series for what it was.

NOW TO THE ACTUAL REVIEW.

THE CAMPAIGN

Fact is, I have never finished the campaign, because I got too frustrated over excessive micromanaging my restaurants and the sudden realization of how shallow the customer system is. But hear me out.

The game campaign already starts out with you owning just a mobile pizza stand. The possible amount of different toppings in storage is small and you only sell pizza for a short period of time during the day. Most of the day, you just stare at the map. Later on, you'll notice, how little these mobile stands actually matter. I am not even sure, why it made it into the game besides of storytelling. They could have easily cut this from the game without making an impact on the final product. (Meaning, if it had more of an impact, such as brand recognition over the whole city by placing it somewhere specific, giving you a boost in goodwill by the mayor, because your pizza stand is just on his way home, etc.)
Either way, it's a missed opportunity and gives you barely an edge in your gameplay.

As the story continues and you progress to different cities, you'll find out more about where you are coming from and who your family is through people and messages left behind from your dead uncle. Why nobody before you found them, and how he could have known, you would, is besides the point. The amount of letters left from your dead uncle is abnormously high and little to the point. Just too many, too long messages, laid out over too many countries. This killed my immersion in the story really fast. If my uncle was just a secretive guy in a hospital, and he'd wait before giving me more informations until I met certain standards, it would have been a much better choice.

And with this, I need to end the analysis of the campaign. It just doesn't have much to offer, other than giving you insights into the game mechanics while entertaining you with a story, that may or may not take a better turn. To be honest, there were some points, I was interested in. But getting back into the game is hard, because a lot about it feels like a chore.

YOUR OWN PIZZA

Now there is something, the game stands out between all of its predecessors. Beautiful HD graphics, and even the dough can now have different shapes. Not only that, when placing your items on the pizza, they automatically spin into a random position, making it look overall better, if you go for an authentic pizza look.
If you want to place your items in a certain pattern though, this will only lay rocks in your way. If only there was a way to toggle this function on and off?

Surprisignly, that's all the good about this system. Because when it comes to the customers liking/disliking your pizza, it just becomes apparant... that stats don't matter.
The system is plain shallow. And on top of that, it's even unclear whether your pizza will sell or not.

Always on the side of the screen, you have live inputs on what your customers have to say about the pizza. Does it have a good amount of toppings, how is the price, and what ingredients really make it shine for certain groups of people.
And on top of that, you can buy an expensive recipe from a star chef, which in theory, should sell very well.
The system is poorly balanced, and optimal pizza toppings are usually way out of anyones' price range. AKA. Workers will never buy their beloved Oregano and Tuna only pizza, as long as there are cheaper pizzas on the menu. (Because you will need a LOT of oregano to make workers happy)
This could have been prevented by designing the toppings analysis different. While I want to give constructive criticism, it would blow the review.

In total, just create the pizza, you would like to eat, at a normal price, and NPC's will most likely buy it.

SPEAKING OF NPCs...

It's just so much of a letdown considering older entries in this game series. Their personalities are bland, their visual design is bland, and all that fun poking at stereotypes is completely missing.
Plus, having an open world like this made the NPCs have a very negative impact on FPS.
I certainly wouldn't mind the wacky design that went into previous games redone, or even the old assets reused again and rendered in real time.

Especially when it comes to your own employees, does the new game show its weaknesses. You can't train your employees, and pretty much all of their stats, which in previous games had a big impact on performance, are simplified into quality and speed. And even on this, you don't have any influence. With a fixed number of employees on the map and no stats to change, it's clear, you will always take the highest rated NPC's.
In previous games, you had a very solid system of hiring who's available and invest money to train them into what you really want/need.

MICROMANAGING YOUR RESTAURANT

While in Pizza Syndicate and Pizza Connection 2, there was a handy manager doing all the dirty work, and giving you more room to balance quality and upkeet in your restaurant, you can now do all that by yourself. Which at some point, is everything you do. Ever.

Your furniture will break down in record speed without even telling you. I have run multiple times into the problem, were one or more restaurants were suffering from broken furniture. And the only window to replace it without suffering from wasting the entire day is by replacing it whenever your restaurant is closed.

And no matter what size of restaurant, if you have more than 3 pizzas on your menu, your storage will often be too small for all ingredients.

Whether or not your restaurants then makes money is another thing. There aren't any insights. No statistics, not even the slightest hint on what you make most of your money from, and where it goes.

THE SOUNDTRACK

I don't know too much about music, but I can only say, it's pretty bland. Previous titles had much more interesting melodies and weren't set around different places, but genres, while giving the player the option to play one song over another.
While I appreciate it being sold seperatelly as DLC, I don't see a reason, why in this case. There is nothing really special about the music. It's as barebones as it gets. I can only imagine, the composer had not much to work with, other than city names and possibly some buzzwords describing them.

END OF REVIEW AND OTHER ISSUES

There is a lot about the game, I haven't touched on, like the research system and the lack of strategy appliable to the maps. But what really ticked me off, was something, I need to put into its own category.

ALL GAME SOUNDS ARE NOW IN MY STEAM MUSIC LIBRARY

Every. Single. Sound. I can hardly find my music anymore. This NEEDS to be fixed. If I could, I would refund the game for this alone.

FINAL JUDGEMENT:

Gameplay 2/5 Repetitive, Unpolished, Too simplified, but still somewhat fun
Soundtrack 3/5 Quality music, but really nothing to remember
Graphics 2/5 Modern, Almost sterile. Doesn't feel like Pizza Connection anymore
My Feeling 1/5 I am very disappointed.

Overall 2/5 Not a good game.

Bought the game and played for about 4 hours on a single world.
It was quite fun.
Quitted and saved the game.
Wanted to keep playing on my saved world the next day.
Not able to load the saved world.
Diddn't want to create a new world after already playing 4 hours on the last one.
Wanted to refund because the game is not working right.
No refund because more than two hours played.

♥♥♥♥/10

Very shallow game depth for a tycoon type of game and features are still missing with regards to the franchise this game was supposed to be based on. Still buggy af and the game now crashes at Chapter 10. AI is really pathetic as well. I don't recommend buying this game unless it's on some big sale as it'll be money wasted.

Developers have stated that no further development will be done so no potential for getting better and apparently only a few bug fixes will be done.

This game is an insult to the Pizza genre.

So many bugs.

-some dining tables make strobe-like lighting that is downright annoying
-many graphicsal menus get stuck on screen - you can only close and reopen the game to remove it
-reporting is useless, doesn't work half the time
-I was making 40k-60k profit per day in DC and then all of sudden I start losing money daily. I still have the same traffic, staff, supply chain, etc. but overnight I stopped selling 95% of my daily pizza output. (it is super frustrating to build a successul setup and now it's useless)
-delivery is impossible to execute. Simple premise by design but even with more than enough staff you cannot earn money and so many customers go unfulfilled. I have built shops (in addition to a normal four room arrangement) that primarily focus on delivery with every possible way of staffing it to execute delivery - still no luck.

This game advertised itself as a modern version of the classic but so many things from the previous title are missing. Especially features that made the old title great. I am not sure why the developer prided themselves on making this game just like the old title but skipped out on the critical pieces.

I would love to see:
-Star ratings earned from VIP
-Bodyguards to protect against the relentless sabotage attacks
-Ability to buy properties to convert to pizza shops - thus being able to go head to head with your competition
-HQ

Game is very poorly executed especially when there was a successful blue print they were following. I bought the game on pre-order sale for $25. A complete failure in my opinion for that price.

If this would be a mobile game F2P with P2W I guess it would still be a fairer price model than this scam. Nothing you do in PC3 feels rewarding in any way, you dont manage, you just adjust your set up one time and speed forward until the mission is accomplished. You dont design your own pizza place, you just choose from one of four layouts and place a couple of pieces of inventory. Thats it. The whole game feels like an empty shell, filled with void and despair.

Iam so mad about this game because it managed to spoil all the good memories I had of this franchise. For once in my life I actually wished this game to be a mobile game, because whatever the devs envisioned this game to be, they mustve forgotten that its 2018 already and people can actually tell the difference between what is worth the money and what is not. And THIS game is simply a scam.

I have waited for this game for a very long time. I am old enough to have played Pizza Connection and Pizza Connection 2.
So Far I am sadly dissappointed in this game. Seems to be a slimmed down version of Pizza connection 2. With serveral things Needed that seem to be missing. I am hoping to change my review in time to a positive review but for now I can't do that.

I love the engine. Nice to be able to move the cameras.

Hate the little things that seem to be missing that we have seen in previous games.
- No Mayor / Townhall
- No Headquarter
- No Healthoffice, employment agency
- No stars for good restaurent
- No special characters (VIP, FatMan)
- No possibility to train employees
- No personality for employess
- Normally Customers took some time before they left (they had also patience "more or less)
Everything is now InstantEating,InstantCooking,InstantTakingOrder
- No Trash and No cleaning if the Restaurent is closed
I am sure that their is even more than this missing.

Now instead of guards we have Cameras that really do not do much to stop attacks only slow them down. But with a glitched overly aggressive AI that is and even bigger issue.

Apparently the AI is to aggressive In Freemode and they are aware of it and did not want it as aggressive as it is. It is so aggressive that it has made the game unplayable. Hard I can handle but this is a known bug people which makes it almost impossible to play a game without constant attacks. So until a patch or patches comes out this game may be unplayable if you want to play a game where you can actually not go bankrupt.

Sadly do to so many issues. I have put in for a refund. If it was just bugs i would wait a few weeks. But with so many features missing it just is not worth it to me.