Paolo Pedercini is a mad bastard, and the McDonald's game is his sharp, procedural satire of how fast food is a corrupt industry by necessity. The game is set up so that you cannot win without compromising. Try it, you'll see. While you can maintain mild growth without using hormones or genetically modified crops, your bosses will not be satisfied. To really succeed, you have to employ what some might call "unnatural" means, though at Corporate, they call it "McFriendly growth measures".
The game is drawn with a crazy flair, the blood splattered happy meal at the title screen should be some indication. There are subtle touches, like the joint perpetually hung out the mouth of a marketer, or the fact that some of your customers are men with beards wearing skirts -- a byproduct of the randomly combinatorial nature of the character generation system. Watching the constant flow of people getting their trays, then walking off, is sickly hypnotic; it's the core pulse of the game's system, where the commodities turn into cash and complete the play loop, and its also an abstraction of something that is going on all over the world, many times a second. The illustrations and writing are pretty on-point as well (hint: before you bulldoze the Amazonian village to plant more GMO soy, start a "McDonald's for the Third World" campaign).
This game came out in early '06, so its not exactly screaming new, but its part of a wave of punk politic games that use a balance of design constraints to make a complex and nuanced argument. Some things are essential to winning (or rather, winning a lot) but some are more trouble than they're worth, adding to the cost involved in bribing "experts" and in maintaining the veneer of quality and corporate culture.
Its also "fun", despite, or perhaps in tune with, its phantasmal flares.
Food
I love the Mc Donalds food. It is so so yummy and i pretty sure
i will like the game too.
Personal Review
This game is easy to play if you know how to control it. All you have to do is go to the place where there is cows and crops and stuff. Then you send a letter to the one guy to get all the four fields, and you get it immediantly. Then use all the green parts of land for pasture, but switch between crops and cows every once in a while, or else you won't be able to use the field at all. Hire all people at the cash registers and all people making patties. Reward them when they get bored so they will feel happier. Sponcer ALL of the thinbgs like McDisneys in the business ofiice. Then hire all of the food people like health person and nutritionist, If you do all this your business will run very well.
Thanks for reading, James