10 Ridiculous Ways Adverts Were Built Into Video Games

3. Wearing A Pizza Hut Box In Phantasy Star Portable 2

Phantasy Star Portable 2 pizza hut
Sega

Another food-themed advertising tie-in, 2009's PSP exclusive Phantasy Star Portable 2 undoubtedly made many of its players very, very hungry by including some rather odd Pizza Hut items scattered throughout the game.

If you've ever wanted to wield a pizza pan and a pizza box as a weapon and a shield, respectively, you're in luck here. The game also included a virtual Pizza Hut restaurant, and players could actually order food items (in-game ones) from it, like seafood pizza, cheese pizza, and coffee, all of which would restore hit points.

Not content with this much selling out, Sega also opted to include figurines of Japanese Pizza Hut mascot Cheese-kun, which players could use as in-game room decorations. While the sight of your character decked out in Pizza Hut garb was quite funny, it was also completely facepalm-worthy, and demonstrated the absurd lengths video game publishers will go to to make a quick few bucks.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!