BurgerTime (NES)

I gotta be honest, I'm not getting my hopes up for this one. And you shouldn't either.

Wow those are some nasty looking burgers. That looks like... radioactive mold growing on them.

Right, okay, it seems I'm a chef and I have to walk all over food while being chased by food. After I've stomped all the way across a burger component, it drops one floor, crushing any unfortunate foodstuff caught underneath. For points.

The trouble is that these angry ingredients aren't exactly happy about being added to giant burgers. Or maybe they're just regular sized burgers and I'm a tiny chef, I don't know.

What's important here is the food hates me, and they grabbed me and beat the shit out of me while I was trying to climb a ladder. It seems I have to be absolutely precisely aligned with the ladder or floor I want to cross to or else I'm just stuck standing still looking like an idiot while the sausages march in for the kill.

Well that isn't exactly fair, I was totally surrounded. It's not like I have any possible way to defend myself here.



LATER.

As it happens it turns out that I have a way to defend myself. I can throw pepper at enemies to stun them, letting me stroll past unharmed. Though I've got a limited supply, so it's for emergencies only.

The food can only gaze in despair as I put the final touches to the each burger. You'd think they'd be happier really. They escaped being part of the meal, they survived! Their long struggle is at an end. I guess they're just out for revenge at this point.

It turns out that I can collect ice creams to restock my supply of pepper. I can't figure out a way that makes any sense, even in a game where I'm being stalked by fried eggs.

The first level completed, I move on to the second one. Which (shockingly) is exactly the same gameplay just with a different layout.

Well if I'm just going to be playing the same thing over and over again I might as well see how it looks on different consoles.

BurgerTime (Arcade)

The original arcade game has much healthier looking burgers with bouncier animation as they cascade down, each part knocking the one underneath down a floor in turn as they fall.

It also has a screen at the start explaining that the enemies are called Mr Egg, Mr Hotdog and Mr Pickle. I guess Mr Pickle is the mastermind behind the scenes, only showing his face later in the game.

Speaking of faces... the food doesn't seem to have faces in this one. Which suits me fine, I don't like hotdogs grinning at me.

BurgerTime (ColecoVision)

The music on each version of the game seems to be identically annoying. The same irritating tune, playing on a loop. Maybe it wasn't so bad at first, but now it's starting to get to me.

BurgerTime (Intellivision)

Wow, the Intellivision version has only three burgers on the first level. That's, uh, pretty different. Yeah, I'm kinda starting to regret my idea of seeing what the game is like on different systems, and not just because I don't like playing the game.

BurgerTime (MSX)

Oh crap... it's Mr Pickle! 


Killing the ingredients seems like it would be a good idea, but they just come right back! They follow me around as I go, so I've been trying to lure them to the bottom of the screen, then rushing back up to drop a burger on them, but it seems way more trouble than it's worth.

BurgerTime (Atari 2600)

The Atari 2600 version is... a little more abstract. Mr Egg is now Mr White Square. But it really is just the same thing again.


And again and again and again... I'm going to stop here. It's clear that BurgerTime is always BurgerTime, no matter what form it takes or system it resides on, and it really isn't my kind of thing. People who love Pac-Man and Lode Runner could possibly find a place in their hearts for this game too, but I'm done with it.

Next game.