what is with this chef?
please call the health inspector -
he walks on the food!
Additional Comments:
First off, I know what you're thinking: silly gamer, you can't beat Burger Time. True, although I'm fairly certain the NES version does have an end - are there any other ports that do? Anyways, yea, you can't beat Burger Time, however, I've been acquiring a number of retro games that are points-based that I've been wanting to play through nonetheless. The problem is determining when I feel that I've played enough of the game to consider it "beaten." While attempting the 2600 version of Crystal Castles for Beat All Games, I thought of using a minimum score that must be reached, but then I determined that was a poor way to do points-based games. Instead, I opted for the idea of reaching a loop point. The problem with Crystal Castles is that it's a bit hard to determine when exactly the game loops, especially since I've read differing opinions regarding this. On the other hand, Burger Time seems to have a very definitive loop point, albeit this loop point may vary among the various ports since the levels don't seem to follow exact specifications across the board, but whatever. The point is, for the Commodore 64 version, after Level 8, the game seems to fall into an infinite 4-Level loop from there on out (although, more accurately, you could say the loop starts after Level 7 since Level 4 is the first level to contain two Eggs and three Sausages, which becomes the norm from there on out, and since there's only four level layouts, well, you get the picture).
With my half-assed, points-based completion explanation out of the way, let's talk Burger Time. I've never played this game before, although I have poked fun at this game on numerous occasions, mostly because of the name and idea behind the game. I know Sven and I have often touted this game as the epitome of gaming silliness over the years. But now that I've actually played it - well, it's still remarkably silly, and certainly by today's standards: pointless and most likely mind-numbing. In its day though, like any other points-based game, I can see it presenting an endless challenge of frustration to bag the high score, along with some bragging rights to boot. And to this end I have to say, you know, as much as I've criticized this game, it's really not that bad of a game, and is well representative of gaming's early years. In a strange sort of way, the game reminds me a lot of Wrecking Crew, though far more primitive. Essentially, you're fumbling around a set of ladders and girders to complete an appointed task while staying clear of some everyday items gone horrible awry - in this case, eggs and sausages - ah, breakfast, how I loathe thee. Of course, unlike Wrecking Crew where your task is to destroy, in Burger Time your task is to build...well, burgers. And we're talking about some serious burgers too - they're freakin' huge!!. However, I am a bit disturbed that in order to accomplish his culinary feat, Peter Pepper must walk across the buns, meat and what can only be lettuce. Seriously, that has got to be infringing on all sorts of health code violations.
It's hard to judge difficulty on the game. Once you get to Level 4 and you're dealing with two Eggs and three Sausages, the difficulty can almost be attributed to luck more than anything. Sometimes, no matter how hard I tried, I would die countless times trapped in a corner and out of pepper (Level 7 being the worst - it took me an ungodly amount of attempts to finally make it past that level). Other times, the enemies would all congregate together on the far side of the screen, allowing for easy passage throughout the entire level. However, and I don't know if its the game itself or due to my joystick, but you have got to be pixel perfect to climb those ladders, and a lot of my deaths were related directly to faulty ladder grabbing. I have read that the Commodore 64 port suffered from this issue, but whether or not there's any truth behind it, I can't say for certain since I refused to play using the keyboard and see if it differed at all.
As far as the various ports, I can't possibly say which is the best, though I would assume the original arcade version is. I've read that the Commodore 64 port is fairly decent, at least better than a number of other ports, but really, any personal opinion would be based purely on hearsay. But I have to admit, I didn't choose the Commodore 64 version for any sort of quality assurance. I chose it because, well, I needed something to find out if I can properly get some games running on the system and Burger Time just so happened to be the first game I grabbed. After some initial tests, I just decided to go ahead and do an actual playthrough of the game. Why not? After all, according to Beat All Games' mission statement, we're to beat all games!
Rating: 2 pepper shakers out of 5
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