Skip to main content

BurgerTime: Playing with Peter Pepper and Mr. Pickle

BurgerTime is another classic arcade game that already looked dated when it hit the NES in 1987. I played BurgerTime on a PC a few times when I was a kid, and it seemed primitive even then. Still, it's fun in a challenging kind of way.

In BurgerTime you control a tiny chef named Peter Pepper, who is constructing hamburgers that dwarf him, all the while avoiding anthropomorphic food adversaries. They have very creative names: Mr. Egg, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Hot Dog—whose small size suggests he's actually a cocktail wiener. Peter doesn't cook the burgers; he only assembles them by causing the buns, patty, and lettuce to fall into place. The components are vertically aligned, but on different levels. When he walks across one, it falls down one platform, which also crushes any enemies below it. If an enemy is on the falling item at the time, it falls an additional platform and destroys the enemy. This is such a great advantage that it forms the most critical element of strategy. Whenever possible, Chef Pepper should wait on the edge of an ingredient until one or more enemes are on it, then make it fall at the last second.

Watch a video version of this review

Six stages repeat in typical arcade fashion. Clearing each requires avoiding the enemies by climbing up and down ladders and not getting cornered. Peter Pepper's only defense is throwing pepper in the enemy's face (press A or B), thereby stunning it and allowing him to walk past. He gets few shots of pepper, so you have to save them as a last resort. The enemies move quickly, too, so the game is hard.

The game's biggest shortcoming is the controls, which require you to line Peter up with the platform precisely for him to step off a ladder. He cannot drop down even a little. This level of precision is hard to achieve, so you frequently lose time trying to disembark, which is disastrous when enemies are hot on your heels. This stupid mechanic badly dates the game and will turn off players who aren't used to the fussy mechanics of early 80's games.

Left: arcade; right: NES

The NES port of BurgerTime doesn't look great compared to the arcade original. The sprites are smaller and less colorful, but this is true of all arcade conversions on NES. The important thing for the time was that they looked good enough, and the gameplay was correct. The sound (in both versions) is bad. A scratchy-sounding tune plays when you begin, and the generic background music plays on a continous five-second loop!

The Evercade

I played BurgerTime on my handheld Evercade, which comes bundled with Data East Collection 1. If you're into old arcade games, BurgerTime on the NES is a classic, even if a lesser one.

Grade: C
Linked Reviews
"Burgertime is still every bit as fun as it was three decades ago and proves that a great gameplay design can hold up no matter how old it is."
— Corbie Dillard, Nintendo Life, 8/10

"The strategy employed here makes this a fair bit different from other maze games, and the great theme and implementation of it make this a fun, but difficult game."
— Pat Contri, Ultimate Nintendo: Guide to the NES Library, 3.5/5

"It's simple, it's strange, and it's hard. So yes, it's a vintage arcade game, and it's reproduced faithfully on NES."
— Jeremy Parish, NES Works

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SimCity: The OG city simulator still rocks

When I ordered an Analogue Super Nt to begin collecting and playing SNES games, I knew which game I wanted to play first: SimCity. This game hasn't been rereleased since the Wii Virtual Console in 2006! Analogue Super NT SimCity was created by Will Wright as a PC game, published in 1989. Nintendo worked with Maxis to have it ported to the Super Nintendo for their new console's launch. The SNES version is a huge improvement over the original, with better graphics, pop-up advice screens from Dr. Wright, and, most importantly, gifts. But let's start at the beginning. SimCity was the first ever city-simulation video game. Your goal is to build up a city as successfully as you can. You can play however you like, as it is not possible to "beat" the game, but the main achievement is reaching a population of 500,000, at which point your city becomes a "megalopolis." The maps are fairly small (and some have a lot of water), so the only way to achieve this is to h
Post a Comment
Read more

Rock n' Roll Racing: 30th anniversary

Although not marketed as a sequel, anyone who has played Blizzard's RPM Racing will recognize Rock n' Roll Racing as its successor. They are both isometric racing games with weapons, similar to Rare's classic R.C. Pro-Am on the NES, but Rock n' Roll Racing is the superior game by far. You can enjoy Rock n' Roll Racing solo or with a second player. At the beginning, you choose your racer from six colorful, punky characters: Tarquinn, Snake, Cyberhawk, Ivan, Katarina, or Jake. Each is good at two skills from among acceleration, top speed, cornering, and jumping. Olaf, from The Lost Vikings , is secretly available by holding down L, R, and SELECT while Tarquinn is selected. Olaf is busted because he's good at all four skills! Four characters race and attack one another's vehicles with lasers, missiles, and mines. You begin with only one laser shot per lap. Between races, you can purchase additional shots and upgrade your vehicle's armor, tires, shock abso
Post a Comment
Read more

Mega Man X: 30th anniversary

Thirty years ago Mega Man X brought Capcom's beloved blue bomber into the 16-bit era, to great acclaim. In a creative twist, Mega Man X (called X for short) is a new robot, not the original Mega Man . As with Super Metroid, Super Castlevania IV , and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past , Mega Man X uses the winning formula of remaking the original NES game but with more and better. Mega Man X, like his predecessor, faces eight robot masters, now called "Mavericks." Instead of "men," they are made in the image of animals: Chill Penguin, Storm Eagle, Launch Octopus, Spark Mandrill (a kind of monkey), Armored Armadillo, Sting Chameleon, Flame Mammoth, and Boomer Kuwanger (a Japanese stag beetle). An opening stage ends with X being defeated by the robot Vile, a henchman of Sigma, who wants to destroy humanity using something called "Reploids" (the Mavericks?). Fortunately, a "Maverick Hunter" robot named Zero jumps in to save X. He encourages
Post a Comment
Read more