Burgertime
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Burger Time | |
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| Developer(s) | Data East |
| Publisher(s) | Data East Bally Midway (U.S.) |
| Release date(s) | 1982 |
| Genre(s) | Puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Up to 2 players, alternating turns |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Atari 2600, Atari 5200 (as Beef Drop), Atari 7800 (as Beef Drop), Commodore 64, ColecoVision, NES, Intellivision, TI99/4A, Apple II, MS-DOS, GameBoy, PSone |
| Input | 4-way Joystick, 1 button |
| Arcade cabinet | Upright, cocktail |
| Arcade display | Raster, 19" monitor |
Burgertime ( バーガータイム) is a 1982 Japanese arcade game created by Data East Corporation for its DECO Cassette System. The game was originally titled Hamburger in Japan, but was renamed Burgertime before being introduced to the United States. A maze game, Burgertime puts the player in the role of a chef ("Peter Pepper") who must drop layers of a hamburger onto trays by walking over them while avoiding other food characters who chase him around the maze.
The game was quite popular in arcades. In the United States, Data East USA licensed Burgertime for distribution by Bally Midway. The Data East and Midway versions can be distinguished by the manufacturer name on the title screen and by the marquee artwork.
Contents |
[edit] Gameplay
The playfield consists of ladders and platforms on which rest oversized hamburger layers (the bun, the meat patties, tomatoes, lettuce, and cheese). The layers are arranged vertically so that they can be dropped directly onto each other.
The player's objective is to control his chef to make hamburgers by walking over the layers. When the player has walked along the entire width of a layer, the layer falls down one level. If a layer falls atop another, the lower layer will also fall down by a level. When all of the hamburger layers have fallen onto a tray below, that hamburger becomes complete. When all hamburgers are completed, the level is clear. The fastest way to assemble a burger is to make the top-most layer fall with an enemy on the bun (see below).
Each level becomes more difficult, with harder maze layouts making it easier to become trapped by enemies and making it harder to get to the hamburger pieces. Some levels will require more pieces to be dropped to finish the burgers, there may be more burgers to complete, and there may be more enemies.
While assembling the burgers, the player must dodge animated "enemy" foods: Mr Hot Dog, Mr Pickle and Mr Egg. Enemies may be temporarily killed by crushing them under falling layers; they will respawn at the edge of the playfield within a few seconds. The player can also lure the enemies onto a partially-traversed layer and then finish crossing the layer, thus causing the layer to fall; the added weight of the enemy makes the layer drop by more than one level, and the dropped enemies are stunned for a few seconds.
The player has a limited supply of pepper which he can shake on nearby enemies to stun them and render them harmless for a few seconds. Extra shots of pepper can be obtained by collecting bonus foods, such as coffee, an ice cream cone or French fries, which will appear in the center of the maze each time a certain number of hamburger pieces has been dropped.
[edit] Legacy
Due to this game's success, it was ported to several home computers and consoles: Apple II, Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Intellivision, Mattel Aquarius, MSX, NES and TI-99/4A. More recently, it can be found on mobile phones and Pelican's VG Pocket Caplet. A version was also released for the original Nintendo GameBoy (as Burgertime Deluxe)
The game also appeared on a compilation of Midway games, Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Midway Collection 2 on the PlayStation.
Burgertime had a planned sequel, PizzaTime, in development when the video game market crashed. Thus, PizzaTime was never released.
Burgertime did spawn two later arcade sequels: Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory and Super BurgerTime. Neither were widely released or very popular. Super BurgerTime allows two players to play at once and is fairly true to the original BurgerTime but with many added features and greatly improved graphics. A console-only sequel, Diner, was created for the Intellivision by INTV Corp using code written for an unfinished He-Man game.
Mr. Egg makes an appearance in the episode "Anthology of Interest II," of Matt Groening's animated series Futurama.
The 1982 television commercial for Intellivision's Burgertime is still memorable to old school gamers. In particular, the end of the commercial where the giant hot dog character (an actor in a hot dog suit) slams the door of the drive-through window in the face of an innocent couple while screaming "We are closed...Now!" A year later, during the videogame crash of 1983 and the impending closing of Intellivision's doors, this catchphrase became a running gag with soon to be out of work Intellivision employees.
There is a skit in Mega64: Version Two that parodies Burgertime.
The game was parodied in a commercial for Adult Swim's Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
More recently versions of the game were created as homebrews for the Atari 5200 and Atari 7800 under the title Beef Drop.
A remake of the game was made for Game Boy Color that used The Flintstones characters and was called Burgertime in Bedrock. The following differences apply:
- The player only starts with 2 lives.
- You use a mallet instead of pepper.
- There are only 3 layers for each burger.
- There are power-ups.
- Only 3 enemies appear on each stage.
- Some of the burgers are larger or incomplete (starting on round 5).
- The player can continue once.
- For every 4th stage finished, the player gets a password.
[edit] Trivia
- In Japan, most fast food restaurants offer the option of a fried egg on hamburgers, hence why one of the enemies in the game is an egg.
- An unofficial parody of the game was released in adult bookstores called Furrburger Time.
- There was a parody game called "Murder Time" created in 1999, by "Running With Scissor"-the makers of the popular pc game "Postal"
- According to the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard, the world record high-score on BurgerTime is 9,000,000 points, achieved by Bryan L. Wagner of Turbotville, PA on June 2, 2006 at the Funspot Family Fun Ctr. in Weirs Beach, NH. History's first documented BurgerTime champion was Franz Lanzinger who scored 1,081,900 points at the Sunnyvale Golfland in Sunnyvale, California on November 1, 1982. In Singapore, Casper's score is 999,950 pts on March 2007 when he using cheats on MAME32 Plus for PC.
- An unofficial version called Burger Time was released in 2003 for the ZX Spectrum by ALEAsoft in Spain.
[edit] External links
- Unofficial Burgertime Homepage #1 Resource for all things burgertime!
- Burgertime at the Killer List of Videogames
- Burgertime at MobyGames
- The Church of Burgertime
Categories: 1982 arcade games | 1982 video games | Arcade games | Nintendo Entertainment System games | Famicom Disk System games | Atari 2600 games | Atari 5200 games | Atari 7800 games | ColecoVision games | Commodore 64 games | Intellivision games | MSX games | Apple II games | TI-99/4A games | Game Boy games | Midway Games | Data East games | Hamburgers (food)
