BurgerTime is Great! My Favorite NES Games

BurgerTime is one of the few NES games that I remember playing with my friend Eric. He had a bizarre collection of games, but they were all fun to play. Besides BurgerTime, he owned T&C Surf Designs, Roger Rabbit, Super Spike Volley Ball, Mario/Duck Hunt, and I think he had Super Mario 3.

Playing with him was an odd experience. He was one of those people who was only my friend because we grew up in the same neighborhood. Eric was a year younger than I was, and we stopped hanging out once I started high school. It was just one of those odd things that happened back then.

Anyways, I remember playing BurgerTime with him, and I liked the game so much that I got it when I started collecting NES games. I remembered it fondly, but no one else I knew did. This wasn’t a game I was good at, but I really enjoyed playing it.

DataEast released this game in the arcades in 1982. By the time it got to the NES, it was pretty dated. Still, the graphics look much better on the arcade game than they do on the NES console. It is a simple arcade game, which is designed to get quarters.

TLDR: One of my favorite NES games, and a great arcade game.

Narrative

There isn’t really a story in this game. The player’s character is called Peter Pepper, and he’s making burgers. For some reason, the ingredients that he’s using for the burgers are trying to stop him.

You do know who some of these characters are, but the motivations aren’t really here. It is also a strange premise where you’re running across parts of a burger while other sentient food is trying to stop you. There is also a sanitation aspect to this because someone is going to eat these burgers that you’re trampling over.  

Gameplay

BurgerTime looks like a simple game, because it really is. While the level design makes this harder than it needs to be, it is one of the things that makes it fun for me. There is just something about running away from food that I find way more entertaining than it is.

The goal is to assemble a few hamburgers by walking across them. There are the top and bottom buns, a burger, and some other things that I can’t think of at this moment. When you walk across one of these things, they fall down to the lower level.

Some things are trying to stop you. A Hot Dog, a Pickle, and an Egg are chasing you around. If they touch you, then you’ll lose a life. It isn’t clear what these guys do to you, but I can only assume it is something gruesome. It is one of those things that is up to your imagination to figure out.

You’re not totally defenseless. There are several pepper shakers that appear randomly during the level. These can be used to stun the enemies for a brief time. Aside from these power ups, you’ll also get some bonus points along the way. This is really the whole point of this game since it is an arcade game.

Overall, this is a difficult arcade game, but it isn’t an impossible game to learn. There are a few strategies that you can use to get further in the game, and I’m sure that someone has recorded themselves getting a world record. Those aren’t things that I’m interested in, but I know they’re out there.

Visuals

I like the graphics in this game. The characters look good, and I like that everything is bright and colorful. Everything stands out on the simple black screen, which is nice. If there was one thing that I don’t like, it would have to be the level design.

The characters all look very good. You can tell what each of the enemies is supposed to be, and who your character is. The graphics in this game don’t get in the way of the gameplay, which is always a nice thing when it comes to games like this.

The parts of the burger are a little odd, as well as trying to get on and off the ladders. This is where the graphics on the NES don’t hold up as well. Nothing looks terrible, but there are some questionable spots in this game.

As you progress through the game, the levels get harder. This happens in most arcade games, but BurgerTime spikes the difficulty a little too quickly for my liking. It isn’t all that bad, but it is a problem, especially for new players.

Overall, the graphics stand out to me. While they aren’t the best on the system by any means, they do hold up quite well when you compare them to other early NES games. BurgerTime looks better than the Black Box NES games and is about on par with other early NES games from the 1980s.

8/10. BurgerTime is one of my favorite games. The graphics are good, the gameplay is fun, and I have a lot of memories of playing this game as a kid. It is one of the NES games that I have fond memories of playing with my friends, and it became one of the first games I found when I started collecting NES games.

Pros

• Challenging Gameplay
• Good Controls
• Good Graphics
• Great Memories

Cons

• Difficulty
• Repetitive

Conclusion

This is one of my favorite NES games. It isn’t anywhere near as good as many of the other games on the console, but I don’t care! BurgerTime is a great arcade game, and this is a very good port of it.

There are a lot of other versions of this game, and they’re still getting made today. The most recent game I can think of is BurgerTime Party, which is rather old at this point. I have a bunch of other versions of BurgerTime, and it seems like most of them have kept to the same formula.

My memories of playing this game really elevate it. If I hadn’t played this game back when I was a kid, I probably wouldn’t have such a high opinion of it. Other games, like Rampage, are in a similar situation. Whenever I play them, I remember having fun with my friends and tend to forget about the faults in those games.

If you liked this post, check out some of my other NES posts. Such as PaperBoy or Wolverine.