BurgerTime

The Good
Burgertime hails from that period in the early 1980s when the "Big Three" (Atari, Coleco & Mattel) were trying to maximize profits by releasing big games across all platforms (sound familiar?). As a result, there are multiple versions of Burgertime, presenting casual retrogamers with a bit of a problem, since the core game represents arcade gaming at its pinnacle - addictive, rewarding, yet very, very challenging.

The Intellivision version shines brightly. The graphics resemble that of the arcade to an acceptable degree, and the Intelly's circular pad does not hamper gameplay at all. Plus, you get a slew of stages to complete, some of them nightmarishly difficult.

If you're not familiar with the basics of Burgertime, you play a chef you needs to make burgers. He does this by running over components of the uncompleted meal (buns, meat, cheese, tomato, etc.), causing them to fall to the bottom of the screen where they land on a plate (thoroughly tenderized, one assumes). However, he is pursued relentlessly by evil hot dogs, eggs and pickles, who can be thwarted, but never killed. You can stun your foes with pepper (of which you have a very limited supply), drop burger components on them, or send them flying down with the burger components if you're skilled enough.

The Bad
It's quite difficult. Just try making it through one complete game cycle, and you'll see what I mean.

The Bottom Line
Well, it's Burgertime, except it's much better than the crap Atari 2600 version.

The Good
Colorful graphics

Multiple levels (called "patterns" in the game) are reproduced from the arcade original

The Bad
Enemies are single colored sprites (the yolk in the egg flickers between black and white instead of yellow).

Music is monotonous as it starts from scratch any time there's another in-game sound (such as walking over a burger ingredient).

The Bottom Line
In BurgerTime, you move your chef around the play field, walking over ingredients to build hamburgers. If an ingredient from a higher level falls on top of an ingredient on a lower level, the lower ingredient falls a level. This can "chain" so that an effective strategy is to try to build the burgers from the top down.

Giving chase are hotdogs, pickles (which flicker badly in this version), and eggs. If an enemy is on an ingredient part as you make it drop, it tends to fall further than just a single level (and may in fact fall all the way to the bottom, taking any intervening ingredients with it). You can also drop ingredients on top of the enemies, which temporarily removes them from play.

Failing that, you have a limited supply of pepper, which you can sprinkle on enemies to stun them for a short while. At limited times in the game, you can pick up an ice cream cone which replenishes your pepper supply by one "shake."

The Good
This game has everything that the arcade had but downsized just a bit for the Colecovision. The music is very good and the graphics are very close to the arcade with the burgers and hotdogs actually making me quite hungry. The enemies are just enough to make you annoyed,but keep you coming back for more action.

The Bad
The controls are a bit sticky when trying to come off ladders and the evil food sometimes follows very predictable patterns. These do not hinder the gameplay by any major degree though.

The Bottom Line
You are Chef Pepper and must make hamburgers for the hungry customers, while watching out for the hotdogs and eggs trying to ruin your day. Chef Pepper has a small amount of pepper to temporarily stun the enemies, while he tries to build the burgers.