Burger Chase

The Good
Back in the Eighties, there were some arcade games that were so successful, they warranted official ports to most of the popular home systems at the time, and BurgerTime was one of them. Commodore systems were not included, and so three smaller companies created clones of the game, including Supersoft.

You are the chef of a fast food restaurant, and your job is to make four burgers and put them on their individual plates. This can be achieved by walking over each of the fillings - which include cheese, lettuce, and beef patties – as well as the burger buns, causing them to drop a level. You keep doing this until each component drops on the plates. Sounds easy? Live sausages, eggs, and pickles will appear from the edge of the screen and chase you down, but they can be frozen in their tracks with a sprinkle of pepper, but only for a few seconds. Once all the burgers have been made, you will be taken to the next level.

Supersoft’s attempt at Data East’s popular arcade game is very good. The core gameplay is there, along with the added bonus of starting with seven peppers at the start of the game instead of five. The ingredients don’t chase you like they do in BurgerTime; instead, they backtrack in your direction when you are about to drop an ingredient. The sprites are well designed, and their animations are smooth. There are a few good pieces of music thrown in as well. I like how shooting sounds are heard when you drop an ingredient down to the next level, and I certainly enjoyed hearing a lot of these when two or three ingredients are dropping down at once.

The demo mode, accessed from the title screen, is ideal for players who haven’t played BurgerTime before. It is also hilarious because the chef doesn’t know what he is doing, and it takes him a long time to run over an ingredient. After you complete four levels, the game loops back to the start. In other words, you can get as many points as you can before you run out of lives. (An extra one is awarded every 10,000 points). A high-score table is provided, listing the five previous scores and allowing you to enter sixteen characters for your name. A two-player game is available, with players taking turns.

The Bad
The initial screen shows how many points you get for killing each ingredient. I thought there was more than this given that it states to press [F3] to display more instructions. Also, the rungs on each ladder are too close to each other; I ended up going down instead of getting on the nearby platform.

The Bottom Line
Out of all the clones made for the Commodore 64, I think Burger Chase is the best. The object is to make burgers without coming into contact with the rogue ingredients, but you can use your pepper shaker if you have to. The graphics and sound are quite good, and you can build up quite a score if you play your cards right.