Page 28 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #38 FREE Edition

ARCADE
involvement with such games as Lock’N’Chase and Super Cobra.
Like those games, BurgerTime
was a success and one of the most popular arcade games of its time. As you’d expect, the success of BurgerTime in the arcade led to
the development of many home versions of the game. One of the first versions was released for the Mattel Intellivision, followed by ports for the Atari 2600, Apple II, Aquarius, TI-99/4A, ColecoVision, and the NES. Homebrew developers also made versions available for the Atari 7800, Atari 5200, and Atari 8-Bit computers. I will cover several of these versions in the rest of the article. Also worth mentioning
are several sequels to the game released for newer systems.
These include Super BurgerTime, BurgerTime Deluxe, Diner, The Flintstones: BurgerTime in Bedrock, and BurgerTime Delight.
INTELLIVISION
Mattel was the first company to get the rights to make a home version of BurgerTime and they released
it to their Intellivision system in 1982. This port of the game was programmed by Ray Kaestner,
who did a superb job of adapting the game to the system. Though
The year was 1982. I went to Time Out, my local arcade, and there
I found my cousin playing this new
game where a cook had to make burgers while avoiding hot dogs, pickles, and other food items. That game was BurgerTime and I was immediately hooked! BurgerTime was first released in Japan under the name Hamburger by Data East. The game was originally developed for the Data East DECO Cassette System in Japan. When the game was brought to the US, it was licensed to Bally Midway for distribution but later was released by Data East themselves.
BURGERTIME FROM ARCADE TO CONSOLES
By Eugenio Angueira
over hamburger ingredients (bread, meat patties, lettuce, and tomato)
to assemble the sandwiches while avoiding hot dogs (Mr. Hot Dog), fried eggs (Mr. Egg), and pickles (Mr. Pickle) that pursue Peter and want to stop him from completing his task. Peter can use the burger ingredients to squash his enemies if they are in the ladder below them. He can also use pepper, which he has in limited amounts, to freeze the enemies on the spot. When the enemies are frozen, Peter can walk past them without dying. Peter can also freeze one or more enemies
on a burger ingredient to give
that ingredient a longer ride down the platforms (two levels for each enemy). The drop stuns the enemies briefly, before they return to the maze to chase Peter again.
Though Peter has a limited number of pepper shots, he can acquire additional pepper by picking up certain items that appear towards the center of each maze. These items include ice cream, coffee, and French fries. These appear only for several seconds and must be picked up before they disappear in order
to get the extra pepper as well as bonus points.
BurgerTime has six different
mazes that Peter Pepper must work through making burgers. With each advancing maze, Peter must face more enemies and more complex layouts that make it easier for Peter to be trapped by the enemies. Once the player completes all six mazes, the levels are restarted but with greater difficulty.
BurgerTime was developed by Akio Nakamura for Data East. Mr. Nakamura is known for his
Arcade Flyers in background used with permission from KLOV.Com
In BurgerTime, the player controls a chef called Peter Pepper who must walk in a maze of platforms
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OLD SCHOOL GAMER MAGAZINE • ISSUE #38