Review Date: March 1, 2021
Release Date: May 1, 1987
Platform: NES
Publisher: Data East
Genre: ?
Anecdotes: One day at work about a year ago, a coworker was talking all day about how she was going to go home, fire up the Atari, and play BurgerTime the rest of the day. She is a big fan of 80s culture and knew quite a bit about the 80s. However, when I followed up about with questions about the Atari, she knew Pac-Man, but could not name any other games. This led me to believe that she isn’t much of a gamer. Naturally, when I followed up on the conversation the next day, she had “forgotten” she said that and said she’ll play the next night instead. She never actually played the game and I’m still wondering how she had even heard of it. My guess would be one of her kids played it.
Description: Peter Pepper is making burgers by walking across the ingredients and letting them drop. While he’s trying to do that, the screen will get peppered with enemies. They can be pepper sprayed or squashed by falling burgers. The object of each level is to complete all burgers on the plates at the bottom.
Positives: Walking across the burgers causes two fun side effects: first, enemies get squashed, so if a pickle is coming up the ladder below Peter, he can get rid of them that way. Second, no two ingredients can be on the same surface, so if Peter sinks the top bun and there’s lettuce on the surface immediately below, the lettuce will drop a level, too.
Negatives: Peter is slooooooooow, and it will lead to a lot of traps that can only be escaped by the pepper spray. Unfortunately, it only stuns enemies and he only has limited shots of it.
Grade: C