Donkey Kong, Jr. was a great sequel, but if all you wanted was more levels and gameplay
like the original Donkey Kong…well, you had to wait a long time for that. You had
to wait for Donkey Kong ’94, on the Game Boy. That was the game that finally gave you
more of the classic, more than a decade after the classic. And maybe the best Donkey Kong
game ever made.
Which I bring up, ‘cause…this is like the Donkey Kong ’94 of BurgerTime.
It’s BurgerTime Deluxe, for the original Game Boy.
So here’s a scandalous confession, I don’t even like the original BurgerTime. How’s
that for a plot twist? I mean, I respect it, it’s a really cool concept…but it didn’t
play that great, and it was incredibly hard. Like, needlessly hard. The greatest AI in
the history of games belongs to the walking hotdogs in BurgerTime. Everything has been
downhill since.
Game’s more frustrating than a bowl of cereal with no milk.
BurgerTime Deluxe has milk. BurgerTime Deluxe has the whole freaking cow.
In more ways than one.
So just like Donkey Kong ’94 expanded upon the original Donkey Kong, BurgerTime Deluxe
does pretty much the same thing with BurgerTime. The only difference is, Donkey Kong ’94
has all the levels from the original included. With BurgerTime Deluxe, it’s only new levels.
And there are 24 of them, which…not the biggest game, but still four times more than
the arcade game. And personally…if you ask me, I think it’s four times more enjoyable,
too.
Should’ve called this b*tch BurgerTime with Cheese.
So anyway, BurgerTime is kind of a f*cked up thing. You play as a little chef named
Peter Pepper, who’s career has apparently fallen so far, he’s now flipping burgers
for a living. And as you’d expect from a guy who’s had such a precipitous fall from
grace, Peter Pepper now picks packs of pickled PCP. ‘Cause he thinks he’s being chased
around by pickles.
That’s BurgerTime.
It’s a game based on drugs, from a time when everyone was on drugs, the 1980s. Plumbers
and turtles, ghosts and pellets…all your favorite games were created during hallucinations.
I like to think the pickles are actually bill collectors.
Now, the idea is…you have to make burgers. And you do that, not by shaping patties from
freshly ground meat, and grilling them out on the deck…but by walking on top of them.
‘Cause when you’re rolling this hard, why not? Walk over the parts, and they drop.
Get all the parts to the bottom, and you get a full burger…complete with tomato, lettuce
and footprints.
Make all the burgers, and you move on.
Sell them, and you risk being shut down. By the board of public health.
Of course, the catch is that, while you’re walking on the food…you’re being chased
by other food. And you can temporarily stun them with some pepper, but…that’s it.
Otherwise, your only defense is to run…and hopefully, drop the burger parts on top of
them. Easier said than done, as BurgerTime’s foes are remarkably f*cking clever for a ragtag
group of condiments.
Nothing against condiments.
But that’s one of the things I dig most about BurgerTime Deluxe. It’s still tough,
but not so tough that you can’t even play it. Like, I was able to progress in this one.
And oddly enough, that made the game more fun. Who knew? The enemies are still smart,
they still corner you…but not with the same uncanny, unfair efficiency as before. You
can escape them this time.
And when you combine that more accessible difficulty, with the fact that this one plays
better than the original ever did…for me, this is the best BurgerTime. Or at least my
favorite.
So it’s a bigger burger, it’s a better burger…but it’s also a prettier burger.
The presentation is another area where BurgerTime Deluxe makes serious improvements. Gone are
the plain black backgrounds of the original, and in their place are little restaurants,
and storefronts. The sprites are great, too…especially Peter. To me, this version gives him a more
personality than the original, even in black and white. A very nice-looking Game Boy game.
And it has an awesome soundtrack, too.
And hey, an extra special thank you to Marc from Fresh Meadows, New York, for this one.
You know, this is the game I’ve always wanted BurgerTime to be. It’s the same great recipe,
but with much better ingredients. Better controls, a saner difficulty, cooler levels…there’s
never been a better BurgerTime, than BurgerTime Deluxe, for the original Game Boy.
Get ‘em now.
Before the city shuts ‘em down.