Burgertime World Tour Review

I just love old arcade games. Love the Burgertime arcade game a bunch. It always had a good balance to it and was unique. Pumped a bunch of quarters into it and have it on my Mame arcade. It's actually one of the top ten played games on my system. So when I heard they were going to do a remake of Burgertime, wow was I excited. I envisioned all sorts of gaming goodness.

It was released today and, well... I'm just not feeling it. After quite a few plays, I'm going to take a shot at a early review.

The basic game play of the original Burgertime is there, but they have added a bunch of things. You can now jump. You can now smack the condiments if you have picked up the spatula icon. You can perform a special move, like use a rocket to fly a short distance up, if you pick up a special item icon. Also unlike the original game, the game field is of course 3D and a cylinder. So you move around the screen in a circle and can't see the entire playfield.

Ok, lets get to the good. Well the graphics are alright. Not great mind you. Cartoon like comes to mind. The music and sound are also just alright, nothing special. The goal is just like the original game. Build a burger by stacking it so that's fine. They have also added a Boss level at the end of each world. There seems to be many peppers to pick up which comes in handy.

Ok, what I didn't like. The addition of the ability to jump. I thought great at first but it turns it into a platform type game. That would be alright, but if you do a platform game, it should be tight. As they added the ability to jump they also changed the platforms. There are platforms that fall apart as you walk on them (they regenerate), and there are platforms that move up and down like an elevator. Speaking of elevators, would someone make a great remake of Elevator Action please....

Anyway, the elevator platforms can kill your character. It's quite annoying to lose a life because you jump was not exactly right. It felt cheap more than once. I can understand it crushing your character, but sometimes it was just off a bit and, wham.. -1 life. Forget jumping over the pickles, they also jump at the exact time you try to jump over them. The special abilities also added just a bit to it, but it seems like a device to make the design on the playfield more open. This could be a good thing, but I have not seen it yet. Hitting the condiments with the spinning move is alright. Just make sure you hit it a bit early, and make sure you have one. You can take out two or three at once if you time it just right. You can also pick up a stunned condiment and throw it at the others. Oh, and to get bonus points you must finish the playfield under the allotted time. Between each level there is a video sequence that you can skip by hitting the B button. You might watch these once but they aren't that good and you have to skip them ever time you start a level. A bit annoying.

Bottom line, they added so much, it's Burgertime in name only.

I really, really wanted to like this game. I just can't say I do. Could be I expected too much. I would have been happier if they had included the original Burgertime in the package. So far I have not seen that.

I have to give this a 5 out of 10.

Too bad this game is not included....

Feel free to leave comments as there could be something I've missed.....