🍔 ⏰ 🎉 BurgerTime Party! - REVIEW - "Flippin' Fun!" 🍔 ⏰ 🎉 #GameDev

A fun little game that is best played with friends in a ‘dip in and out’ way, if you are a fan of the original BurgerTime (Data East, 1982), this literally plays like a remastered version with multiplayer added. Good.
For those not familiar with this niche food-related genre of gaming, the main gameplay loop of BurgerTime is to make burgers by snaking your way around platforms via ladders and walking over ingredients such as burger patties, lettuce, buns etc making them fall to the bottom of the screen to form, you guessed it; a nice, juicy, digital burger (my third album).

Of course, it isn’t as straightforward as it may seem.  Chasing you throughout each level are various culinary-focused assailants with different AI-programmed modes of travel (a-la Pac-Man) determined to strike you thrice and remove your lives. Naturally, you have a weapon to temporarily stun them with….a pepper-shaker.

BurgerTime Party! Is essentially a modern update of this 80’s template. The graphics and gameplay are colourful and smooth with more complex level design in play as well as a ranking system at the end to increase replay value. The music in the game is jaunty and feels like the ghost of a relative of the original chiptune with up to date hardware.

Whilst there is a single-player mode, it feels like an introduction to the game, each level (especially the first twenty or so) feeling tutorial-like in how gameplay elements are brought into play. As fun as this is (and make no mistake, the arcade sensibilities of the original do still hold up) the real ‘meat’ here is in multiplayer.

Up to four players can play in both competitive and co-operative modes and this is where I feel the majority of time will be spent with the game. The pick-up-and-play accessibility of BurgerTime is strong and it is fun to make your way around the single-screen levels working in tandem with each other to make those all-important burgers, grabbing power-ups and avoiding the early-Disney-like animated sausages and eggs that try to foil your frying fun.

Summary
BurgerTime Party! Is a great update of an 80’s arcade classic.
The simplicity of the gameplay, which may put some people off, is a real plus for me.
It’s the kind of game that works well in several settings; as a way of introducing kids to games, family gaming sessions and those nights with a few glasses of Old Samuel and friends as you spend a half-hour on different party games.
It’s a simple formula that works and one that I will keep installed on my Switch for a long while yet for when I’m babysitting and yes…when friends come around for a drink.

Right, I’m off to have some flippin’ fun.

❄️ RATING: ICE COOL ❄️

Ratings Explained

ICE COOL (Great Game Recommended)

MELTING (Recommended with reservations, one to consider if you are a fan of the genre)

MELTED (Not A Recommended Purchase)