Battle Chess

Name: Battle Chess
Year: 1990
Publisher: Data East
Developer: Beam Software
Genre: Board Game
Hours Played:
Beaten: No, I suck at chess

Battle Chess was a novelty game for computers and consoles in the late eighties/early nineties.  The concept is simple: it's just standard chess, but when you move, the pieces get up and walk around, and when you capture another piece, you get to watch the two characters fight each other.  The game is loaded with over 100 animations, as every possible paring of pieces has it's own unique battle animations, and the charm of the game comes from the different character's personalities: knights creak and lumber around the board, rooks transform into rock monsters, etc.

Although it's not widley remembered now, Battle Chess was very popular (espicially for PC) and spawned a number of sequels and spinoffs; however, unlike contemperary cult classics like Archon, there doesn't seem to be any indication of a Battle Chess remake or revival or Kickstarter (EDIT: turns out I was wrong).  That's because unfortunately, like all novelties, the novelty of Battle Chess eventually wears off.  The appeal of the game is to show off your hardware to your friends, and see how many different kill animations you can discover; once you've done that, you're left with a pretty standard chess simulation.  If you just want to play chess on your NES, you're better off sticking with Chess Master: it has a teaching mode for beginners and better AI for experts.  But if you want your friends to think you're smart while watching medieval characters kill each other, there's always Battle Chess.

Graphics & Animation: 4 (Excellent)
The animation is the showcase here, and the NES does a pretty good job of mimicking it's PC brethren.  There's over a hundred different battle animations (one for every possible combination of attacker/defender), and each piece has it's own distinct personality.

Music & Sounds: 2 (Average)
This is one case where I don't mind the lack of music during the main game, as true chess players would probably find it a little distracting.  The grunts and groans of the combatants are a nice touch, though.

Controls & Level Design: 1 (Bad)
The game controls just fine (although I wish it had a cancel button), and I can't really fault chess for a lack of level design.  My main complain here is the lack of options; compared to Chess Master, this is a pretty bare-bones representation.

Story & Presentation: 4 (Excellent)
This cartridge may have more cutscenes then any other single NES game, thanks to all the unique battles between the pieces.  The game has a style all of it's own - it's actually pretty violent for an NES game.

Length & Replayabilitiy: 1 (Bad)

Trying to find every combination of pieces will keep you entertained for a little while... but after that, you'd better really like chess.

Total: 12 (Average)

BurgerTime

Name: BurgerTime
Year: 1987
Publisher: Data East
Developer: Data East
Genre: Arcade
Hours Played: 3
Beaten: N/A

BurgerTime is a one-screen platformer game; a genre that was all the rage in the arcades between 1980 (the release of Donkey Kong) and 1985 (the release of Super Mario Bros).  Released in arcades in 1982, it was ported to the NES in 1987, after side-scrolling platformers had already established themselves as the dominate genre on the system.

The idea of BurgerTime is that you're a chef, and your climbing up and down ladders, trying to knock down good ingredients (buns, lettuce, burger patties) into piles of delicious hamburgers, all while avoiding evil ingredients (eggs, sausage, and pickles).  Using pepper will stun the evil ingredients for a limited time, and you can defeat them if you knock down good ingredients while they're standing under it.  As the levels progress, things get faster (in true arcade tradition) and the ladder layouts change, but mostly it's just the same thing over and over again.

[Side note: I can understand why the eggs and sausage want to kill you, since they're breakfast food and theoretically don't go on burgers (but taste so good when they do!), but the pickles in particular bother me.  Why are they an enemy instead of an ingredient like the lettuce?  I don't get it.]

Strong feelings about food hierarchy aside, I just don't get this game.  I've spent over three hours playing it, and I was never able to get into that "arcade game rhythm" of games like Pac-Man or Bubble Bobble.  The controls are frustrating, the theme is just weird, the enemies enter the play field from the sides of the screen without warning, you have limited pepper, and the enemies always move at exactly the same speed you do, except you get hung up switching from ladders to platforms and they don't.  Maybe the arcade version plays better, I don't know, but I can think of a whole lot of NES games I'd rather be playing then this one.

Graphics & Animation: 1 (Bad)
I'll say this for it: at least I can tell what everything is suppose to be... those are burger patties, right?  They've got a lot of green coloring to them... are they veggie burgers? I'm gonna say they're veggie burgers.

Music & Sound: 0 (Awful)
The ten second never-ending music loop will make you want to stab out your own ears just to end the suffering.  It doesn't change from level to level, either.

Controls & Level Design: 0 (Awful)
Maybe the arcade version controls a lot better, I dunno; I never played it.  But in this version, transitioning from ladder to platform (and vise versa) is tricky.  You know how in Mega Man, if your character is positioned near the ladder and you hit up, the game will automatically center him on the ladder?  No such luck here.  Worse, if you're even a pixel up or down from the platform, you can't get off the ladder until you adjust;  it doesn't make it easy when you've got murderous sausage and eggs on your tail.

Story & Presentation: 0 (Awful)
I have no idea what's going on here.  You're a chef who makes hamburgers by walking on food, evil ingredients try to kill you but are allergic to pepper, the whole thing is a mess.  If you're desperate for a good food-themed game on the NES, try Restaurant Panic; it's actually pretty fun.

Length & Replayability: 0 (Awful)
Trying to make it through every screen of this game so I can finish the review has been torture.  Every level is pretty much the same, so you don't even have curiosity to push you forward.

Total: 1 (Awful)