BurgerTime Delight

So, a few weeks ago I bagged myself an interview at my local burger bar, but rather than being shown the ropes behind the counter or asked whether I pick my nose when preparing food I was ushered into some kind of maze stacked with ladders and asked to prepare a series of burgers while being chased around by a hot dog, a pickle and an egg.

Oh, and did I mention I'd also been dressed up as a giant pepper?

It was a strange experience, if only because just hours before I'd been playing BurgerTime Delight for you good folks - BurgerTime Delight being Namco's mobile re-imagining of 80s arcade classic BurgerTime, where being pursued by food-with-legs is the norm.

It's a chase that sees you walking across burger components, knocking them down level after level until they all meet at the bottom to compile the perfect burger. I really hope that's not how things work down at my local.

It's a method that works perfectly here, however, and sets up the kind of classic cat and mouse play that games these days tend to lack.

Essentially, you're the 'mouse' (although you play as a pepper), trying to put together a series of burgers while avoiding and even fending off a group of adversaries.

Playing on a collection of maps consisting of four levels linked by a series of ladders, you move about the platforms walking over pieces of the burger as you go, knocking them down a level in the process.

Each burger part then falls on top of the piece below - be it lettuce or meat - which falls in turn, until the very last piece reaches the bottom of the map. Your goal is to do this to every bun, every steak and every filling until they're all stacked up at the bottom, like a burger should be.

The problem is, the whole time you're being tracked by the aforementioned gang of burger brutes who take away a life on contact.

With four lives and five handfuls of pepper to throw at enemies to stun them, your only way of defending yourself is to trap each foodstuff under a falling burger piece. It's a short-lived relief, however, as each rival wiped from the map simply reappears at the top.

As you might imagine, each level that passes also sees Mr Hot Dog, Mr Egg and Mr Pickle close on you with a little more vigour, making each move you make up and down the ladders all the more important.

No change there, then. In fact, anyone who sampled BurgerTime in its original incarnation won't be foxed by proceedings, and although Namco has attempted to spruce up the visuals the original look is also included and remains the ideal way to play.

This is no hollow achievement. Although essentially a less pacey Pac-Man, BurgerTime lacks such mainstream notoriety, and its successful transition to mobile should give it a wider fanbase.

Just don't expect to ever view you local burger joint in quite the same way again.