Mattel Aquarius BurgerTime

This is BurgerTime on the Mattel Electronics Aquarius computer.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Mattel Electronics
• Aquarius Computer
• Intellivision
• Atari
• Coleco
• Commodore
• Apple
• Sinclair
• Amstrad
• C64
• Vic-20
• Burgertime

[ioport]

Why does this game look worse on the Aquarius than it does on Intellivision?

[MattelAquarius]

That's a fair question. While the Aquarius is a superior computer compared to the ECS, it is only an inferior games machine due to a lack of programmable graphics. That means everything you see on any Aquarius screen shot is a different arrangement of the same 256 symbols in the Aquarius character set. (128 of which are the standard ASCII set, while the rest are various building blocks for graphics, such as triangles, circles, running man parts, robot parts, explosions, etc.)

[pokerjet]

The levels look like a good hybrid of the Arcade/INTV level scheme, the music sounds directly lifted from the INTV for the Aquarius (with the exception of the pepper sound), and for what it is here on the Aquarius, not bad at all.

[MattelAquarius]

Great observations. I agree that the programmers and artists who worked on this game at Mattel really did their best within the restrictions of the Aquarius hardware to best capture BurgerTime. It is a lot of fun to play.

Thanks for the comment.

[dallase1]

It's hard to believe that the Intelliviison a Video Game system was better then the Aquarius that was supposed to be a home computer and came out after Intellivision. I thought newer systems were supposed to be more advanced then older systems. I'd even be tempted to say that the Atari 2600 was better then Aquarius when companies like Activision and Imagic made the games.

[MattelAquarius]

I don't dispute these remarks when considering only games (although the Aquarius has some gems), however, as a computer the Intellivision (ECS) cannot compete. The Intellivision was conceived to expand into a home computer, and it failed in that regard. Conversely, the Aquarius actually offered innovations over similar priced computers of the era (e.g. lower case charcters, 40 column text, etc). 2600 based "computers" were merely a gimick.

[Atomicskull]

The intellivision was originally a reference system from GI that also had fixed graphics but this was changed during development. (it still has a set of tiles in it's executive ROM that many games use such as running men etc.) Why didn't Matel have Radofin (Aquarius was a Radofin design) change this in the Aquarius before release as well?

[Karena78]

Ahh.. more memories from my childhood :)

[sinistermoon]

Sounds almost exactly the same as the Intellivision version. Very awesome. I love BurgerTime no matter what console/computer it is on.

[Parsec994a]

At least the sound was decent. Unlike my VG Pocket Caplet which has horrible clicks and buzzes and can't even play the soundtrack.