Acorn BBC Micro version written by Richard Kay.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum version written by Paul Owens.
The BBC Micro and Spectrum versions were published by Ocean in 1983.
Commodore 64 version written by David Selwood.
Tangerine Oric 1/Atmos version written by John Woods.
C64 and Oric versions were published by Ocean in 1984.
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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS
It's time for another Ocean-themed October, and because the previous entry went so badly awry in terms of bringing balance to the blog, I decided to bring in another game from the early 80's with Mr. Wimpy - a game largely based on Data East's classic BurgerTime, acting as a promotional device for the Wimpy fast-food restaurant chain. Whether this might actually bring more balance or not, remains to be seen.
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HISTORY, DESCRIPTION & REVIEW
The origin of Mr. Wimpy - the Hamburger Game is not particularly well documented. However, it is worth mentioning, that the Wimpy Grills fast-food restaurant chain was originally an American one; founded by Edward Gold in Indiana in 1934, and peaking with 26 restaurants in the U.S. in 1947; but with Edward Gold's demise in 1977, the chain died off with him in the United States. The licensed Wimpy Bar chain in the UK and South Africa thrived, and as Wikipedia tells us, there were 1,500 restaurants internationally in 1978. Apparently, the company still exists with headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, and still has outlets in the UK.
Personally, I had never heard of a Wimpy restaurant until a couple of years ago, when I started digging into some of these old Ocean Software games for the purpose of making comparisons; it just never occured to me, that there actually might be a franchise behind Mr. Wimpy, which I had only come across in this strange little game on the Select 1 compilation, and nowhere else. Obviously, Wimpy was never a thing in Finland.
While the original BurgerTime was never officially released on the ZX Spectrum, C64, BBC Micro or Oric, there were clones enough for most of them. Mr. Wimpy just happened to be one of the first published games for home computers to feature gameplay elements heavily copied from BurgerTime, which was just as well, since it was a burger joint themed game, and just enough different to be called its own game. I suspect Ocean couldn't manage to get a licence for a proper BurgerTime conversion, so they chose to promote the Wimpy chain instead. Apparently, though, Ocean didn't have to pay for a licence fee for Wimpy, as was mentioned in a Home Computing Weekly magazine issue #41, because Wimpy liked the game and sold it in some restaurants during the 1984 Christmas period, so it was a lucky thing for Ocean.
In Mr. Wimpy, there are two different screens to complete. The first one makes you run through a room, back and forth, taking a tray to the other side of the room, and then bringing back a food item, all the while dodging moving holes and a monster. All the consecutive levels from that point on are based on BurgerTime: walk around a laddery maze and stomp over hamburger components to drop them down to plates below, while avoiding an egg and a sausage, and some more enemies in later levels.
For some reason, one of my old childhood friends was mildly obsessed with Mr. Wimpy, which is already reason enough for me to have solid entry in my personal memory bank of this game. I never particularly liked it myself, although the first part of the game makes it a memorable game in its own right. Being a less-than-optimal BurgerTime clone only made it a disappointment from level two onwards, but because I learned of Mr. Wimpy having originally been written and published for the BBC Micro and Spectrum, I'm now willing to give the game another chance. Could I call it a classic? Not even remotely. A cult classic, perhaps? Hardly. A weird footnote in promotional games, then.
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LOADING
With this line-up of platforms that Mr. Wimpy was published on, I cannot in all honesty claim to be able to present a completely accurate loading times comparison, because all I have available to work on the cassette image files are emulators, which I cannot always rely on to be accurate (particularly in the case of Oric and BBC Micro), and conversion tools that turn cassette image files to audio format, if available.
BBC MICRO: 4 minutes, sharp
COMMODORE 64, original: 7 minutes 26 seconds
COMMODORE 64, Select 1: 1 minute 28 seconds
ORIC-1/ATMOS: 3 minutes 53 seconds
ZX SPECTRUM, original: 3 minutes 43 seconds
ZX SPECTRUM, Select 1: 3 minutes 30 seconds
Since Mr. Wimpy was still an early game in Ocean's catalogue, they hadn't really come up with any sort of a fast loader for the original C64 release, so what you get is a basic ROM loader instead. The Select 1 compilation re-releases uses a much faster loader in the C64 version, and a slightly upgraded one in the Spectrum version, but if loading pictures is what you're after, this is what you'll get:
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| Loading screens, left to right: Acorn BBC Micro, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Tangerine Oric-1/Atmos. |
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PLAYABILITY
One thing I love about these really old games is, that they really need no explanations on to how to play them before you make your first attempt at playing them. It's all just eight possible directions - or four, depending on the genre - and the fire button for one designated action. In the case of Mr. Wimpy, you do get two different levels to play, and the first of them allows you to use the diagonals, but no fire button. From the second level onwards, you will only need four directions and the fire button to use pepper spray.
The ORIC and BBC MICRO versions will tell you the keys to play the game with, the SPECTRUM version will allow you to choose from three possible joystick options and keyboard (S, X, N, M and A), and the C64 version is played with joystick in port 2.
Mr. Wimpy's shift begins with a task of getting three food items from the other side of the room by using a tray you pick up from the left side of the screen. You need to get past three vertically moving manholes and Waldo, the randomly moving thief.
After you have successfully brought all three items to the left side of the room, you are taken to a familiar-looking laddery platform-maze with a couple of enemies roaming around, and you mission is to walk over the hamburger ingredients so they all drop down to the four trays at the bottom. You can use pepper spray to disable the enemies for a short time, which also enables you to pass through them without harm. You have three pepper sprays in the beginning, but you can pick up cups of coffee (or perhaps tea?) and ice creams for more pepper sprays. Perhaps not entirely logical, but there you go. The rest of the game takes place in similar laddery platform-mazes, with increasing enemies and differently organized ladders.
Of course, this wouldn't be much of a comparison, if I didn't get into minute details regarding all four versions. Even though Mr. Wimpy feels like there shouldn't be too many differences between the four versions, I was surprised to find quite a few.
Firstly, the way Mr. Wimpy moves in each version can vary. In the BBC MICRO version, and indeed most of the other versions, Mr. Wimpy only moves when you keep the direction held down. Only the SPECTRUM version differs by having Mr. Wimpy moving constantly, although for some reason, constant movement in diagonal motion is impossible. The BBC MICRO version seems to have some sort of a bug regarding the diagonal movements, in that Mr. Wimpy stops moving completely after trying switch from a leftward diagonal movement to a straight vertical or horizontal movement, even though he is perfectly capable of switching directions on the fly when going towards the right. Oddly, the diagonal movement angle is rather low for both Mr. Wimpy and Waldo in the BBC MICRO version, whereas in all other versions, the diagonals are almost 45 degrees.
Waldo's method of movement is just about as random in all versions, although in the SPECTRUM version, he seems rather hyperactively erratic. Then again, he does move notably quicker in the SPECTRUM version than in any of the other versions, while in all the other versions, he moves only barely faster than you do. The manholes move the same speed as you do in most versions, except in the ORIC version, they move the same speed as Waldo does - slightly faster than you.
From level two onwards, we have the BurgerTime clone thing going on. By default, the enemies move the same (or almost exactly the same) speed as you do, but in the C64 version, the egg enemy moves considerably faster than you do. Possibly to balance this out, your pepper spray can hold down more than one enemy at a time, unlike in the other versions, but then the pepper spray's effect wears off quicker than elsewhere, so I'm not too sure about the balance.
But all that is just the most immediately noticeable stuff, although very likely enough to form some sort of an opinion already. Also worth mentioning is the starting number of lives, which is 4 in the BBC MICRO version, 5 in the C64 and ORIC versions, and 6 in the SPECTRUM version. Not that it really makes that much of a difference, but there you go.
More pressing a matter is the spawn points for the enemies from level 2 onwards. From what I've been able to notice, the BBC MICRO has a single spawn point for all perished enemies, which is the top left corner. Similarly, in the C64 version, the single spawn point is at the bottom of the ladder maze, where the enemies usually don't even go. In the ORIC version, each killed enemy respawns randomly from the two top corners, probably depending on how occupied the area is at the time of spawn. The SPECTRUM version feels like it has several spawn points all over the screens, which are different depending on the level structures, so you have to learn them for each level separately.
Finally, I found a couple of noteworthy bugs that could make the game somewhat unplayable, though I suspect bugfixes are available. We're talking about original releases here, though. In the SPECTRUM version, I found that in the ladder screens, a cloud of pepper spray can sometimes disappear after a fraction of a second, although I'm not sure whether this is due to the location of the sprayage, or your movement in relation to the spray, or what. The C64 version has a bug, which can activate a manhole trap death randomly when you reach the right side of the first area. Again, I have no clear idea, how this might happen, but it has happened to me a couple of times just while making this comparison.
Design-wise, I think the ORIC version works the best of them all. It just happens to be the most balanced one, overall, and has no noticeable bugs or collision detection problems. The BBC MICRO version is, on the whole, not too shabby, with only a problem with the leftward diagonals in the first area, and some visual problems that make the game feel slightly weird to play. On further thought, the diagonals issue could be an emulation-related problem, but I have no way to prove that, so I will just suggest it could be such a thing. Despite the constant movement thing and the pepper spray bug, the SPECTRUM version is still a little bit more playable than the C64 version, largely thanks to the egg enemy.
1. TANGERINE ORIC 1/ATMOS
2. ACORN BBC MICRO
3. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
4. COMMODORE 64
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GRAPHICS
If there ever was a computer game from 1983/84 that made you go "wow!" back in the day, Mr. Wimpy is very unlikely to have been such a game, unless if was among your first ever computer gaming experiences.
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| Title screens, left to right: Acorn BBC Micro, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Tangerine Oric-1/Atmos. |
Even the title screens are barely worth mentioning, regardless of which version you might have loaded in first. The BBC MICRO and ORIC versions only feature text and a fair amount colours; the SPECTRUM version has a blue screen with white text and the Ocean and title logos being the only graphical elements; and the C64 version is, apart from the two Mr. Wimpy sprites at the bottom, all basic PETSCII text and logos built entirely on asterisks. This does not bode well.
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| Level 1 screens, left to right: Acorn BBC Micro, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Tangerine Oric-1/Atmos. |
At least in the opening screen, the most colourful version of the lot is the C64 version, which also has the least colour clash and flickering problems. The SPECTRUM version uses monochrome graphics, and to minimize any colour clash, all the items in the blue side panels are white; the items on the right side become coloured once you pick them up. All the sprites do have a rather large collision area, so you're bound to see plenty of flickering when these collision areas collide, and Waldo flickers constantly like crazy. Although the ORIC version suffers somewhat from flickering, the effect is not as bad as the sprite overlaps, where certain sprites are prioritized over others. However, it has the overall prettiest graphics and best animations, and features a unique game logo colour wipe effect at the top of the screen.
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| Screenshots from later levels, left to right: Acorn BBC Micro, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Tangerine Oric-1/Atmos. |
Most of the problems displayed in the first section of the game remain present for the rest of the game, when the actual BurgerTime part begins. The BBC MICRO version has the least colours, and it flickers a little, but overall it looks better here for the purpose than in the first section. The SPECTRUM version uses some odd colour choices, and the sprites flicker constantly like crazy, and the sausage's and egg's animations are making me feel restless. At least the spoon man looks nice. The C64 version continues in its usual form, with no problems regarding animations and colours, but the enemy sprites don't really feel like they were given much of time for detailing. The ORIC version also still suffers from some flickering and sprite overlapping, but the enemies look easily the best here, as do the compiled hamburgers.
I suppose the Game Over and high score parts of Mr. Wimpy were given the most attention on the C64 version, where the Game Over text is actually a graphical element with pixelated text inside a square, and the Hall of Fame features no less than 17 entries. The BBC MICRO version only has the highest score displayed, and the Game Over message is just the same type of text as you get in the info panel. The ORIC version has no Game Over message, but the High Score table is somewhat more impressive than on the C64. The SPECTRUM version has neither, but there is a quick visual transitional effect from the game screen to the title screen, which is a bit difficult to show here, so I have only featured it in the accompanying video further below.
Game Over screens and High score tables, where available.
Left: Acorn BBC Micro. Middle: Commodore 64. Right: Oric-1/Atmos.
In short, the SPECTRUM version suffers the most from flickering, the BBC MICRO version has the least amount of colours, the ORIC version has the most impressive animations but has sprite overlaps and flickering, and the C64 version is the cleanest, yet a bit bland in its appearance. Hence, the scores for this section are:
1. TANGERINE ORIC 1/ATMOS
2. COMMODORE 64
3. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
4. ACORN BBC MICRO
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SOUNDS
Mr. Wimpy's sound design follows the old arcade tradition in that the title screen features no sounds at all. For a 1983/1984 game, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The game features one jingle, which sounds like part of a children's song or perhaps a marching band tune, but I can't really place it anywhere exactly. In the BBC MICRO version, it plays at the beginning of a level, as well as at Game Over, but in the SPECTRUM and C64 versions, it is only played after completing a level. The ORIC version uses a combination of both: the jingle plays when you complete a level and at Game Over, but not at the beginning of the game.
Perhaps a bit unexpectedly, the ORIC version has the best rendition of the jingle, using a two-voice chord harmony behind the actual melody. The SPECTRUM and C64 versions both feature only a single melody line, and the BBC MICRO version has the melody accompanied by a single repeating high note for the first two and a half measures. This should already give you a general idea of the quality of each version's sounds, but let's plough on with the effects.
Starting with the BBC MICRO version's first area, we get a "bing" sound for getting an item stolen by Waldo, and a descending beep for falling down a manhole. From the second area onwards, there's a short bit of white noise for using pepper spray, and four different short descending beeps in a series for dropping hamburger parts - provided that you get to drop them from the top.
Next, we have the SPECTRUM version, being the other one from 1983, and there we get even less sound effects - in fact, the least amount of all four. In the first area, we only get a short seven-note melody on falling into a manhole, mostly consecutively descending notes. From the second area onwards, there's only the effect for dropping hamburger parts, which is like a simulated beeper version of burst-fire machine gun noise, all the same for each row with no pitch differences.
In the C64 version, we get a "bing" sound for picking up an item in the first area, a short shot-type noise for getting an item stolen by Waldo, and a chromatic 5-note melody combined with a crash noise when you die. The death sound effect follows through the rest of the game. From level 2 onwards, you get a burst of white noise for using pepper spray, and four different springy ascending sounds in a series for dropping hamburger parts.
The ORIC version sort of follows the BBC MICRO sound design. You get a shot noise for getting an item stolen by Waldo, and a descending boom sound for falling down a manhole, but no sound for picking up items. The BurgerTime levels also feature the same descending boom sound for deaths, and for dropping down the four hamburger parts, you get four different three-voice staccato chords, but there's no effect for using pepper spray.
So basically, the C64 version features the most sounds, but none of them are particularly well designed. The ORIC version shines in that regard, even though it could have had more sound effects. Even the BBC MICRO feels more cheerful in the sound department than the C64 version, so I guess sometimes having more is not enough, when it's not of the best quality. The SPECTRUM version has the least to offer in quality and quantity, unfortunately.
1. TANGERINE ORIC 1/ATMOS
2. ACORN BBC MICRO
3. COMMODORE 64
4. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
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OVERALL + VIDEO
Well, that was unexpected, but at least it cannot be said that the C64 always wins here. Of course, this being from the early part of 1980's, the focus and talent for game development was elsewhere, and in the case of Mr. Wimpy, it is clear that the effort was put primarily on the British computers.
1. ORIC-1/ATMOS: Playability 4, Graphics 4, Sounds 4 = TOTAL 12
2. ACORN BBC MICRO: Playability 3, Graphics 1, Sounds 3 = TOTAL 7
3. COMMODORE 64: Playability 1, Graphics 3, Sounds 2 = TOTAL 6
4. ZX SPECTRUM: Playability 2, Graphics 2, Sounds 1 = TOTAL 5
What we can deduce from these results is, that Mr. Wimpy: The Hamburger Game was nothing if not a product of exactly that precise moment in time and place. Game licenses and copyrights were not considered particularly necessary; anything was deemed good enough for bringing sales for game publishers, and the focus was almost entirely on the home territory market. Despite of all that, though, Mr. Wimpy is a game that has the ability to draw nostalgia for old gamers.
Here's the usual accompanying video comparison by yours truly, to show you all the important differences between the four versions.
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