Orion Burger

Overview

I did not enjoy this game, despite its promising appearance. This review was originally from December 2020 at this link with a few edits. Since I wrote this it is now ScummVM-compatible.

Review

I SHOULD have learned my lesson, to not trust HardcoreGaming101 for what a "good game" is and isn't because I had gotten burned many times by that point. I didn't just take their word for it, it looked like it could be fun...but unfortunately, even what looks to be a good game on the surface is not. Take the tragic case of Orion Burger, released in 1996 by Sanctuary Woods yet not released in the United States because of a company refocus to educational software. Sanctuary Woods did play a small part in my childhood, Theatrix (which they bought around this time) was one of my favorite developers as an elementary-aged lad, and I ended up receiving three of four full versions from a demo CD-ROM growing up (those being Bumptz Science Carnival, Snootz Math Trek, and Julliard Music Adventure). I've thought about writing something in regards to Theatrix but not today. In any case, Orion Burger is not up to snuff.

Orion Burger, as HardcoreGaming101.net describes it, "tells the story of Wilbur Wafflemeier, a young man randomly selected to test whether human beings are intelligent life. If he fails the tests, humanity will be harvested and turned into fast food Orion Burgers by an evil intergalactic conglomerate. In fact, there’s a good chance the human race will become burgers whether he passes the tests or not. After Wilbur fails the first test, he is meant to be sent back to earth from the exact moment and time that he left by a temporal transporter with his memory erased. Something goes wrong, and a Groundhog Day-style time loop is formed, allowing Wilbur to do what he needs in order to pass the horrible tests while remembering what went wrong in all of the previous attempts." Sounds innovative enough, yet in the main game as you try to collect items and solve puzzles, there's a hard time limit (which is not revealed to you) before you get returned to the spaceship and the time loop resets, causing some items to be lost in the process (even if it auto-solves a few puzzles upon completion). This would be a mild annoyance if it wasn't for a few other design flaws—you can get stuck without an item in the time loop and have to restart the time loop, have to go through the same cutscenes when Wilbur is sent back to the aliens, the slow lumbering through each environment (it's not compatible with SCUMMVM, so no helpful speed tools), the fact that Wilbur sounds a bit like Mickey Mouse (and there's no way to toggle subtitles), and in some cases, have to repeat the same puzzles even if you did it the first time around. An early game example is that you have to get some grasshoppers frozen in a block of ice, which are useful for the second chapter of the game. To get this, you need a "Puz Dispenser" and a spring from a mousetrap to repair it. But if you didn't complete the puzzle to get the grasshoppers, you have to get these items all over again. It's bad enough that a walkthrough is practically required to get anywhere in a game without hours of frustration, it's even worse when a walkthrough doesn't ease the pain of actually playing.

Player Notes

When I rewrote this in preparation for a full page post I was about to give it a "Rejected" rating.