King Games Trifecta - Big Bumpin' (Part 1)

So if you follow my social media you noticed a little video I put up about the focus for the blog these next couple weeks. About a decade ago, Burger King had it's own three video games published, for sale with meal combos at each of it's fast food restaurants. Financially the games did well, selling plenty of copies and bumping Burger King sales a good amount around the time of their release. Yet, the way the games were presented and advertised, and how they played was not as well talked about. 

I've avoided these games for 11 years. But for a little while now, I've been curious how these actually are. Since I came across a way to pick these up super cheap (I paid $1 for each one still sealed) I figured it was time to try it myself. 

These are cheap games, so these reviews won't be focused on getting the bang for your buck. They'll be more along the lines of an Honest Opinion, just discussing the game and what's in it and how I felt about it personally. So without wasting any more time, let's jump into the first of these games : Big Bumpin'. 

What Is It?

Big Bumpin' is a bumper-car "sports" game, with a handful of different play modes to keep you occupied while you zip around on various laid out courses, hoping to beat your opponents into the ground. The game offers Shockball (essentially hot potato, you don't want to be the one holding it when the timer runs out), Last Man Standing, Bumper Hockey, Own The Puck (you have to hit the puck and keep it away from everyone else), and Power Surge (collect the energy and bring it back to to the main hub). 

In addition to being able to play single rounds of each of these game types, you have five different tournaments to compete in and prove that you're the best at these games. Each successive tournament must be unlocked by winning the previous ones, where you compete against three other opponents and are awarded points based on how you do.

Three of the games (Shockball, Last Man Standing, Power Surge) give you an energy bar over top of the head of your character, each serving a slightly different purpose. In Shockball, it represents how much energy is left in the ball before it explodes, and the bar is over the head of whichever character is in current posession of it. To pass the ball off to someone else, just slam into them and run away. For Last Man Standing, everybody has the bar and it represents health. So once it runs out, you're done. Lastly, Power Surge, the bar represents the amount of energy you're transporting. It can't be passed back and forth in this mode, but if whoever has it takes any damage, a chunk is taken away. Whatever is left of the bar when you get back to the main core is how much energy you transfer back to it, giving you a respective amount of points (full bar representing 100 points).

How Is It?

First off, the main menu itself isn't even a graphical rendering. It's the Burger King mascot (the creepy King costume) standing in what's supposed to be a carnival trailer where you'd order food. Which makes sense, that's generally where you're going to ride the bumper cars. But he's just standing there, not really moving, and the plaster grin is just staring at you the whole time until you make your selection from the main menu. 

The gameplay itself is extremely easy and limited. You only use three buttons on your controller for this one. Just three. The joystick to move (directional aiming for driving), the A button to do a little speed boost, and the B button for a taunt (honking the apparently-existent horn on your bumper-car). So essentially you should have the controls mastered before you get into one of the game modes. 

All the game modes don't take very long to play. The longest mode is the hockey one, because it has a locked in timer of three minutes, so no matter what happens you're at least playing for that long. Last Man Standing is definitely the shortest mode in the game though. One of the "track" layouts for this mode features a stage with no outside boundaries to it, and four pits that open up in the center, so the game can be done in literally fifteen seconds. 

Outside of all this, you have a different number of characters to choose from for your driver, and different colors you can apply to your bumper car. No matter what your selection is though, it won't make a difference in the performance, so just choose what looks most appealing to you and get bumpin'.

FINAL THOUGHTS 

 

I will honestly say that I enjoyed this more than I thought I was going to. Well, being completely honest I didn't expect to enjoy it at all, so even the most minute positive reaction towards this game would have been more than i expected. But, it's surprisingly pretty fun. It offers multiplayer as well, which would definitely expand on the playability of this game, but for a single player title, it's extremely short, only offering the five tournaments to play in. The first two are a best of three competition, followed by two rounds in tournament three, four rounds in tournament four, and eight in tournament five. Still, I would have to say that I am pleased to have this in my game collection. It's a cheap game, and offers some cheap and easy fun, and while I might not brag about owning this one and go showing it off to all my friends, I'll still pull this out once in a while to go bump some cars. Just remember, if you do go to pick this up, these are meant to be super super cheap games (when Burger King sold them, it was only for an additional $4 or $5 on top of a combo meal), so do not overpay for this one.

Up Next : Pocketbike Racer