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Burgers Wars (AKA “Burger Warz” or “The Great Burger War”) is a canceled first person arena shooter that was in development around 2004 by Amped Labs, planned to be released on PC and Mac. Up to 128 players would have been able to play against each other in colorful arenas, to decide which fast-food burger brand would win the “Burgers Wars”. As we can read from their old website:

“Burger Wars is a fast action, multiplayer o­nline first person shooter.  In the year 2033 two competing burger franchises, McBozo and Burger Clown are in an all out global war as they battle for supremacy in o­ne of the worlds last free market enterprises.  Team based play tactics are involved and 3 game types, Team Death Match, Capture the Flag and Assassinate the Clown are supported. It runs o­n PC, Mac and Linux.  It can handle up to 128 players per server, and its spoof humor is a guarantee for some side splitting laughter.”

“In each game type a score point is made by “nutralizing” your opponents.  A point is awarded for each “nutralization.”  Several unique weapons are available to help you.  When an opponent is “nutralized” he or she will drop weapons ammo and a score burger. “The score burger is worth an additional 10 points.  As you gather score points your character has the ability to use more weapons.  Your character can grow over time and his or her score is maintained o­n the game server or cluster of game servers.  The objective is to obtain all the weapons and keep the highest score.  As new mod packs and weapons are available your player will be able to maintain his or her own inventory and trade weapons with other players.”

“In 2003 the first human was cloned.  Despite world wide pressure to ban cloning and genetic experiments o­n humans the fast food industry creates its very own human clown mascot. They altered his genes to have fiery red hair, bright red lips and very pale skin.  His genetic “fathers” included splices from a former actor who became a California Governor, an olympic athlete, an opera singer and a famous magician. He was put to work at an early age. He was very enthusiastic and worked very hard.

Mc Bozo is a ruthless money hungry capitalist who is too cheap to hire a mascot so he does his own advertisements. He is fat, lazy and greedy. He started out as a police officer and was corrupted by smugglers when he began accepting bribes.  After serving time in prison for his crimes he was released o­n Parole and began selling hamburgers as a street vendor. “

“In 2031 o­nly two occupations still employed human workers.  The vast majority of the workforce had been laid off in the great depression of 2019.  Cheap automation, rapid inflation coupled with the devaluation of the new global currency, and the latest human occupation software upgrades for Japanese ASIMO humanoid robots were to blame.  Of the remaining two human occupations, o­ne was civil service, which required a minimum of 3 PHDs, the other was fast food.  When times were tough the application process for a fast food worker could require a two year wait.  Hours were long and competition between the fast food restaurants was fierce. Price wars reduced wages, and layoffs were rampant.  Finally the stress of modern life became too much to bare for the fast food workers and they began attacking each other.

At first it was simple… like a brick tossed through a window. Graffiti sprung up o­n the buildings such as “Die you scum sucking McBozo devil worshippers!” and “Rot in Hell you Burger Clown bastards!” Soon the attacks became more open and personal. O­ne McBozo worker was beaten by Burger Clown employees, dipped in a vat of McBozo sundae sauce and wrapped in toilet paper. The violence was captured and broadcast via infravision o­n all local neural network stations. Shortly after, o­n October 31st 2033, an angry mob of McBozo workers dragged a Burger Clown employee into the street, forced him to eat seven pounds of uncooked French fries and set fire to his head. That was the last straw! It was outright war!”

While the game was officially announced on many gaming websites and a playable demo was also released, Burger Wars and its developers just vanished sometime around 2005. We can assume Amped Labs were not able to complete their project without support from a publisher. They were also working on another game titled “Rise of Power” but it was also cancelled.

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