[Rogue Retro Gaming] Berzerk (Arcade)
Today we are going into a maze, to play another arcade favourite, released in 1980 and developed by Atari "Berzerk" is a top-down shooter. It was one of the most played games in the arcade golden years.
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Plot
This game has no actual plot or explanation, it just tosses you into maze-like random generated rooms filled with robots and you have to shoot your way into another room and so on, endlessly.
Graphics, sounds and gameplay
Graphics are okay and on par with the Atari 2600, robots seem like robots and you are a green stick figure on a black background which my first instinct was to think this was on space, but you do have blue walls so I imagine that the room its not well light thus the black background.
The game has no music and good sound effects, but what really sticks out is the synthesized robot voices who in intervals yell "Intruder alert, intruder alert", "the humanoid must not scape", "chicken, fight like a robot", "got the humanoid, got the intruder", "charge the humanoid", and some random words like "kill", "destroy" and so on. Which is a great touch of immersion in the game.
Gameplaywise, this is a top-down shooter which you can shoot, straight in any direction and in diagonal. You can just shoot while moving and in the direction you are heading, you can leave a room in any of the exits you see in the randomly generated room, except if they are closed. In the original version (which is the one I play) there are 3 kinds of robots, yellow ones who move slowly and don't shoot, red robots that move a bit faster and shoot and blue robots that move much faster and shoot 2 lasers at a time. Other than robots, if you stay too long on a room, a smiley face name Otto will appear, he is unkillable and can pass through walls. You have 3 lives and a 4th life at 10,000 points, you can die by touching a robot, a wall or Otto, the other way to die is getting hit by the lasers.
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I really recommend this game it is a lot of fun and it's pretty difficult, it doesn't have a plot but has a lot of immersion through the robot voices. The game was ported to a lot of systems including the Atari 2600 and you can get the cartridge for as little as 2 USD on eBay.
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These quick looks are my own findings and original thoughts acquire while playing the game
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I can't recall if I ever played the arcade version but this was one of the very first video games I ever played on the Atari 2600.
Were the synthesized robot voices in that version too?
I do not believe the original had them but someone released a hacked version that added most of the speech from the arcade version so the Atari 2600 was apparently capable.