Retro Game of the Day! Berzerk

Retro Game of the Day! Berzerk

Berzerk by Stern Electronics, released in the arcade in 1980 and porting to popular consoles (Atari 2600 and its ilk)a couple of years later.



A revolutionary maze-crawling game, Berzerk put you in control of a little stick-guy who was being stalked by robots. Each level is a simple room filled with enemies who'd love to blast you (or touch you) - and the maze walls are lethal as well. Apparently there are 64,000 levels. Um.. that's a long game.

See that smiley face in the picture up there? This is the game's main antagonist, lovingly known as Evil Otto. Linger too long in a level and this monster shows up, happily bouncing toward you like some sort of 70s-icon grim reaper. Unlike the robots, Otto is invincible, and he is also faster than them. It is worth a mention that he doesn't seem to be impeded by walls and the like, either. You don't wanna be dilly-dallying to much, or Evil Otto will have you for lunch!

Most memorable of the game was that it featured a digitized voice, which was particularly creepy to hear in a video game of the time. "Intruder alert!" still sends a chill down my spine even now!

Games like Berzerk are practically laughable to look back on now - this is really getting primitive - but there was a time when this was quite revolutionary, and games like this would charge a player's imagination. The feeling of stress and risk/reward in a title like Berzerk was great (compared to the simpler "space shooters" at the time) and being able to control something actually resembling a person gave one my sympathy for/connection with their onscreen avatar, something that was also very new at this time.