Berzerk was a video arcade game made by Stern electronics in 1980. It was based off of the designers dream, which was where he was shooting robots in dark corridors. In the game you control a "Humanoid" and must navigate rooms with walls that are apparently electrical since you die when you touch them. In these rooms, you will find these robots that sorta look like garbage cans with arms and legs that shoot laser beams at you. You can either shoot them, go past them to the next room, or just let them kill themselves or each other.
The controls are pretty simple. You move with the joystick and fire with, well, the fire button. You can move in 8 directions however, you have to be moving in order to shoot. Standing still and pressing the fire button does nothing. You start out with 2 extra lives, indicated by green stick-figures in the bottom left of the screen. You die either by being shot by a robot, making contact with a robot, being hit with the robot's explosion when it dies, touching a wall, or touching Evil Otto, a bouncing, indestructible smiley face that bounces around. It will only appear if you take too long in a room.
As your score gets higher, the robots will get more difficult. The first ones you see aren't so bad, as they are slow and rarely shoot. But as the game goes on, the robots will get faster, shoot faster, and shoot more often. You don't have to kill all the robots in order to exit a room, but if you do, you will hear a voice saying "Chicken, fight like a robot." Yes, this game has speech in it. The very first arcade game to have speech, in fact. For example, "Get the humanoid.", "Kill it.", "The humanoid must not escape." and when you die, "Got the humanoid. Got the intruder.". These voices are heard in several different pitches.
Graphics - 3
Now, I know this game was made in 1980 but, games at that time had a lot better graphics. Every sprite is just one solid color. The character you play as is just a green stick figure, the robots, as said before, look like trash cans with stick figure arms and legs, Evil Otto is just a smiley, the walls are just thick, blue lines, and the laser beams are just small lines. But, the simple graphics do add some atmosphere to the game.
Sound - 9
The sound isn't too much. Just the Sci-Fi laser beam sounds when you or the robots shoot, the explosion sound when you die, and a very faint ticking noise (the robots walking?). But I gave it a 9 because this was the first arcade game to use voice. The voices are quite clear, surprisingly. And the voices are at different pitches. And the machine will even say "Coin detected in pocket." as you walk by it.
Addictiveness - 10
Is this game addictive? Heck yea! All the rooms are randomly generated, so 2 plays are never exactly alike. Also, it is simply just fun shooting things. But most of all, this game has something that will forever be lost in modern games: simplicity.
Story - N/A
No story to this game to my knowledge. Moving along.
Depth - 3
As said before, this game is simple. Just run around a maze, shoot some robots, run from Evil Otto, and exit the room. Nothing more, nothing less.
Difficulty - 8
Due to the fact that literally everything can kill you, and that the robots get harder as your score gets higher, makes this game quite difficult. And it doesn't really help later on when the robots are faster than your character!
Overall - 8.5
This is a great game from the 80's. Very simple, yet very addictive. in fact, this game was so popular, they made a sequel! The sequel goes by the name of "Frenzy". I would definatly recommend playing this game. So, that's my review for 1980, Stern's "Berzerk". Good night, Good morning, and Good evening, my friends! Ciao!
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