Story[]
"The Astro Date is 3200 and you are the last survivor of a small group of earth people who came to explore the planet Mazeon. Soon after landing, you discovered the planet is a dark, apparently uninhabitable place. But by then it was too late to turn back because space craft had been destroyed by Automazeons.
Now you are a prisoner here. You are trapped in maze where even walls are death to touch. Grim robot thugs known as "Automazeons" stalk you relentlessly and you must systematically pulverize them with your laser gun before they eliminate you with theirs.
You are never safe on the planet Mazeon. Even when you've destroyed the mechanical heavies, Evil Otto, the mad and merciless mind behind the robot gangs, leaps out from where he's been observing the battle. You flee in panic because you know that you cannot kill Evil Otto and that, once he catches you, you'll never escape. He will pound you to a lifeless pulp, grinning like a maniac all the while. You only hope is to get out of the electrified maze before Evil Otto catches you.
If you do get out, you find yourself in another maze. Again faceless robots shoot at you, again Evil Otto pursues you, again you must dodge and shoot and run... into yet another maze. It's enough to drive you bonkers!"
---Berzerk - Atari Game Program Instructions
Gameplay[]
The game involved the player(s) running their way through a series of mazes while destroying as many robots as possible; destroying all robots in a maze would result in a bonus. Touching any robot, explosion from destroyed robot or wall segment or being shot would cause them to lose a life, and once the player ran out of lives the game would end.
If the player took too long to escape from a level, the indestructible Evil Otto nemesis would appear from wherever the player had originated from in a maze and bounce his way across the screen, through walls and robots alike. The fewer robots that remained, the faster Otto would travel.
Every robot color change indicates the increase of difficulty level. Robots walk faster, shoot faster and more frequent.
Enemy robots can shoot and run into each other or walls, which would result in them being destroyed. The player earns points for every robot destroyed, no matter how it was performed.
Player[]
Humanoid.
| platform | image | description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| idle | moving | ||
| Arcade Cabinet | 
|
|
ATTACK: - single shot DEFENCE: - none DIES FROM: - enemy single shot - enemy touch - wall contact (electrocution) - Evil Otto touch |
| Atari 2600 | 
|
| |
| Atari 5200 | 
|
||
| Vectrex | |||
Enemies[]
Robots.
| platform | image | description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| idle | walk & shoot | ||
| Arcade Cabinet | 
|
|
ATTACK: - single shot DEFENCE: - none DIES FROM: - humanoid single shot - wall contact (electrocution) - other robot contact - Evil Otto touch |
| all colors:
| |||
| Atari 2600 | |||
| Atari 5200 | |||
| Vectrex | |||
Dangers[]
Evil Otto.
| platform | image | description |
|---|---|---|
| Arcade Cabinet | all colors:
|
- appears every time when player stays to long in the same maze - spawns in a place when player starts the maze ATTACK: - deals damage on contact - chases player until next level exit is reached or player killed DEFENCE: - indestructible |
| Atari 2600 | ||
| Atari 5200 | ||
| Vectrex |
Vectrex features vs other versions[]
Obviously there is going to be a difference in graphics, due to the majority of the Vectrex version being in vector (the original was in raster) and the robots look like octopuses, plus there is no visible change indicating the robots' difficulty level has increased since the Vectrex doesn't have color. The difficulty level in this port also isn't as high, due to the robots not being as aggressive as on the arcade original, the player can shoot several more shots at a time and the players' and robots' shots do not cancel each other out (although arguably this could make the game more difficult, depending on a person's opinion).
Evil Otto also makes a bouncing noise as he travels, which was not included in the original, plus the player's shots will now pass through him; originally he could be shot (although not killed).
There is also no voice synthesis in this version, there are fewer mazes, an extra life is awarded at 5,000 points, which on the original it was 7,000 (although that could be changed depending on the arcade operator's choosing), and robots can, at times, either partially walk through a wall segment until they get destroyed, or can totally pass through them unharmed.
Releases & Credits[]
| platform | first release | other releases | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| date | deleloper | publisher | authors | date | publisher | |
| Arcade Cabinet | ||||||
| Atari 2600 | ||||||
| Atari 5200 | ||||||
| Vectrex | ||||||
Easter eggs[]
VECTREX:
In order to make the programmer’s initials appear, holding down buttons one, three and four on the controller once the player's last life is lost during the "GOT YOU HUMANOID" screen.
Additional Info[]
- arcade: game had 64,000 mazes (which was a gigantic number for any game of any gaming genre at a time)
- one of the first games that had speech synthesis (costing $1,000 a word), which involved saying "chicken! Fight like a robot!" if the player didn't destroy all the robots in a maze or several other brief phrases.
Gallery[]
