| Berzerk | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Super Retro Bros. | |
| Episode Number | 2 |
| Date Released | May 23rd, 2014 |
|
"Don't touch walls." |
Berzerk is a multi-directional shooter video arcade game, released in 1980 by Stern Electronics of Chicago.
The player controls a green stick man, representing a humanoid. Using a joystick (and a firing button to activate a laser-like weapon), the player navigates a simple maze filled with many robots, who fire lasers back at the player character. A player can be killed by being shot, by running into a robot or an exploding robot, coming into contact with the electrified walls of the maze itself, or by being touched by the player's nemesis, Evil Otto.
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Super Retro Bros.[]
The second episode of Super Retro Bros. has Jirard literally confused at what is going on. Jirard had never even heard of Berzerk, but this game has a special place in Alex's heart, because he always used to play it on his cousin's Atari 2600. While this episode was originally going to be shorter, Alex greatly increased its length by scouring the internet for all the trivia about this game.
Trivia[]
- Otto is named after Dave Otto, the security chief of the creator of this game.
- Otto himself is a smiley-face because when Otto would "chew you out," he would smile.
- Alan McNeil came up with this game when he had a black and white dream about fighting robots.
- This game was based of Robots, as well as Alan McNeil's dream.
- (Don't read if you are easily heartbroken. You have been warned) In January of 1981, a man named Jeff Dailey died of a heart attack when he got a high-score of 16,660. However, this isn't the first death related event to happen while playing Berzerk. Two others, who go by the names of Edward Clark Jr. and Peter Bukowski, both died because of Berzerk related reasons, one for being stabbed because they stole a quarter (really?), and another from a heart attack respectively. All of them were also aged 17-19 and the last of these two incidents also happened in Calumet City, IL. If only they knew it was dangerous to play Berzerk in Calumet City...
- You can't touch the walls in this game. Were you aware?
- In 1982, Buckner & Garcia made a novelty album called Pac-Man Fever that had a song called "Going Berzerk." Eminem also made a song called "Berzerk" in 2013 that has an album cover similar to the game's arcade cabinet art. Coincidence? Probably.
- In World of Warcraft, the Gnomish Alarm-O-Bots say "Intruder Alert" in the same voice as Otto.
- In 1980, it cost about 1,000$ to put in a single word of dialogue into a game. Berzerk has about 30 words total in it.
Unofficial Question of the Day[]
Can you think of any old Atari-type game that still holds up today?