Berzerk (debugged prototype) - Software MAME

GCE Vectrex published 39 years ago:

Berzerk © 1982 GCE [General Consumer Electric]

Maneuver your humanoid through the electrified mazes of robot filled rooms. You may kill the first group of robots but initial success does not mean survival... future groups begin firing at you! Added danger lurks when Evil Otto enters. He can jump the maze walls and squash you if you linger too long!

TECHNICAL
Model HS-4020

Controls
Joystick: Moves your humanoid forward through the maze (8 directions).
Button 1: Unused.
Button 2: Unused.
Button 3: Unused.
Button 4: Fire. Shoots bullets at Robots while moving forward.

TRIVIA
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.

This port had a few bugs, one of which caused a glitch with the score, where it would be replaced by a dash and a graphic that looks like a car; when the game ended, the player would find a very high score (usually in the 100,000 range) that they did not achieve. Also, at times the player would either not be awarded a bonus for shooting all robots in a maze and/or the text stating the bonus would not appear.

A Berzerk Debugged prototype was released with bug fixes.

Export releases:
[EU] [UK] "Berzerk [Model 8123]"

SCORING
Each Robot you destroy is worth 50 points. If the whole maze is cleared, you receive a bonus of 10 points for each Robot that was in the maze.

TIPS AND TRICKS
Hidden message: Hold 1 + 3 + 4 when you lose your last life. On the 'Got You Humanoid' screen, the programmer's initials (CMK) will appear in the lower-right corner of the screen.

Number of Robots: There may be from 1 to 11 Robots in each maze.

STAFF
Programmed by: CMK

CONTRIBUTE
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