Well, I was quite sure that this game was called Berzerio. Its title looked that way when I played this game the first time, but after carefully looking it the next time, I noticed two loops around the B and the K to make the title look pretty, and I realized that the game was actually called "Berzerk". Could have fooled me. Perhaps the word "Berzerio" is "Berzerk" in another language. Maybe Italian. Unfortunately, whether it's Berzerk or Berzerio, the title is spelt wrong. The letter in the middle is supposed to be an "S", not a "Z". And I thought that Brian's spelling was disgraceful.

Berzerk is a one player action game that is much similar to Wizard of Wor. You are trapped inside a prison with a whole bunch of robots, whose primary objective is to shoot dead any intruders on sight, and that includes you. When you start the game, you are faced with lovely orange ones, who approach you slowly, yet do nothing. You'll meet the next type of robot if your score is over 300 points. These are red in color and move slowly like the orange ones, but they are able to shoot you. After 1500 points, blue robots appear, and these types of robots are much difficult to kill. They are much faster, and they are capable of shooting two bullets at once. They are also able to block your shots. There are other types of robots that also appear as your score gets higher. In tight spots, I always miss these robots. Shame, because you only have three lives. If you touch or are shot at by all three types of robots, you'll get electrocuted, causing the current life to be lost. If you manage to destroy all robots on screen, you will receive a bonus.

To make matters worse, when you take a reasonable amount of time staying on screen, Evil Otto will appear, who is basically a smiling face with an orange, red, or blue color, depending on the color that the robots are. When he does, he will bounce his way towards you, making you leave. Unlike the robots, he cannot be destroyed, and When you touch him, you will lose a life. Other ways that you can die is by touching a part of the blue wall.

The Atari 5200 version of Berzerk is much better than the Atari 2600 version, because it remains so close to the coin-op version, in terms of graphics and sound. Voice support is also added. Sadly, none of the Atari 5200 emulators I used so far had voice support; either the voice is stratch, I could hear hear nothing at all. But since I've played the coin-op version and I could hear voices while I played the game, I assume that the voices would be the same.

The Bad

Nothing that I am aware of. Highly addictive, though. Makes you keep coming back for more.

The Bottom Line

The game gets a bit difficult, especially when the blue robots appear. My advice: get in line with a robot, fire your gun, and move away quickly. That should deal with it. If not, try again.

Rating: ***