Berzerk

Atari 8-bit port

The game is also in circulation for Atari 8-Bit computers, this is however believed to be the result of a leaked prototype and not an official release in the early '80s.

Board game

In 1983, Milton Bradley adapted this video game into a boardgame.

Comic book

Atari's 2600 release on Berzerk came with a comic book of Atari Force #2. Here is that comic at AtariAge.com.

Death

The coin-op version of Berzerk has the distinction of being associated with the first ever "video game death". Jeff Dailey, a 19-year old, suffered a heart attack in January 1981 shortly after playing the game.

References to the game

The famous phrases from the game "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" and "Get the humanoid!" are sampled in the Futurama episode "Fear of a Bot Planet" where they are heard over a loudspeaker and by robots are chasing Fry and Leela. Also in The Simpsons episode "Homer Goes to College", Homer enters a residence where nerds are working at computers and one says "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" while another says "Stop the humanoid!".

Song

Berzerk was popular enough to have a song inspired by it on the full-length Pac-Man Fever album - Goin' Berzerk.

Voices

The coin-op arcade version of Berzerk had digitally recorded dialogue. There were 16 spoken words stored on a small microchip, and they were put together in sequences to create complete sentences such as "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" and "Destroy the humanoid!" This was technologically groundbreaking, but consider the cost. Almost a thousand dollars per word.

Awards

• Retro Gamer
  • Issue 46 - #10 in the "Top 25 Atari 2600 Games" poll

Information also contributed by Guy Chapman, LepricahnsGold, Maw, PCGamer77, Pseudo_Intellectual and Scaryfun