Berzerk (Atari 2600)
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Published by

Sears, Roebuck and Co.

Developed by

Stern Electronics, Inc.

Released

1982

Also For

Arcade, Atari 5200, Vectrex | Combined View

Genre

Perspective

Visual

Gameplay

Setting

Not an American user?

Description

You have been sent into a building infested with robots, and must do your best to clear it out. Each rooms has a number of walls through the middle, which restrict your movement. There will be a number of bad guys in the room - on early screens they may be immobile and not shoot at you, but after a few levels they become capable of shooting in multiple directions. You can shoot at them in 8 directions, but can't shoot diagonally while moving. There are gaps at the side of each room, through which you exit, before or after clearing the room (there is a bonus for clearance). You get an extra life every 2000 points.

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Screenshots

Berzerk Atari 2600 Plenty of robots here!

Berzerk Atari 2600 Level one starts out pretty easy

Berzerk Atari 2600 Hang around too long, and Evil Otto comes after you! (he's the bouncing smiley face)

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Promo Images

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Trailer

Part of the Following Groups

User Reviews

There are no reviews for the Atari 2600 release of this game. You can use the links below to write your own review or read reviews for the other platforms of this game.

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Critic Reviews

Electronic Fun with Computers & Games	Feb, 1983	4 out of 4	100
Woodgrain Wonderland	Oct 06, 2016	A+	100
The Atari Times	Aug 18, 2003	93 out of 100	93
Le Geek	2012	4 out of 5	80
Oldies Rising	Sep 30, 2013	16 out of 20	80
VideoGame	Jun, 1991		80
Atari HQ	2000	8 out of 10	80
Digital Press - Classic Video Games	Sep 25, 2004	7 out of 10	70
8-bit Central Retro Gaming	2011		70
Tilt	Jan, 1983	4 out of 6	67

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Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Differences between Berzerk and Robotron	6	Игги Друге (46374) Jul 31, 2014

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Trivia

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.