Berzerk (Arcade)

Berzerk
Developer: Stern Electronics Publisher: Stern Electronics Platform: Arcade (Stern Berzerk hardware) Released in US: November 12, 1980 Released in EU: 1980 This game has revisional differences.

Berzerk is a game about really loud robots, nowadays known mainly for the fact that two people who got world-record scores on it suffered fatal heart attacks shortly after.

"CHICKEN, FIGHT LIKE A ROBOT."

Version Differences

There are two distinct English-language sets: An older, easier version, and a newer version that rebalances the game's difficulty and adds a bit more content. All of the non-English language versions are based on the newer version.

Robots

The old version only has three types of robots, as seen below:

Threshold	Robot	#Lasers
0 Points		0 Lasers
300 Points		1 Laser
1,500 Points		2 Lasers

• Threshold: The score the player has to get before this robot replaces the previous robot(s).
• Robot: Robot color.
• #Lasers: The maximum number of slow and fast lasers on-screen at one time. Doesn't count the player's laser.

The newer versions adds 11 more robot types:

Threshold	Robot	#Lasers	#Fast	Delay
0 Points		0 Lasers	0 Fast	80 Frames
300 Points		1 Laser	0 Fast	80 Frames
1,500 Points		2 Lasers	0 Fast	20 Frames
3,000 Points		3 Lasers	0 Fast	10 Frames
4,500 Points		4 Lasers	0 Fast	10 Frames
6,000 Points		5 Lasers	0 Fast	15 Frames
7,500 Points		1 Laser	1 Fast	60 Frames
9,000 Points		1 Laser	1 Fast	50 Frames
10,000 Points		2 Lasers	2 Fast	35 Frames
11,000 Points		3 Lasers	3 Fast	25 Frames
13,000 Points		4 Lasers	4 Fast	20 Frames
15,000 Points		5 Lasers	5 Fast	15 Frames
17,000 Points		5 Lasers	5 Fast	10 Frames
19,000 Points		5 Lasers	5 Fast	5 Frames

Yes, the 7,500 and 9,000 point robots are both white.

• #Fast: The maximum number of fast lasers on-screen at one time. If #Lasers var is greater than #Fast, and the #Fast var is non-zero, both slow and fast lasers could be on-screen at the same time...but this never comes up.

All lasers are slow in the old version.

• Delay: The amount of time (in frames) before a robot can fire another laser, and the amount of time before the robots activate at the start of a room (See below for more details).

Delay

There are two kinds of robot delay: The amount of time it takes for robots to start moving in a new room, and the amount of time it takes for a robot to fire another laser at the player.

The Initial Delay Timer works as follows:

• In the old version, this timer is set to 80 at the start of the game. At the start of each room, if the timer is currently greater than or equal to 20, the game subtracts 10 from this value. Then, the game sets every robot's initial delay to this value.
• In the new versions, the timer is set based on the "Delay" value in the robot stats table. As before, if the timer is currently greater than or equal to 20, the game subtracts 10 from this value (This is presumed to be an oversight.) If the resulting value is greater than 30, the game sets every robot's initial delay to this value; otherwise, the game sets every robot's initial delay to 30 frames.

The Firing Delay Timer works as follows:

• In the old version, this is always equal to 80 frames.
• In the new version, this is equal to the Initial Delay Timer (after calculations have been performed.)

This doesn't count the robots' 10 frame firing animation.

Note that due to the way these calculations work, robot types with a 25 frame delay entry end up the same as those with 15 frame delay entries. This is also true for those with 20 / 10 frame delays. This means that the 15,000 point robot is actually slower than the 13,000 point robot.

The robots' lasers are slightly shorter than the player's in the old version. They are about half the length of the player's laser in the new version.

Evil Otto

In the old version, the amount of time it takes for Evil Otto to appear is (X+Y)*40 frames, while in the new version the formula is (X+Y+Z)*40 frames.

• X is set to 5 at the start of the game and decreases every time the player enters a new room. This includes the room the player starts the game.
• Y is equal to how many robots spawn in the room.
• Z is the #Lasers variable.

In both sets, the game adds 80 frames to the timer when a robot is destroyed.

The game usually maxes out Evil Otto's speed at one movement per 2 frames. This is about equal to how fast the player can move horizontally, but more than the player can move vertically.

In the old version, once the player has reached 5,000 points, this changes to one movement per frame, effectively doubling Evil Otto's speed. This feature was removed from the newer versions.