LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Berzerk
built 658 days ago
Berzerk was Stern's first major video game success, and it was followed up with a sequel called Frenzy. Atari bought the rights to bring the game to their popular home systems, the Atari 2600 and the Atari 5200, with a version planned for the Atari 8-bit line of computers but ultimately never commercially released (it was leaked to the public early on). Because of the simplicity of the game, Berzerk is considered one of the most accurate and faithful conversions to the 2600 that Atari ever made. While clones were developed for many other systems, Berzerk saw one other surprising official release, appearing on the vector graphics based Vectrex home video game system. Despite the difference between the display of the arcade and the display employed by the Vectrex, the conversion was well made. The game ... served as an inspiration for later, more sophisticated maze games such as Castle Wolfenstein, Shamus, and Robotron: 2084.
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Berzerk is the first game to be connected to an actual death and it happened twice! The first time was in January 1981 when Jeff Dailey died of a massive heart attack right after playing. His score? 16,660. Then, in October 1982 an 18-year old player named Peter Burkowski died of a heart attack as well after playing the game. The Coroner attributed the cause of death to the heart attack, but he implicated the video game as causing the stress.
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Enduring contribution to gaming history: Berzerk has the dubious distinction of being the first game involved in the death of a player. In 1981, 19-year-old Jeffrey Dailey had a massive heart attack after racking up more than 16,000 points. A year later, 18-year-old Peter Burkowski hit top-10 scores on back-to-back games in under 15 minutes before having a fatal heart attack of his own.
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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.
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Named after a series of Fred Saberhagen novels called the Berserker Stories, Berzerk was the first game of its type, putting players in the role of a robot-blasting humanoid running through a series of mazes. Designer Alan McNeil interjected humor into the game by including hilarious voice effects ("Chicken! Fight like a robot!") and clumsy robots that run into walls and shoot one another in the head. Also impressive is Evil Otto, an indestructible smiley-faced creature who bounces onto the scene if the player lingers in a maze for too long. A great game that is immensely challenging and imminently replayable, Berzerk spawned a sequel, 1982's Frenzy. ~ Brett Alan Weiss, All Game Guide
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In the absence of an official Berzerk port, CBS Electronics released Shoot-out as part of their K-Razy series of games. Shoot-out was a Berzerk clone that changed a few things. Only three robots ever appear at one time, and a new robot materialized to replace the last one destroyed, until the stage limit of robots had been reached. Instead of Evil Otto, a timer counted down the time remaining on the stage. The game ended if you did not leave the room before the timer ran out.
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Berzerk