Berzerk has a unique and weird place for itself in the pantheon of video games. In the arcade, it was one of the first video games with speech. It’s also believed to be the first (and I think only) video game to actually kill a person.
Based on its rep, I bought this a few years ago along with a number of other Atari games for $2. If you’re not familiar with the game, the general premise behind it is that you’re a guy trying to escape a space station while killer robots hunt you down. You play for the high score and keep going until you die.
Maybe it’s just me, but the pre-Nintendo era of video games are really starting to show their age. I’ve played a bunch of these within recent memory, and even the best ones don’t feel “vintage” or “classic”. Many of these sadly, just feel old.
Berzerk to me, is one of the exceptions. The game plays similarly to Robotron or Smash TV and captures the core of what makes those games fun. It’s fun to shoot robots and fun to try and get that high score. On top of that, the graphics are decent Atari quality and it controls just fine, which a lot of games didn’t at the time. Every time I fire up my Atari, I make it a point to play some Berzerk cause that game is still flat-out fun.
It’s hard to recommend any Atari 2600 games to anyone who isn’t actively looking for that type of experience. Though if you’re ever in the mood for some true old-school gaming, Berzerk is an under-appreciated game definitely worth looking into.
In Third Person 