My first memory of laughing was me and my friend Ian intentionally walking into the walls over and over. Don’t know why we laughed so hard for so long

While I was never hardcore about this game a former record holder named Joel West was kind enough to come to my house for my birthday years ago when he was nearby (we had been talking online as friends for quite a while at that point), hang out and show me some of his chops on this game. It was a very special moment for me. He has sadly since passed away and every time I see this game I think about him. Thanks for making this.

Berserk on the 2600 was one of my earliest joys as a kid! Thank you so much for publishing this!

My son did an essay on the curse of evil otto when he was 10. He did his own research and actually liked doing it.

I loved Battlestar Galactica when I was young, so I naturally loved this game when it came out - and it's still very playable today. Excellent video, thank you 👍👍👍

Brings back many memories from the 80s. I was hooked on this game. Just the sounds alone made you feel like you were really an intruder ! Miss those days dearly I’m 52 now and arcade 1up should look into being this back for old school gamers

One of my favorite games on the 5200. Underrated system that gets a bad rap for the controllers which I don't remember having a problem with as a kid.

Just wanted to say your videos always make my day. I work with students with special needs and I look forward to sharing your work and life with them.

Oh, this one got many of the quarters back in the day and I was SO happy when the 2600 version was released! Another great video!

My favorite arcade of all time! Great video!

The Robot-emulated voice saying "COME BACK AND FIGHT LIKE A ROBOT!" plus Evil Otto was nightmare fuel for me as a kid.

This was one of my favorite Atari games when I was a wee one. I was surprised to see this video cause I felt like no one knew this game! None of my friends of other family members had it.

I liked this game and the sequel Frenzy, was a nice progression, w/ the ability to make your own exit, and levels like the machine that would churn out robots until you disabled it, pretty faithful version released on the Colecovision

I always made a correlation between the robots being a lot like Cylons, now I know why! Great video, keep em coming.

This was my favorite Atari game by far, my cousins and I would spend hours playing this game, for some reason the song funky town always reminds me of Berserk, there's a part that sounds like when the robots were shooting at you! Great childhood memories!!!

I remember playing it on the 2600 when I was very young. The smiling Evil Otto always scared me because it was like death stalking you, but with a grin. It would be cool if someone were to make a version of the game that does have an ending. Perhaps multiple endings including one where you nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure after all.

Another excellent, informative, entertaining and accurate video by your esteemed self. Infinite gratitude!😊🙏

I vacationed in Flordia with my parents in 1992 and discovered a Berzerk cabinet in the video arcade on the first floor of the Holiday Villas III condo building we were staying in. The coin slot was a little loose and at one point I thought the machine had eaten my last quarter so I banged it with the palm of my hand to make sure the coin dropped. I was surprised to see I had an extra life and soon realised that you did not need to deposit quarters to play the game, just bang the coin slot and you'd get free plays. I did not get a tan during that vacation.

Yeah Berzerk was my jam back In the day at Pinellas Square Mall.

Finally, Patman! Berzerk is one of my all time favorite bowling alley games!!

As a kid, this was my favorite Atari 2600 game. Also remember playing it at pizza arcades around Chicagoland. 2600 robot designs were great, they blow up into smiley faces, and even the score font and colors are still awesome. Great nostalgia, thanks.

Strange how a story about killer robots suddenly changed into a story about an angry guy chopping up monsters with a big ginsu knife.

Never played the arcade version but I loved the Atari port (that artwork for the game is just brilliant!) I would consider this game along with pitfall to be the major reasons I fell in love with video games in general

My grandma had this on the Atari. Whenever I went to visit, that's where you'd find me. Planted in front of the TV playing Berserk

One reason I like this channel is occasionally I get introduced to a classic game I've never heard of. This is one of those times. Very interesting.

This game is a classic that I need to go back to. I remember it in both the arcade as well as on my uncle's 2600. Such a good game.

I can always trust you to turn my frown upside down! After a long day at work it's absolutely golden to see a new video is uploaded. Stay Awesome!

I loved this game when I was a little snot nosed 11 year old. Battlestar Galactica was one of my favorite shows as well. I absolutely loved the Cylons and their vocoded voices. That was one of the things that I dug about this game. Just when I thought I couldn't like you any more than I do, you show Mr. Haney! Now I really like you!

I still vividly remember hearing that gorgeous sounding robot voice from the other side of my local arcade for the first time. There’s still something special about hearing this,Sinistar and other’s. I can’t even imagine how many 10p’s I’ve put in them over the years. PatmanQC,again you’ve started the year with a bang. Love & respect as always to you and yours 🙌🙏❤️

Oh man I never thought I'd get to see the LEGEND REB BROWN in a PatmanQC video, but there he is as Captain America!

One of my favorite games of all time right here! The first time I played it was around 1986 at a friend's house on her 2600, and a couple of years later in 1988, I finally saw an arcade cabinet at an amusement park. I'm pretty sure they had two cabinets there, and those were the only two cabinets I saw until 2015 when I made my first visit to the Galloping Ghost Arcade. I also saw and played Food Fight for the first time that night, and again never saw another cabinet until 2015. I'm so excited that Atari acquired Berzerk and Frenzy, along with the other Stern titles they got!

Wow one of my childhood favorites

Is a shame there has not been ports of it during this millenium, I really want to play it.

This game is a classic. I remember going to a country pub in England .. they had a games room. Berzerk was one of them, complete with the large joystick. The pub made back their money that day .. (amazing what you find over here ... I used to call Pac-man "Puckman" .. because an arcade in my own town apparently bought Japanese in 1980!)

One of my favorite games of all time! The voice, the sounds, it just works.

This looks like another crazy difficult title...LOL.. This channel has inspired me to take a look back at some of the titles your channel has covered. Since I have a Xbox One, I got the Midway Arcade classics and I have enjoyed it so far. Thanks for sharing with me a world of gaming that I missed. I was around during some of the days of the arcade but my town didn't have may machines. So, I am enjoying these new games I am experiencing thanks to the Midway Arcade classics.

I just wanted to say that this is a really fantastic video, and it was very well researched! Alan was actually my dad, and he passed away almost 5 years ago now. I really love seeing how many people in the comments have fond memories of Berzerk and Frenzy. I think the only detail worth adding is that my dat absolutely hated it when the company sold the IP to Atari, since he didn't get shit for it and the 2600 port was really bad in comparison to the arcade game. Ultimately I think that's what led to him not really developing any more games after Frenzy, which is a shame since he had a fantastic creative mind.

I played this back on my fathers 2600 as a boy, it was my fav game on the system and a lot of fun for sure. Nice work.

This is great, thanks for covering Berzerk and Frenzy, both great games, Frenzy with the evil Skeletons, Berzerk with the Bots. The Colecovision version of Frenzy was incredible and a favorite game growing up.

I remember having Berzerk on the 2600. I had a joystick that liked to randomly move down. Using that joystick, I would sometimes drop the gun in-game. No one ever believed me when I told them. You couldn't fire when you didn't have it, but you'd go through the motion. You could pick it up again by moving onto it. Anyway, great video!

Yep, this one of my first arcade joys. The sounds were so cool. I didn't know until this video that the robot explosions were smiley faces.

Thanks Pat. The Superman 3 clip left me scarred as a child. Nothing more terrifying than that woman screaming being turned into a robot. Nightmare fuel for years brother.

That footage at 0:22 of the guy trying to kick over the real robot was downright freaky.

Thank you very much for this video. I was a huge fan of this game which I used to play at an aunt's house on an Atari 2600 whenever I got the chance in the 80s. It really stood out for me amongst the other games. I loved the airbrushed artwork on the cartridge as well. I never knew that it was originally an arcade game. Besides the digitised voice effects and a few other subtle differences, I've noticed that the robots in the arcade version could also shoot diagonally which they couldn't do in the 2600 version; they could only fire horizontally and vertically. That would have made it even more intense!

Another great video, I always love watching these great and informative videos on my favorite arcade games.

I remember playing this on one of the earliest versions of the arcade cabinets with a black&white screen. All of the later versions had color screens.

I used to play this all the time on the 2600. Loved it

I immediately think of the bizarre 2600 commercial with the old lady who's obsessed with Berzerk!

Another well done episode! Thank you!

Intruder Alert Humanoid Must Not Escape! Evil Otto says Welcome to 24 Thousand Levels! That is Evil or you might say Berzerk! The remake of Berzerk used a yellow happy face for Evil Otto which now makes sense after watching the history on the game! Just hearing the sounds makes me want to play this game I remember hearing it at the Arcades! Oh no, nothing was killed during the comments...CHICKEN Detected! Ha-Ha! Thanks again for a wonderful History Patman! The Humanoid known as Patman must not escape!

Awesome video as always!!! I played this game as a little boy on my Atari 2600 and it's one of the best memories of my childhood. Nowadays I play the excellent NES homebrew version, which even includes the sequel Frenzy. It's a ROM recently programmed by the wizard Robert DeCrescenzo, who made it free to download. It looks just like the Berzerk/Frenzy arcade games and features the robotic voice. I like Weekly World News too - some of the articles crack me up to no end!

I played in that Friar Tuck arcade in Cal City near River Oaks Mall...... great video.

Thanks for this video. Berzerk is my favorite arcade games. They had one in the lobby of the Walmart in my small town. Sometimes My mom would drop me off just to play a few rounds.

Played this game at a convention with my dad 13 years ago. Really great game. Those voice sounds do add more to it and made it ahead of its time.

I honestly thought that this was a predecessor to Robotron which i found way more addictive and playable. Love the laid back content and the side by side platform comparisons. Great work!!!

Amazing video. Thank you!

That 4-legged robot at the beginning was used in the Boba Fett show a few weeks ago. I remember having a love hate relationship with BERZERK at the local Gold Mine Arcade back in the day.

EPIC classic arcade game! When I got a Super Retro-Cade the first ROM I loaded up was Berserk, 2nd ROM was Frenzy. Both get wicked hard real quick but they're a blast. Still love playing them more than 40 year's later.

I like how Evil Otto appears for a spit second when you kill the robots if you look hard enough.

Use to sing along to Buckner & Garcia's Berserk song while playing Atari version.

It reminds me of the Horror Film "Chopping Mall", some machines with Artificial Intelligence to defend the Stores in a mall center that some people tried to have a slumber party, not realizing the teens worked there it attacked them after each brutal carnage loaded death the Machines would state: HAVE A NICE DAY. I don't ever remember playing Berzerk but it looks fun, since the opponents can also be killed by walls and there own rounds.

Oh man did I love this game as a kid! I recently discovered the sequel and pay both of them at least once a month. Even the 2600 version was great!

I remember the Atari 2600 port and how decent it was. They eventually modded it to include the voice clips.

My fav game ever along with Robotron, great video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i like 2600 the way the screen sets up with the walls collapsing instead of room moving sideways

Before there was the hit "Berzerk", the song was originally called "With a Girl Like You" by Buckner & Garcia, but then the studio said they wanted the new album Pac-Man Fever to have all game related songs. So, they reused the music, and changed the words. The {band, not really a band} R. Cade and the Video Victims, later released the album "Get Victimized". It had sequel songs like "Ms. Pac-Man, and Frenzy, but had their own songs for "Donkey Kong", and Defender "Defender Contender", and mostly instruments song "Scramble", but seemed to be based on the music from the Kiss' song "I Was Made for Lovin’ You". Some of the songs weren't about games but the culture around them, so we got songs like "Change Attendant", it sadly didn't seem to sell very well.

My Dad actually used to own the arcade machine at his house! It was awesome playing that game everytime I spent time at his house without having to pay lol

One of my favorite games. I remember seeing it in the Harbor House Restaurant, Waterford, Michigan. The synthesized voice was awesome. Took me (as a kid) a bit to realize Evil Otto couldn't be killed.

One of my favorites BITD. The Atari 2600 port was great too. Also proud that this game was conceived & developed in the Chicago area (where I grew up). I recently played a Berzerk arcade machine at Hershey Park and makes me want an arcade port for the Switch…

Old ladies saying " Take that Turkey" or " Watch it buster" was classic 80s comedy.

Excellent video! Also LMAO at that Atari commercial. Gee whiz grandma!

This was a very popular game in the arcades! I ABSOLUTELY loved the electric voice especially when it called you "chicken" the robots in this game were so desperate to kill you they killed themselves in the process! Great game lots of good memories Thank you so much for this video👍💖😎⭐

Love the KISS pinball machine remember playing one when I was young brilliant

Hell yes. Love this and Frenzy.

I loved this game on the Atari home system! I used to collect so many extra lives, that I could leave the game, go into the kitchen and make a sandwich, eat the sandwich, drink a coke, and then go back into the living room and I was still in the game.

This was one of my absolute favorites for the Atari 2600. I did also play it in the arcade a few times, though strangely I have no memory of it having voice samples. Is it possible that some machines shipped without them as a cost cutting measure?

Nice video, I do miss the good old days of arcades. I had this game for my Atari 2600 along with many others. When I was a kid, I would line up a bunch of games for my 2600 and play them as if its one big game. I would play one game swap out the game and pretend that the next game was just the next level.

I remember playing a game called "Chase" on my junior high's teletype. I had an inkling that a game like that was the inspiration for Berserk.

Berzerk is so good I made a little Quixel Robot. (They were these rubbery plastic cubes that stuck to each other with water.)

It's a cool game, but the biggest legacy comes from the games that followed it, particularly the Jarvis games you mention, Robotron: 2084 and Smash TV. Jarvis' goal with Robotron was to create a better Berzerk where the player didn't have to shoot they way they were moving, which led to the dual stick shooter. As a young kid I had the impression Robotron: 2084 was a sequel to Berzerk. Robotron was a much more attractive game, and had the graphic style that VizKids Jarvis and DeMar used in Defender compared to Berzerk's rather basic presentation. WIthout the voice I think Berzerk would have been a much tougher sell even with the gameplay being solid. Along those lines, I wonder how Berzerk was inspired by Defender. Berzerk was supposedly released in November 1980. Defender was not released until sometime at the beginning of 1981. Defender was publicly shown at the AMOA show in late September 1980, though it wasn't a standout at that time sales-wise. Even if Defender didn't have financial hit yet, if could have been inspiring other games in progress. Did Stern change Berzerk after the AMOA show, or where they already aware of the Defender through the grapevine? Two months seems like it might be enough to make the change. On the other hand, given Defender's long development time, McNeil or other Stern people were in the same community as the Midway people and might be have been aware of Defender.

Man Pac, I've been haunted by that scene in Superman 2 since i saw it in the movies as a child😨 i never heard of this game, but i immediately thought of Robo-tron and Smash TV which both i own. 💪

I can just hear Arnold say "Happy Little Games" in his Terminator voice.

Excellent coverage of a classic arcade game by the Patman! Berzerk is arguably my favorite game of all time. I had the Atari 2600 version as a kid and had both the arcade upright (which suffered a fatal calamity while being put into storage) and a cocktail table version. Sadly you won't see a lot of Berzerk and Frenzy games these days because the on-board battery Stern used for memory retention can damage the main CPU board. Fortunately there is a JAMMNA replacement board available so with a little rewiring they can be brought back to life. NOTE No.1: There exists an authorized cabaret version of Berzerk that was manufactured by Stern's distributor in Australia. NOTE NO.2: There are two deaths (in)directly attributed to the Berzerk game located at Friar Tuck's arcade in Calumet City Illinois. The first death (Peter Bukowski) you mentioned but a second death involving that same machine several years later occurred supposedly a fight over between two guys fighting over quarters left on the bezel to "reserve" a game. [For clarification I shall refer to the participants as "attacker" and "victim"] The attendant on duty kicked both of them out and attempted to send them in different directions to avoid further trouble. The victim didn't heed the attendant's directions and went the same way as the attacker who ambushed him and stabbed the victim to death. P.S. AFAIK the current fate of this Berzerk machine is unknown at this time.

0:14 I like how happy you make the robot menace sound. 🙂

If I remember correctly, Alan McNeil's name on the cabinet art is one of the first times designers were publically recognized for their work in Arcade games.

Great game, we used to play the hell out of this on the 2600. Still to this day have not been able to complete the 'neck through' shot move.

Wow. This took me back to my childhood. I remember this other arcade game that was similar to Berzerk called Robotron.

My first introduction to this was the Dragon 32 version, which was sadly omitted from the video. It played really well and I still play it today from time to time. Like most arcade games on the Dragon, it was a clone and not officially licensed (going by the name of Berserk instead of Berzerk), but played identically to the arcade.1

Awesome vid!!!

Loved this game in the arcade with the voice synthesis. Also liked the 2600, and the clone Krazy Shoot Out for the Atari 400/800.

I would say that Berzerk is my favorite game on Atari 2600, I liked it so much that I even did a painting of the game on canvas =)

I frickin’ love that commercial!

I remember playing this occasionally when I was a kid but I never really connected it with the Berserker series because I usually think of the Berserkers as spacecraft.

I just loved this game and I would get so full of myself at times. I have it where the blasts would go between my neck and body. My friends would go: “you are so brave.”

Whenever a robot gets killed in the Atari 2600 version, it becomes a palette swapped Evil Otto before vanishing...

Evil Otto scared me as a child. I never knew when he’d pop up.

There were clones, and for the MSX, there was Robot Wars, by Aacko Soft.

The Intellivision home video console version of this game was Night Stalker, which had robots with different powers and spiders and bats.

Samples of 'Humanoid' and 'Intruder Alert' was also used in the classic acid house tune Humanoid by Stakker

the joystick bit got my chuckling LOL