Berzerk

The game

Stranded on Mazeon

You are an Earth explorer trapped on the planet Mazeon after robots destroy your spacecraft. Survival means moving through successive electrified mazes while fighting the Automazeons. Contact with either a wall or a robot is fatal, and leaving a room brings another maze rather than safety. The objective is to build the highest score before your lives run out.

A room worth clearing?

Each destroyed robot earns 50 points, regardless of what destroys it. Eliminating every robot adds a bonus of 10 points per robot, but clearing the room is not required to escape. Some unusually tough robots need two hits. As you advance, enemy movement and firing accelerate; at the sixteenth maze, movement slows again while firing remains as fast as yours. You begin with three lives.

This edition

The Atari 2600 edition

This is the original Atari 2600 release. All 12 game variations are for one player. They combine different extra-life rules with armed or unarmed robots and three possibilities for Evil Otto: absent, temporarily removable by shooting, or invincible. The console's DIFFICULTY switches have no effect; choose the game number to change the challenge.

Start here

1. Choose a gentle introduction

   Select Game 12 for your first session. Robots cannot shoot, Evil Otto stays away, and every 1,000 points earns another life. This gives you time to learn how much room you need around hazards.

2. Practice aiming before advancing

   In the opening maze, try a short movement followed by a shot, then practice changing your aim while standing still. Leave through an opening once you feel comfortable lining up a target.

3. Introduce return fire

   Next, try Game 1. It adds shooting robots without Otto, with the same extra-life threshold as Game 12. Enemy guns remain silent in the first maze, so expect the real change when you enter the second.

Original controls

These are the original game's controls. For keyboard, controller and touch settings in this player, see Controls & help.

Joystick

Use the original Atari joystick in the left controller port. Move in eight directions, including diagonals.

Red fire button

Shoot in your most recent movement direction. After game over, press it to begin again.

Fire button held + joystick

Stand still and direct your shots with the joystick.

GAME SELECT

Cycle through game numbers; hold the switch to keep cycling.

GAME RESET

Start the selected variation or restart the current game.

Playing tips

• Use cover without touching it

  Robot lasers cannot pass through walls. Shelter behind a partition, leaving enough clearance to avoid brushing it, then emerge when you have a clean shot.

• Take the diagonal

  Robots cannot fire diagonally. Approach an isolated enemy from an angle and use your own diagonal shot to attack outside its firing line.

• Finish near the exit

  Otto appears at your entry point and speeds up once the robots are gone. In variations featuring him, move away from that entrance early and arrange your final kill near another exit.

• Work the side openings

  When a maze has both left and right exits, shots fired outward through the right opening wrap around through the left. Check that returning line of fire for targets before stepping farther into the room.