I've mastered Slow Bullets, time to learn Fast Bullets!

I have not updated this blog in a while because I haven't been playing Berzerk recently. I played so much Berzerk slow bullets and so much Frenzy, and with competing against Joel West at a Berzerk slow bullets competition at the Kong Off II in Denver, Colorado at the 1-UP Barcade, I was just spent.

Since I got Berzerk, my first arcade machine, its has been my most played machine and my favorite machine as well. I started playing fast bullets as that was the game that came in the machine. In two months of playing fast bullets, my best score was 15,050 points. In March Joel West found me a set of slow bullets EPROMs for my machine and I stopped playing fast bullets. I went on to get the 199,860 in slow bullets and then focused on Frenzy but I never got back to playing fast bullets and honestly that was huge mistake.

I have to thank Alan McNeil for creating such a wonderful game, if I ever get a chance to meet him in person I just want to thank him for making 3 absolutely wonder arcade games.

A couple of days ago I was called by my friend Marcus and was told he got 22,650 in Berzerk fast bullets which is a fantastic score, and much better than any fast bullets score I have ever gotten personally.

My high score at the time of that phone call was 18,520 I believe. I decided, with some suggestions on a joint webcast from Joel and Marcus that I wasn't able to put up that kind of score, I decided to prove them wrong, and told them I would stream that night starting at 8pm.

I believe my first 4 games were all in the 15K range. I then played two horrible games and then finally my game came. I started to really figure out how to attack the fast bullet robots. I achieved a score of 22,070 points! I didn't beat Marcus' score of 22,650, but I finally broke a long time achievement, I had gotten over 20K in fast bullets Berzerk, something I was beginning to think would never happen.

After the game I turned off the stream and I talked for about an hour with Joel West about the theory of playing fast bullets and also the excitement I felt for getting a new personal best. The last thing Joel told me before I got off the phone with him was that I should play one more game and that is what I did.

I had the game of my life in fast bullets Berzerk, even though my joystick locked up on me 3 times causing 3 of my deaths, I had the best game of fast bullets Berzerk ever. I achieved a score of 25,720! I broke my high score twice in one night and I can't remember the last time I had this much excitement about playing Berzerk.

I do feel bad, I don't feel I have pushed myself as hard as I should be in slow bullets, I really need to go back and analysis my game of 199,860 and see what I can do to push my score past 200K.

So as of right now I'm waiting on another joystick to come to replace the joystick I have in the machine. I will try to post more updates to this blog as I learn more about this wonder game called Berzerk!

I also want thank everyone that has read this blog of mine on my journey through learning and mastering Berzerk! I also want to thank all the wonderful friends I have made as well because of this game!

Joel West sets a new WR in Frenzy 5,308,468 points

Joel West, one of the people from Chasing Ghost that got me into arcade gaming, not only set a new record in Frenzy, but streamed one of the most intense games of Frenzy the world has ever watched. Joel was able to break is own world record with a score of 5,308,468 points after just over 48 hours of game play! Congratulations!

The went down hill around the 29 hour mark when the VFB-1000 board started to fail, yet he was still able to carry the game another 19 hours set a new world record! Simply amazing! Joel my friend congratulations!

The Quest for a Million points in Frenzy!

So I've decided to give myself a break from Slow Bullets Berzerk and switch what I'm going to be focusing on. Instead of focusing on Fast Bullets Berzerk, I've decided to focus on Frenzy instead! And what a journey already!

In the course of 3 nights I upped my high score from 30K, to 83K to over 300K! Its been a amazing couple of exciting nights of streaming Frenzy. I now can get to 100K easily, the biggest problem I run into now is time, I have to go to bed for work or I'm just too tired to stay awake to play a long game.

I'm hoping to break 500K tonight and maybe 1,000,000 points this weekend, its just figuring out a time that I will be able to do it!

Super Mega Angry Robot Destroyer Show!

Hey everyone! Its been a couple of weeks since I last posted here, my personal life has been really crazy. I just started a new job and I moved to another state hence my absence!

As you can see from the title of this post, I've changed the title of my broadcast on twitch.tv to "Super Mega Angry Robot Destroyer Show!" which was a name given to me by Zaz_cag! I love the name so I'm going to keep it!

I played a round of slow bullets last night and had a several people to show up and watch which was awesome! I ended up getting 102,770 points which now means I've broken 100,000 points in Berzerk RC28 Slow Bullets 5 times now.

The one thing I did notice last night watching my game-play was that the video was bouncing like crazy so I'm going to see if can fix that tonight so the video isn't bouncing nearly as much! Hopefully I'll play another round tonight!

RecordSetter and Twin Galaxies verified my 199,860 point game of Berzerk!

Well tonight was a great night for me! My 199,860 point game of Berzerk that I accomplished on July 4, 2012 this year has been verified by both RecordSetter and Twin Galaxies. Here is a screenshot I took of my score on Twin Galaxies Website:

And here is a screen shot from my record on RecordSetter:

Even though I have the #2 and #1 spots respectively on Twin Galaxies and Record Setter, I'm aiming to break that score, I want to break 200,000 points. That is my next goal for myself!

To pattern or not to pattern? That is the question!

OK cheesy title I know! Some of you might be wondering why I would even consider trying a pattern especially considering that my last post I got my best score ever in Berzerk.

Why is really the best question for me to answer. It's because I'm curious. I love Berzerk so I want to know everything about it and after trying my hand at it tonight I can say with certainty that I doubt I will EVER depend on a pattern to get a new high score in Berzerk.

I tried several pattern games tonight and I just couldn't stand it, it took all the fun out of the game for me, I didn't realize until tonight that the major enjoyment I get out of the game was from NOT knowing what was going to come next.

Now to anyone reading this, please don't think I'm slamming people that use a pattern to get scores in Berzerk, I'm not! Personally I believe they should be tracked differently, but that is another conversation for another time.

For myself, I just can't do it, it takes the fun out of the game for me, knowing what is going to be coming next. Give me free play/random play any day! I'll break 200,000 points soon! It's just a matter of time!

My 199,860 point game of Berzerk video!

I just set a new high score in Berzerk! 199,860!

Until today, the highest score in Berzerk RC28 slow bullets without using a pattern was 178,500 points set by Ron Bailey in 1982. I achieved a score of 199,860 points! 140 points away from 200,000 points!

I'm working on uploading the entire game footage now to youtube! I average 40,000 points a man, and that is almost exactly what I got on each mine, right at 40,000 points. I wanted to break 200,000 but I made a mistake and the 2 o'clock angle shot over a wall killed me, but still what a fantastic game!

The other great thing about this game was I almost doubled my previous high score of 110,930 points. When I got past 110,930 points, I was still on my 3rd man at that point! I'll post again once I have the video uploaded to youtube!

I meet another Berzerker!

Earlier this month I took some vacation from work, hence why I haven't been posting updates. While I was away on my vacation I got the opportunity to meet one of the best Berzerker's in the world, Joel West!

This a picture of me on the left and Joel on the right the day we meet at his home in North Carolina. Joel and I first chatted when he was streaming video of himself playing Berzerk on his twitch tv account, JoelWestGamer, back in February of this year. He was playing a couple of rounds of fast bullets Berzerk while chatting with the people in the chat room at the same time.

Since that first stream, I tried to watch and learn every time Joel streamed. Sometimes I was getting up very earlier in the morning to watch him play for just 40 minutes, but I never wanted to miss an opportunity to learn something about the game I love from someone who has been playing it for 30 years.

Though I am now focused on the first version of the game, RC28 slow bullets, at that time I was still playing fast bullets Berzerk.  I was able to significantly increase my RC31 fast bullets score from watching Joel play. After watching him stream one time, I was able to increase my personal best score in fast bullets from 11,540 points to 12,480 points, almost a 1,000 point increase. After watching a couple more streams, I was able to get a score 15,050 a few weeks later. Though none of these scores are "amazing", I was learning and improving, but more importantly I was having fun!

It was shortly after that I got a set of RC28 slow bullets and shifted my focus away from fast bullets Berzerk. Slow bullets and fast bullets Berzerk are completely different, however several strategies and techniques to clear a room remain the same, so I continued to watch and learn from Joel.

As some of you might have noticed, in every single game of Berzerk I play now, if I break 43,000 points I make a comment about playing a "respectable game of Berzerk". This comes from Joel West. I was watching him stream one night, and during his game he asked if I broken my high score in slow bullets, which at the time was 42,880 points. I said no in the chat window. About 10 ~ 15 minutes later Joel broke 30,000 in his game of fast bullets Berzerk, an achievement in and of itself, when he said the following "I alway feel I have played a respectable game of Berzerk when I break 30,000 points. For slow bullets, a respectable game is 43,000 points"

Joel did not say this with malice but to motivate me which he said about a minute later on his stream. Though it was funny on the stream, Joel was at that moment living one of his favorite sayings "Iron sharpens iron!' I needed that push, I had been stuck at the 42,880 for about a week at that point and I think it was a day or two later I got 51,540 points in Berzerk.

Since that game Joel and I have been pushing each other to keep playing better at our versions of Berzerk, RC 28 slow bullets for me and RC31 fast bullets for Joel. Whenever we watch each other stream, we even comment on weither or not we've played "respectable" games of Berzerk that night.

Back to my visit with Joel, oddly enough when I went to meet and visit with Joel, his machine was set to play Frenzy. Joel was playing on my Frenzy PCB actually which I had lent him a couple of weeks earlier when he couldn't get his Frenzy board working correctly. Why you might ask? Because playing Frenzy will drastically improve you Berzerk skills, regardless if its slow bullets or fast bullets. In Frenzy  you have to focus on some many more things going on around you that the game forces you to learn to observe your surrounds even more than you do in Berzerk.

 I think we played a couple of rounds, never a 2 player game, Joel was just showing me all kinds of things he had learned about Frenzy over the years. The most impressive thing I saw Joel do while I was there was play Frenzy one handed and he still played way better than I am able too! During my short visit, we shared things we have learned about Berzerk and Frenzy. It was great being able to collaborate with another Berzerker who knew so much about game, and to share with Joel somethings about the game he hadn't seen or knew before.

Joel is great gamer, but more importantly a good friend that continues to push my gameplay in Berzerk. I look forward to learning and competing with Joel in the future. Maybe sometime later this year Joel and I will be able to play a 2 player game of slow bullets Berzerk on the same machine on a live stream. I'll do fast bullets and Frenzy at some point . . . once it would be a fair competition! Trust me when I say this, even with Joel only playing with one hand, regardless if its Joel's dominate playing hand or not, he he still out of league in those RC31 fast bullets and Frenzy! In Slow Bullets, I think I have a chance!

Horrible beginning with an amazing finish! The story of 104,250 point game!

I consider this an amazing achievement. I got 104,250 on Berzerk slow bullets tonight. I did this live with Simpsons99, MuscleFitness, Marky_D and my wife all watching!!!

The game started out horrible. Lost my first life at 1,500 points, okay no big deal, the previous game I got 51,150 points so I'm not worried, I got this so I keep on playing. 

I lost my second life at 2,840 points!!! Okay now I'm worried, I haven't made it to 3,000 points yet, I have no more lives. At this point I don't even blame people from leaving the stream. However my friend Simpson99 tells me to keep on going and I tell him I'm going to give him a good game of Berzerk.

So I'm at 2,840 with no lives left and an uphill battle ahead of me. Simpsons99 starts calling out goals for me, 5K, 10K, 15K, 20K. I keep getting making them, 25K, 30K, 40K. 

At 43,000 points I smile to myself, I've played a respectable game of Berzerk and I'm still on my third man, I've got two lives left, so now my stress level has decreased.

Simpsons99 calls out 45K, 50K, 55K, 60K, 65K. Okay at 60K something special was happening, by now my wife is on the stream watching, Simpsons99, and MuscleFitness are watching cheering me on to keep going. 

At 66,540 points I missed a critical shot that gets me killed. I went over 63K on my third man! 

Simpsons99 calls out 70K, I get it though shortly there after I lose my fourth man at 71,620 points.

At this point I believe my wife comes downstairs and starts watching behind me. Simpsons99 starts calling out scores for me to hit again, 75K, 80K, 85K, 90K, 95K. At this point me wife is struggling to contain her excitement, all three people watching me dodge and shot laser bolts like crazy as I try to keep the game alive. 

Around 98k I had a difficult room where I almost die. During this time I run into two rooms that have only 2 robots in them. I survive both. 

Finally I get to 100,000 points, I'm too focused to really realize it, but the chat window is going crazy and my wife is there AGAIN to witness me break 100,000 points in person, the only two times I have ever done so! The game ends at 104,250 because I don't duck low enough under a shot. I had one of the single worst starts ever for me in Berzerk slow bullets and pulled out the second best game I have ever played. 

Big shout out to Simpson99 for pushing me via the chat window after I died the first two times. He keep setting new scores for me to hit, 5K, 10k, 15K, 20K, and just kept going and going. Also a huge thanks to my wife and MuscleFitness for staying with me during tonights journey!

-Grant

Berzerk ist im Haus!

So I've got a SLEW of speech boards from when I was trying to get my first Berzerk machine to have working speech. I spent I think 6 weeks working on it. During that time I bought every single Berzerk VSU-1000 speech board I could get my hands on.

Well the problem turned out to be a wiring issue and not a board issue. Once I did that, I had 6 speech boards, turned out 4 were good and 2 were bad . . . or at least I thought two were bad.

Well I was going back over my stash of Berzerk stuff and decided to test the two dead boards again, one just does nothing, so yeah its dead. The other boots up and some strange noise comes through the speaker but this time I kind of recognize it. Same as last time. I just thought something on the board was bad.

Decided to play a game with it. The board is good, there is nothing wrong with it. Its just in GERMAN!!!!

I don't know if this is original, I can't remember WHERE I bought it from, but I dumped the roms with my Batronix BX32 programmer and did a rom compare with MAME to the German Berzerk set and sure enough it was a perfect match!!!!

So somehow I ended up with a German VSU-1000. Not sure how I managed that, but I really don't even know if its original or if someone before me put the german roms on it, but I think its just about the neatest thing in the world!!!

Decided to play with the German VSU-1000 tonight and on my second game I was able to achieve a score of 68,460 points, my 3rd highest score ever! Also it had the added benefit of knocking off my only score that was in the 50,000 off my high score list!

Had a great game tonight even though my stream cut off in the middle of my broadcast for some reason, never seen that happen before! It really freaked my out! I need to figure out why that happened. I'll post video of the german speaking Berzerk game soon!

Berzerk Update and latest Berzerk related finds!

Well after my 110,930 point game I stopped playing Berzerk for a while because of work and other stuff going on in my life. Finally I'm getting back into the swing of things, and I finally seem to have my Berzerk machine working again, been fighting some monitor issues that have been annoying. 

Quick update on the list of new Berzerk related materials I've found and acquired!

A prototype ZZPU (Zuper ZPU) #2/3!

I haven't gotten the board working yet, its got to be something minor, the thing looks brand new!

Also I got another interesting toy in the mail, this one from ebay! I got a Berzerk ZPU-1000 logic board that has been modified rather extensively to play Frenzy!!! I've not been able to find any information on this mod, and who originally developed it. 

I've confirmed that it plays Frenzy and it works well, and I'm glad I got it! If you have any more information on this board please let me know!

Finally got around to playing some slow bullets again in the last week, I've had 3 games in the mid 40K range and last night I had a game that I believe ended right at 54K, not too bad. Still making some mistakes that I need to learn not to do, most importantly don't attempt the 2 o'clock angle shot . . . it only has about a 50% success rate and is my most common mistake I make. 

Berzerk Slow Bullets 110,930 points!!!

I did it! It took just under 2 months of playing slow bullets Berzerk, but I was able to achieve a score OVER 100,000 points, I got 110,930 points in Berzerk RC28 slow bullets tonight! Here is the entire game from booting the machine till the very end when I stopped broadcasting!

Here is a picture of my new high score of 110,930 points!

Now for the interesting points about the game! The game lasted almost exactly 1 hour and 20 minutes. I went on my 4th man from 32,840 points to 105,840 points! Thats 73,000 points exactly! If I could have gone just 1,060 more points I would have gotten my previous high score on one man!

The game started out rough, I made two really horrible mistakes early on in the game and one point I even said "Ugh I'm not going to break my record on this run!" Wow how did I prove myself wrong.

This game was special to me for several reason. First my son woke up while I was playing and wanted to come say good night to me in the middle of the game. I even asked my wife if I should turn the game off but she said no, and you can hear him saying the various phrases the game says in the background.


Second my wife was able to be there with me when I broke 100,000 points, that is something I will always have to treasure for the rest of my life! When I broke 100,000 the first time, she was with me and that meant the world to me!

I was very happy with the ending of the game. I didn't die on a mistake, though going back and looking at the video I might have been able to escape the last maze I was in, to me it was an unbeatable room.

Now I have my sights set even higher! The current world record for Berzerk slow bullets done with random play, not the highest score ever, is 178,500 points! That is the score I want to beat! My next goal now is to get to 150,000 points with random play!

Berzerk slow bullets highlights from April 30th, 2012

Decided to try my hand at making a highlight reel of my game play. Two days ago I played 3 games of Berzerk slow bullets. I was able to pull off some amazingly close calls and even escape death! Check it out!

Interesting information and a new joystick!

I replaced the joystick that was in my RC28 slow bullets machine yesterday! A new Wico, which I found out the old one was not a wico, and I was streaming again tonight. Had a great game, my first man went just shy of 40,000 points, however being tired and not having slept well last night caught up to me. I managed to achieve a score of 60,000 points even which I'm actually happy with, however I need to fix some of my mistakes to break the 100,000 point barrier.

On a different note I found out the following informaion about my machine when I fixed the service switch today!

I've played my RC28 Slow Bullets machine for just over 32 hours in the last 6 weeks, score over 2,636,170 points across 216 games. I'd say about 30 of those game are bogus as I was testing joysticks, or letting my kids play.

I did order a replacement joystick shaft today, my old joystick had a 4" long shaft that I got use to using and the Wico I installed is only 3.5" so I fell like I'm holding the joystick funny. Don't know if that will help my scores or not but we'll see.

One amazing highlight in my game tonight!

Had a short night of playing Berzerk tonight, my joystick stopped working on me because of a bad solder on the down leaf switch, however I did pull of an amazing dodge of two angle shots tonight! Here's the video:

I felt like the entire time I played tonight I was having difficulty aiming my shots and moving my humanoid. Honestly I thought I was just tired! I'm relieved to find out the solder broke on the leaf switch, its a simple fix but that ends my night of gaming! I look forward to playing more Berzerk tomorrow night!

Got Evil Otto to pounce on my old high score! 74,060 points tonight!

I had an amazing game of Berzerk R28 slow bullets tonight. I achieved a score of 74,060 points, just destroying my previous high score of 58,230! Here's the almost hour long video of me playing! Warning at the end I'm very loud with my celebration! I tried to focus on the game and not the score which turned out to be some amazing advice. When the game finally ended I didn't have a clue as to what my score was!

Also on an interesting note I encountered the empty maze twice tonight in slow bullets and survived both encounters! I also played a round of fast bullets Berzerk tonight and ended the night with playing a couple of rounds of Frenzy. Overall I had a wonderful time playing Berzerk and Frenzy tonight.

Rough night but still got a new high score of 58,230!

By the time I got around to playing Berzerk tonight I was honestly too tired to be playing. I didn't sleep all that well last night and I could tell it was taking a toll on me tonight. I had 3 games where my final score was under 10,000 points.

However that being said, I had one game that was amazing. I achieved a score of 58,230 points. I played the entire game very well except for my last man, I had only been playing with that man for about 5,000 points and I died in just the dumpest of ways. I missed a critical shot that I couldn't afford to miss and ultimately that was my downfall.

I'm confident that a 75,000 point game of Berzerk will happen in the near future and furthermore a 100,000 is beginning too look like a serious possibility.

I want to say one more thing about Berzerk tonight. I truly love this game. I was too tired to play the game seriously tonight, but that doesn't change the amount of fun and enjoyment I had playing Berzerk tonight.

The game constantly surprises me, and I surprise myself with what I've learned and how well I'm beginning to get at this game. I'm constantly pushing to reach that next level, that next barrier to break through, which at the moment is 60K.

This games challenges you! If you stick with it, it will force you to make yourself better. I can remember the first 3 days I played slow bullets in March, I was getting 20,000 points and I was just so freaking happy about it, because at the time my high score in fast bullets was and still is 15,050 points.

Its not even May yet, and I'm on the brink of tripling that score. Watching old video's of myself playing, I can see where I've changed and adapt my strategy to allow me to get farther in the game, and I know there is still even more for me to learn.

Berzerk is hands down my favorite game of all time. I've owned many console system, computer systems, and now I can say I've owned and played a large variety of arcade machines as well, but no game will be as special to me as Berzerk.

I hope everyone has a goodnight and hopefully I'll get to play some more of this wonderful game tomorrow.

Robot Kill-Off: Training 1st night! new high score!

So last night was my first night of training for the upcoming event "The Great Berzerk Robot Kill-Off 2012". My goal is to be able to get around 100,000 points in Berzerk RC28 slow bullets by the time the competition starts in 63 days. Last night I played several games however my last game was my best. I achieved a score of 55,010 points.

I'm confident that I'll reach my goal, I just need to continue to train so I'm going to try playing Berzerk everyday! 

Berzerk ran out of robots?

Tonight I caught something on camera that I didn't think I would ever see again! I exited a room and the following room had no robots in the maze, I ran like crazy for the bottom exit escaping before Evil Otto could take his revenge! Here's the clip of the empty robot room!

I would not say this is a glitch, if I had to guess this is done by a random number generator that dictates the number of robots that are in a room. This is a very cool and terrifying thing to see in person!

The Great Robot Kill-off: 2012

Joel West - "Start Practicing for THE GREAT ROBOT KILL-OFF: 2012. You have 64 days to train in all variations of Berzerk. Official Rules will be available by 4/30/12...start playing Berzerk!"

Went Berzerk and jumped into the Frenzy!

I decided to switch things up a little bit and I put my Frenzy ZPU-1001 board into my Slow Bullets Berzerk machine for a little while. Talk about a completely different game. I love Frenzy, everything is going on at once, you see a Mama Otto and there are WAY more robots on the screen all at once as well. A truly great game, but I'm really no good at it yet, but I hope to get better!

After playing about 30 minutes of Frenzy, I turned off my machine and put my Berzerk ZPU-1000 slow bullets board back into the machine. Whats interesting however is I found myself playing the best 4 games of Berzerk back to back to back that I've done in a long time. I was also able to get on my top 5 again last night with a score of 43,900 points! I feel like I'll be able to break into the 50,000 again soon with some more practice!

Witnessed one of the coolest things ever tonight playing Berzerk!

Well I had a productive and fun evening tonight. I setup my streaming account on Twitch TV. The url to my account is www.twitch.tv/disjaukifa. Played a couple of games of RC28 slow bullets Berzerk tonight and just had some fun, I haven't played in a while and I almost broke onto my top 5 scores!

I did see something tonight that I doubt I will ever see again. On my second game of Berzerk, I was at 4,880 points with one robot left in the room. I was at the exit for the maze, and I used Evil Otto to finish kill the last robot like I normally try to do. That worked, however right as Otto killed the last remaining robot, he went into a super slow-motion bounce! I've never seen or heard of this before and it was one of the neatest things I have ever seen.

Some people will say pictures or it didn't happen . . . I've got video!

My high score for the night was 39,620 points. My wrist is still healing but it felt great to play some Berzerk again!

Still here trying to kill some robots and now Evil Otto!

So its been 16 days since my last post. I haven't been able to play as much Berzerk as I like because of a wrist injury thats healing at the moment. I did however get my final machine in my Berzerk collection, I now have what I consider the complete trio of games Stern Frenzy! I got the machine disassembled so I'm working on getting the machine back together at the moment, here is what it currently looks like.

I currently have everything out of the Frenzy and I'm currently in the process of getting all the boards working and getting a cabinet side wiring harness made for the Frenzy. The monitor works very well and looks stunning, however the BSC-1000 was bad and the 3 spares I had gotten in varies trades are all bad as well so I'm waiting for another one to come in. 

Hoping to finish painting the Frenzy this week and possible get the machine assembled sometime next week. Here is another picture of the chaos that is my arcade room at the moment:

I did play a little bit of Berzerk yesterday but I was too tired when I did it and I didn't even break 10,000 on slow bullets. Looking to play some more tonight if I get a chance! I need to break 20,000 tonight, its been too long since I have! 

Fixied my machine and played a couple of games!

Just got back from a week long vacation which I desperately needed and enjoyed! Did something to my Berzerk RC28 slow bullets that I should have done when I first got it, I fixed the Wico joystick and got rid of the X-Arcade microswitch joystick that I had in the machine, and boy what a difference that has made. Now I see why people love their Wico joysticks so much! It's so much quieter!

I've played a couple of game of Berzerk since switching joysticks and all my scores have been averaging to about 33,000 points at the moment. I got one score over 40,000, but I can't remember what it was off the top of my head.

I'm going to be busy this week and weekend so I don't know how much Berzerk I'll playing this week but I'll try to get in at least one game a night! I'll post the videos of my two best most recent games once I get them uploaded to youtube!

Insomnia statistics on my 51,430 game

Well for whatever reason I'm awake at the moment so I figured I'd share some statistics I'd figured out about my latest high scoring game of Berzerk:

1st Man - 0 to 11,110 = 11,110 pts
2nd Man - 11,110 to 23,910 = 12,800 pts
3rd Man - 23,910 to 24,690 = 550 pts
4th Man - 24,690 to 41,560 = 16,870 pts
5th Man - 41,560 to 51,430 = 9,870 pts


Close calls
14,630 - almost killed by Otto!

That's it for now!

51,430 points on Berzerk RC28 slow bullets

It took way longer to upload than I thought but here is my game where I achieved 51,430 points! To date this was probably the best game of Berzerk I've ever played!

I achieved my first goal . . . I broke 50K.

I decided to play one last game because I noticed I was getting better and better at Berzerk. On my final game I got 51,430 points. Such a difficult and challenging game. I'm going to try posting the video though I think it might be way too long. The game lasted right at 38 minutes. Here is a screen shot of my high score list:

Still searching for the end of the maze!!!!

Just a quick update! Been working on getting both my Berzerk cabinets up, running and I finally finished! I now have a Berzerk slow bullets cabinet and a Berzerk fast bullets cabinet.

Been playing some rounds of slow bullets tonight, I can get to 20K every game now and if I'm not making stupid mistakes, I can get to 30K. I've still only broken 40K once. I'll post again later if I break my 42,660 points!

RC28 vs RC31 . . . two very different games of Berzerk

I've decided to shift my focus for now to the original version of the game Berzerk which people have dubbed "RC28" as that was the ROM version label on the original ROMs on the ZPU-1000 logic board.

In a way there are 3 games in the Berzerk trilogy, or at least that is how I see it.

1st. Berzerk RC28 (Slow Bullets) <-- The original version of the game as it was intended. The robots are in a way are not your enemy but more your allie in a strange sense as you need them to be on the screen after 5,000 points to be able to escape Evil Otto.

2nd. Berzerk RC31 (Fast Bullets) <-- In a sense I now consider this a sequel. While the graphics, game play mechanics are virtually the same, I've played both versions enough to know they are really two different games. In a sense I consider RC31 Berzerk a sequel which is a great game but the mechanics are different enough that I consider it different. Evil Otto you never really have to worry about, he is more just there to keep the game moving and the robots are the real villains in the game now.

3rd. Frenzy <-- This one is interesting, in a way it is a true combination of the above games. You have the variety of the robots from the RC31 version of the game with the sense of being overwhelmed from RC28. Though I haven't played this game that much, its a fantastic game.

My goal is 50,000 in slow bullets RC28 of Berzerk . . . I'm getting really close:

Slow Bullets of Terror

I recently acquired a set of RC28 EPROMs of Berzerk. This was the original version of Berzerk. There are actually two version of Berzerk! RC28 and RC31. RC28 designates the "slow bullets" version of Berzerk where the robots will never fire back at you at the speed at which you fire at them. However the game has one major difference. At 5,000 points, Evil Otto doubles in speed and you can not get away from him once you have cleared all the robots in the maze. Also there are only 3 types of robots, yellow, red and cyan.

In RC31, fast bullets, Evil Otto's speed never increases, which makes it so you can always run away from him as long as you can keep going on the horizontal. Also on the RC31 version there are many more robot combination, the ones I hate the most the light cyan ones at 10,000 points! At 7,500 in the RC31 version you hit the fast bullets stage where the robots shot at the same speed that you shoot at them.

When I got my Berzerk machine in January of this year, it came with the RC31 roms which is the more common version of the game that everyone has played.

I've spent weeks looking for the slow bullets set and was finally able to find a set and here are my finds! My scores are easily higher than my fast bullets scores, easily. I've only played slow bullets today, but my high score is 20,200 and I'm getting to 15K+ every game.

However I found RC28 slow bullets version of the game more terrifying. I dread Otto saying "Intruder Alert!" because I know I can't out run him. I'm having to selectively attack the robots on the screen where as before I just shot the robots immediately around me. I know if only 2 ~ 3 robots appear on the screen I don't have time to shot them, I have to run for closest exit with extreme haste.

Don't get me wrong I love the slow bullets version it's a fantastic version of the game, but I found it gives me more gripping gameplay, and because I'm worried about Otto appearing, I find I make really dumb mistakes when trying to clear the robots on the screen.

I remember reading they changed the game because people said it was too difficult and I found that difficult to believe, but having played both versions, I wouldn't say its more difficult, but I would say the game level of intensity is more gradual in the RC31 fast bullets version compared to the RC28 slow bullets version.

As to which one is my favorite, I don't know yet, I have a love for RC31 fast bullets as it was the first version I played, but there are aspects of RC28 slow bullets that are great as well. I wish there had been a third version that kind of meshed the two together, all the various color robots from RC31 but leave the bullet speed the same with the speed of Evil Otto in RC28!

Coin detected in pocket!!!

Minus the weather, today has been a great day. Spent 3 hours tonight switching out wiring harnesses, control panel parts and board set drawer however that now means I have a fully working Berzerk machine including speech! Only played one game and the speech was actually making me jumpy in the game so I lost a couple of lives very quickly but I still achieved a score of 11,480. Not my best but certainly not my worst!

Analysis of my 11,490 point game on 2/24/2012

Here is the video of my game play for this analysis.

While I took some risks, I didn't make my first mistake until after I cleared a room with a total score 8,700 at around 8:04 minutes into the video. I got to 5,000 points without losing a life and I stayed focused, mostly, and didn't lose any lives through 8,700 points.

1. Mistake 1 - At 8:24 minutes into the video is where I make what I consider a dumb mistake. I was trying to take out the robot that was in the open box as I call it in the middle of the room when Otto appeared. In trying to both avoid Otto and get him to kill the last robot left on the screen I managed to get myself killed.  The correct solution would have been after we both shot in the same place, would have been to head back to the left and either shot the robot or cause the robot to run into the wall and then run for the exit. 
2. Mistake 2 - At 10:03 minutes into the video I let Otto just get inside my head. I had plenty of time to shot and run upwards, or duck for a .5 second longer and used the wall to my advantaged, but I switched my focus to Otto which resulted in my death from the robot. 
3. Mistake 3 -  At 10:27 minutes into the video I was spending to much time watching where my bullet went instead of moving my humanoid out of the line of fire. Having watched this segment of video several times the correct move would have been to move down a little to avoid the incoming bullet from my right, taken out the robot directly below me, then gone back up and taken care of the robot that was infront of me. From there clearing the hallway would have not been that difficult. 
4. Mistakes 4 and 5 - I made the same mistake on both which ultimately ended my game. I was moving upwards when I should have moved downwards. Its easier to hit the robots that are on your horizontal when you are slightly below them, it gives you the smallest possible target for them to hit if you can not get directly above or below them. 

The first two mistakes I made should be easily corrected on my part, however when dealing with open hallways and several enemy robots, it needs to become just pure instinct to dodge and duck, if I can survive the initial on wave of shots from the robots I should be ok. 

Going to try something new here . . .

I know I still haven't posted my game videos from February 24th, but I had an idea tonight on how I was going to do it. Currently my Berzerk cabinet has been moved as I'm finishing my basement and my arcade room at the same time, I'm not good a drywalling at all, so I haven't played since Friday, so instead every night I'm going to analyze one video and point out all my mistakes that I made in that video.

Hopefully I will have the first video from my games on the 24th posted soon!

Rough night with the Blue Robots . . .

Just a quick update. I played 8 games of Berzerk tonight, 5 of which I achieved scores higher than 10,000 points. My best score of the night was 13,420 points, 1,630 less than my high score of 15,050. The blue robots after 10,000 points tonight were my struggling point. I'll post the videos of my games tomorrow!

Well last night ended up being a great night. I broke my high score twice last night. My old high score was 13,640. The first time I broke my high score I achieved a score of 14,600. After analyzing my 14,600 game for mistakes, I played couple more games and then achieved a score 15,050.

Here is the video of my 14,600 game:

Here is the video of my last game where I achieved 15,050 points. I did several things in this game I had never done before. I was able to get to 10,000 points without losing any lives, and I had my first neck shot with the fast bullets robots.

Just a quick update. Found a way to record my gameplay so I'm going to try to start recording my gameplay at least once a week so I can share what I have figured out and so I can study my gameplay to see where I'm making my mistakes and where I can improve.

Noticed tonight that Evil Otto popped out on me really quickly once I got to the fast robots and I'm not sure that was suppose to happen. Going to have to ask someone about that. Could just be my boards doing something funky!

Hello! My name is Grant and this is my blog where I plan on documenting my progress of mastering the game of Berzerk. I'm writing this blog for two reasons, to help me keep track of my progress and to hopefully give in-sights to others that are wanting to learn how to play Berzerk better.

I've been playing the arcade version of Berzerk for about a month now. On the fast bullets version of Berzerk I can get to 7500 usually with only losing one life, which I need to fix. Once I get to the fast bullet robots I can usually get to 10K before I lose all my lives at around 10K ~ 12K. Currently my high score is 13,640. 

My goal is by the end of March to be able to get to 20,000 points.

Please expect this blog to change in terms of layout, I'll be making adjustments as I get time! Thanks for looking and I will be giving another update soon!