Friday, March 30, 2012

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!

Saturday, March 24, 2012

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:


Friday, March 23, 2012

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!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

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:


Thursday, March 8, 2012

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!

Friday, March 2, 2012

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!