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!