Ports and Legacy
Berzerk was officially ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and Vectrex. The Atari 2600 version features an option in which Evil Otto could be temporarily killed (he always returns). The Atari 5200 version is the only home version to include digitized speech, though the 2600 version was hacked to include speech in 2002.
A portable version of Berzerk was planned by Coleco (similar in design to its Pac-Man, Frogger, etc. line of VFD tabletop games), but was never released.
Stern later released a similar game called Frenzy as a sequel, and a Berzerk coin-op can be converted to Frenzy simply by replacing one processor (ZPU-1000 to ZPU-1001) and installing a different game ROM. The game also served as an inspiration for later, more sophisticated games such as Castle Wolfenstein, Shamus, Robotron: 2084, and Xybots.
Milton-Bradley produced a Berzerk board game designed for two players, one playing Evil Otto and the robots, the other playing the hero. The playing pieces are plastic yellow rectangular panels that are labeled with the corresponding characters. The hero figure is differently shaped and labeled only on one side. It also has a slot in which a second piece is inserted representing the character's arms, both equipped with laser pistols. Pressing down on the back tab raises the guns and if the figure is properly positioned in the space, it knocks down a robot. Firing the weapon counts as one move.
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—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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