Berzerk (Vectrex Game)

Berzerk is a classic game that needs no introduction. It has made appearances on nearly every vintage console and was a massive arcade hit in its day.

What made Berzerk such a novelty back in the day aside from its smooth graphics and excellent gameplay, were the synthesized robot voices that said things like "Get the humanoid, get the chicken" and my personal favorite "Chicken, fight like a robot." Voice synthesis was a very new technology when Berzerk was first released, and when these robots first spoke, it blew people's minds.

Unfortunately, the Vectrex version of Berzerk is missing most of the things that make it a great game. It doesn't have the voice synthesis (though Spike would prove that the system was capable of it), the graphics are blinky, which is what happens when the Vectrex gets too many sprites on the screen. The gameplay is considerably worse than other console versions of Berzerk. It's incredibly easy to get away from Evil Otto, which is not true of any other version of this game that I've played.

So if you take away the voice synthesis, the great graphics, and the smooth gameplay, what do you have? You have a very mediocre shooter that might as well not be named Berzerk for how dissimilar it is to the original. This game is still playable and can provide a few thrills, but if you're like me, it'll just make you want to play Berzerk on a different system (I prefer the 8-bit Atari version).