Clones & Ports of Stern's Berzerk 1980
This article is concerned with clones and ports of Stern Electronics' Berzerk and/or Exidy's Targ coinop of 1980 that have appeared on Western home computer game machines.
The original Berzerk coinop was designed by Alan McNeil.
Berzerk-likes are defined by me as shoot 'em ups that feature 4-way or 8-way single-unit movement and firing in a maze-like killzone presented on a fixed-screen, flip-screen or scrolling playfield. In true Berzerk-likes a life is lost by coming into contact with the walls of mazes, which are electrified or otherwise lethal.
The article is only concerned with Berzerk clones and ports that appeared on Western home computer game machines. The clones and ports are presented chronologically.
Maze-like Berzerk games are not the same as Robotron games (open-slather) or Commando games (scrolling playfields). However, all three come under run and gun games.
Berzerk Clones
Wizard of Wor Commodore 64 1982
Commodore Electronics Ltd. ported Midway Manufacturing Company's Wizard of Wor coinop of 1980 to Commodore 64 in 1982. C64 Wizard of Wor was programmed by Jeff Bruette. Coinop Wizard of Wor was developed by Tom McHugh and Dave Nutting of Dave Nutting Associates.
A Berzerk-like, Wizard of Wor is a highly playable fixed-screen maze-shooter featuring 2-player simultaneous play, radar, smooth sprite-shifting and 4-way movement and firing.
C64 Wizard of Wor features 25 different dungeon-maze layout combinations.
C64 Wizard of Wor enemies include Burwor, Garwor, Thorwor, Worrior, Worluk and Wizard of Wor. Vanquishing such imaginatively-named enemies yields points that range from 100-2500.
Dandy Atari 8-bit 1983
Atari Program Exchange released Dandy for the Atari 8-bits in 1983. Dandy was designed and programmed by John Howard Palevich. Dandy is a Berzerk-like that lead to Gauntlet and Time Bandit of 1985.
Dandy's maze-like playfields are tile-based and presented in top-down plan view. However, objects are presented side-on. Dandy features 8-way scrolling, movement and firing of projectiles. The hardware scrolling is of arcade-quality and the gameplay is polished practically to perfection.
Dandy features single-player and up to 4-player simultaneous play.
In Dandy players control an archer wielding bow and a bottomless quiver of arrows. Players move around dungeon-mazes in tile-based increments while collecting keys to unlock doors and avoiding or shooting monsters, which are preset or spawned via monster generators.
Some Dandy monsters are two or three monsters in one, meaning that players have to hit them three times in order to vanquish them. In addition, some monsters spawn from destroyed objects. Collectibles such as cash cannot be shot through and monsters cannot pass through them.
Players can collect cash for points and food that can be kept in reserve and replenishes health when consumed. In addition, players can collect bombs that can nuke monsters or hearts of gold that can resurrect slain players.
The object of each Dandy stage is to reach the exit. Naturally, the exit is blocked by locked doors and monsters. Dandy consists of 26 stages. Food, keys, bombs and cash carry over from stage to stage.
Paradroid Commodore 64 1985
Time Bandit Atari ST 1985
MichTron of the U.K. released Time Bandit for the Atari ST in 1985. Time Bandit was developed originally for the TRS-80 in 1983 by Bill Dunlevy and Harry Lafnear. Atari ST Time Bandit is a historically significant game because it featured "hires" 2-player split-screen run and gun gameplay in 1985. Time Bandit appeared on the Amiga a full three years after ST Time Bandit.
MicroDeal of the U.K. ported MichTron's ST Time Bandit of 1985 to Amiga in 1988. Amiga Time Bandit was programmed by Tim Purves.
ST/Amiga Time Bandit features 4-way scrolling, movement and firing. The scrolling and sprite-shifting are fairly smooth. Time Bandit also features fancy screen-wipes and six saveable hiscore characters with separate stat-screens.
ST/Amiga Time Bandit features 3,000 screens of graphics over 20 different worlds consisting of 16 levels each. There are also three built-in "text adventures" to discover.
Gauntlet Commodore 64 1986
Garrison Amiga 1987
Into the Eagle's Nest Atari ST 1987
Pandora / Mindscape released Into the Eagle's Nest for Atari ST and Amiga in 1987. ST/Amiga Into the Eagle's Nest was programmed by Kevin Parker and drawn by Robin Chapman.
The object of Into the Eagle's Nest is to infiltrate the Eagle's Nest garrison fortress, free the prisoners held within, and blow up the fortress.
ST/Amiga Into the Eagle's Nest features two castles to infiltrate, two difficulty levels and four mission parameters: blow up the fortress or free 1-3 prisoners and blow up the fortress.
Into the Eagle's Nest is presented in top-down plan view. The fortress floors of ST/Amiga Into the Eagle's Nest are ~1,500 pixels in width and ~1,300 pixels in height.
In order to explore the fortress enemy soldiers need to be gunned down, cover needs to be employed, keys need to be collected to open locked doors, and ammunition and health need to be conserved.
Into the Eagle's Nest collectables include valuables and supplies. Valuables include classic painting, priceless vase, golden pendant and assorted gemstones whereas supplies include cold food, door key, ammo box and first aid.
Into the Eagle's Nest features only 4-way movement, firing and screen-scrolling. The scrolling and sprite-shifting are not smooth.
Into the Eagle's Nest Commodore 64 1987
Pandora / Mindscape released Into the Eagle's Nest for the Commodore 64 in 1987. C64 Into the Eagle's Nest was programmed by Andrew Challis and drawn by Robin Chapman. C64 Into the Eagle's Nest was almost certainly programmed with the ZX Spectrum in mind since its palette, presentation and scrolling are Speccy-like. That said, both C64 and ZX Spectrum versions of Into the Eagle's Nest are solid Berzerk-likes.
ZX Spectrum Into the Eagle's Nest was programmed by Kevin Parker:
Alien Syndrome 1988
Softek International ported Sega's Alien Syndrome coinop of 1987 to the Amiga in 1988.
Alien Syndrome is a single player or 2-player simultaneous top-down run and gun game. Alien Syndrome features 8-way scrolling, moving and firing.
The object of Alien Syndrome is to save the hostages while avoiding or gunning down mobs of infinitely respawning aliens. A super alien must be defeated after saving the hostages and reaching the exit of each stage.
Amiga Alien Syndrome consists of five time-limited stages four of which are ~1,700 pixels in width and ~1,300 pixels in height. The fifth and final stage is 320 pixels in width and ~1300 pixels in height.
Alien Syndome weapons include rifle, fireball, flame thrower, laser and bomb launcher.
Published by Sega Enterprises, Alien Syndrome was composed by David Whittaker, drawn by Tahir Rashid, and programmed by Glyn Kendall and John Jones-Steele.
Alien Syndrome was distributed on 1x 3.5" 880kB DD diskette.
Alien Syndrome Commodore 64 1988
ACE / Softek ported Sega's Alien Syndrome coinop of 1987 to the C64 in 1988. C64 Alien Syndrome was programmed by Tim Rogers, drawn by Darrin Stubbington and composed by Jeroen Kimmel.
Alien Syndrome IBM PC MS-DOS 1989
HSP / SEGA Enterprises Ltd. ported Sega's Alien Syndrome coinop of 1987 to IBM PC MS-DOS in 1989. The port is coded well and displays in 16-color EGA 320x200. PC DOS Alien Syndrome was programmed by HSP and drawn and composed by Tahir Rashid.
Robotz Atari ST 1990
Scott Williams of Project X coded Robotz for the Atari ST in 1990. Robotz consists of 42 stages and displays in 16-color 320x200. Robotz features 8-way movement, 8-way firing and sampled sounds. After the 42nd stage has been cleared Robotz wraps back around to the first stage. Robotz loads from the GEM desktop via robotz.tos.
Berzerk Ports
Berzerk Atari 8 Bit 1983
Berzerk was ported to the Atari 8 bits in 1983 by Carlos Smith & Mike Horowitz of Atari. Berzerk employs 8-way movement, 8-way firing and speech synthesis.
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