3200, and you are the last survivor of a small group of
Earth people who came to the planet Mazeon. Soon after landing, you discovered the planet is a dark and apparently uninhabitable place, but by then it was
too late to turn back because your spacecraft had been destroyed by Automazeons!

Now you are a prisoner here, trapped in a maze where even the walls are death to touch. Grim robot thugs known as 'Automazeons' stalk you relentlessly and you must systematically pulverise them with your laser gun before they eliminate you with theirs.

You are never safe on the planet Mazeon. Even when you've destroyed the mechanical heavies, Evil Otto, the mad and merciless mind behind the robot gangs, leaps out from where he's been observing the battle. You flee in panic because you know that you cannot kill him, and that, once he catches you, you'll never escape. He will pound you to a lifeless pulp, grinning like a maniac all the while. Your only hope is to get out of the electrified maze before Evil Otto catches you.

If you do get out, you'll find yourself in another maze. Again the faceless robots shoot at you, again Evil Otto pursues you, again you must dodge and shoot and run... in yet another maze. It's enough to drive you bonkers!

EXCLUSIVE TO THE CARTRIDGE VERSION

Several changes have been made to Berzerk Redux since the last available build (1.10):. The bitmap title screen now prompts for fire to be pressed after a five second delay.

When a maze is cleared ,the game scrolls to the next one instead of screen-flipping.

The room layout is the same if the player takes the same route through the maze, allowing for fairer competitive play.

There is a hidden "master robot room" where killing the master robot gives a huge bonus score and extra life.

The door graphics are now like the arcade rather than a crosshatch pattern.

The game also supports high-score saving to disk. When loading, the game searches any connected drives for a disk containing a save file. If none exists, the user is asked if they would like to create one, or continue
loading the game without using a save file.

CREDITS

Berzerk Redux is an RGCD/Element 114 Software production, Copyright 2009-13.

Code/Design: Martin Piper
Graphics: Zeldin/Cascade
Music (Splash Screen):Necropolo
Music (Title Screen): Richard Bayliss
Character Set: Groepaz
Box Artwork: Flemming Dupont
Testing/Manual: James Monkman
Testing/Manual: David Simmons
Cartridge Hardware: Tim Harris
NTSC Testing: Ray Lejuez

LINKS

For more information on the team involved in this C64 conversion, visit:

* www.wellytop.com/C64.html
* www.cascade64.de
* tnd64.unikat.sk
* www.rgcd.co.uk

SOURCE CODE

www.wellytop.com/C64.html

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

* A Commodore 64/128/GS (PAL/NTSC) (6581 SID Recommended).

* A joystick/joypad.

* A VDU preferably connected to a loud sound-system

Imagine a small boy in a Smokey pool hall with the bottom end of the hall full of arcade games. One of these games seems to have a man running around a room while avoiding aliens, but the thing that seems very odd is that this arcade machine is actually speaking to the players.

For me, this is a truly brilliant game, and having seen the various
development versions as the game was tweaked for release, I can only congratulate all those involved in it. I have a real love for this game, as
the intro above would suggest, and so seeing as I'm very biased towards it, I feel it's almost a travesty of justice for me to score it. I think my strong feelings will inevitably show in the scores at the end. Most people will probably dismiss the game for its crude and sparse graphics, but it's a game that you need to play to appreciate. Sadly, because the software is still
under copyright, it can't be sold; however, it can be given away, and that's what RGCD have done with the release. It's a shame that some sort of
compromise about its sale hasn't been made, however the main thing is that it exists.

My love of this game goes way back to the arcades where I played the original version, spluttering in a smokey pool hall, trying to get on the high score table. Back then I played a version on the VIC called AMOK (more about this later as I review this VIC-20 classic - yes I am more biased to the VIC
version than any other!)

WHAT IS IT?

Basically, you are on screen with various obsticles to hide behind, and
various exits to get out the room; however, there are robots that will home in and try to kill you. You have to kill them first, shooting them all to gain a bonus. Hang around too long, and you face the evil Otto. Sadly, you can't kill him, and must flee before he kills you.

Loading up the cartridge, you have to have some way to get the cartridge file of course VICE will load a crt file and the game is available as a D64 so you could copy this to a disk, I have the CRT file dumped onto a custom made cartridge just for the review. Various methods exist so you can copy the CRT
to a cartridge.

So inserting the cartridge and powering on...

Each release of this game got better and better. The "splash" screen loads...

Some great music begins to pump out. It's very robotic in style. Think of PHAT and robot like and you get the idea of what the music will be: a pumping bass, but without being a techno dance thing. The game tried to load a high-score file, but if it doesn't find one, it gives you the option to create one, but you need a disk drive connected to do so.

Starting up then:

Another great tune pumps out, building up the suspense. Yes, it looks as basic as the original game did in the arcades back in the day. However, it's in colour and doesn't need an overlay on screen! Yes, it's a stick man with a strange walk and some dodgy-looking block men posing as robots; however, this doesn't detract from the game. With various speech sounds belting out of the SID chip, it needs to be played before you dismiss it.

You're trapped in a maze, and need to shoot the alien robots. If you shoot
them all in a room, you get a bonus, but don't take too long about it or the evil smiley face that is non-destructible will come for you, and if touched, kill you. Our man can't touch other robots, as he will die, and all walls are electrified and kill on the slightest touch. You can only shoot in the direction you move; however, left, right, up, down and diagonal movements are permitted.

This version does feel and look like the original. You can see someone playing it under the mame emulator on youtube here
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2pWsOqEzqI
and here on the real arcade machine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m79Edlt9Ank

I was hooked the first time I saw it at the time of its release in the
arcades. Maybe it's the speech, or the frenzy of the action, but playing this Commodore version takes me back in a real nostalgic mood, especially with the lights low. It's like I'm there in that Smokey arcade playing the machine for the first time again.

SCORES

Well this is difficult. Do I rate this as a conversion or a standalone release?

Nostalgia comes in, and its a bit of bother really, so the scores are a mix of all these!

Graphics: 6/10
they look like the originals, so high scores for that, but on the other
hand, they are just stick men
Sounds: 8/10
samples, speech, and great music
Gameplay: 9/10
it was the precursor to Robotron
Overall: 8/10
although for a nostalgic game, it's more like 10/10

Absolutely brilliant conversion, completely capturing the feel of the
original, although not 100% accurate as this version adds to what already is a great game.

Well done!


*************************************
REVIEW: VIC AMOK
By Commodore Free
*************************************

With a young boy shovelling money into an arcade machine, imagine said young man's amazement at reading a review in a computer magazine of the time that AMOK was being released: basically this was the VIC's answer to BERZERK.

Featuring full colour, sound and optional joystick control, how much fun could a young guy have? T

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