Beginning my quest to beat 104,680 by Ron Bailey

Its been well over a year since I have updated this website. My life has taken many twists and turns that I never saw coming and because of these events I had to set aside playing a game I hold dear in my heart aside for well over over. Earlier this week I finally got my Berzerk machine working in top order again. Back in October of 2013, yes 2 years ago, I had one of the greatest slow bullets games of my life going, I actually thought I had a chance at breaking my own record, however my machine had other plans. The game glitched, I essential saw a kill screen in Berzerk which started a series of probes and troubleshooting to my Berzerk that lead to several issues.

It has taken me two years to fix all those issues, and I think I finally have them all resolved!

So tonight I started my second quest in Berzerk! To beat Ron Bailey's score of 104,680 points that he achieved on June 30, 1984. Its been over 31 years since that score has been beat. Only on other man alive has seen a 6 digit score in fast bullets Berzerk, and his name is Joel West. I aim to become the third person in history to see a 6 digit score in this wonderful game that Alan McNeil as programmed.

Tonight I took my first step. I removed the slow bullets RC28 eproms, and installed my RC31 fast bullets eproms and started playing the game. The first 5 games I played were not all that great. My first game I did well to get 19K. Realize I have not played fast bullets in over 18 months, I was very happy with 19K, but my greatest game was my last.

I took a break after my scores started to go downhill, I re-watched myself playing, so where I was not doing well and went back to the machine. My first game was an improvement, I got 18K, however my second game was amazing. First off I went 20K on my first man. I have never done that in Fast Bullets before. Unfortunately this got me excited and I started making mistakes, however I never let a death affect me. I ended up with a score of 28,240. So close to my goal of 30K, yet so far away.

I've started my journey again, I look forward to updating this site with my progress. I have made new friends since I last posted here and I look forward to sharing their stories and successes as well as my own!

New score submitted to the random fast bullets scoreboard!

Hey fellow Berzerkers! Scores are beginning to slowly trickle in and please keep them coming! Mark Hoff submitted a score of 10,540 points in fast bullets random play Berzerk. I know a couple other people playing Berzerk are in the 15K ~ 20K range so lets get these scores coming and get some friend competition going to both boost the scores but also our Berzerking abilities!

Scoreboard is up and accepting scores!

I have a basic scoreboard now posted on the site located here called High Score List! Also we have a first enter to the list as well! Thomas Thunder with his personal best in Berzerk Slow Bullets random play with a score of 83,260 points on MAME! Here is the MARP (MAME Action Replay) of this performance!

Interviews, Score Boards and Site Updates coming!

Hey fellow Berzerkers! Its been a while since I've updated this website, been busy with life and work. Also I just finally got my Berzerk machine working again! Intruder Alert! Just wanted to let you know that I'm working on major updates and upgrades for the website. We will be tracking people'e personal best scores in all 4 variations of the game, regardless of MAME or Arcade, though it will be noted which score is which. The scores will be: Berzerk Slow Bullets Random Berzerk Slow Bullets Pattern Berzerk Fast Bullets Random Berzerk Fast Bullets Pattern Also I will be working on a page to add to the site so people can see everyone that is online currently playing Berzerk as well. If you have any thoughts or suggestions to help make the website better please let me know! Thanks again! Grant Thienemann aka Disjaukifa

The theory behind a 200K game of Berzerk Slow Bullets

So my attempt at my own record the other night got me thinking about what it would take to get 200,000 thousand points in Berzerk. Here is the short of my calculations.

• With no bonus I would have to kill 4,000 robots to get 200,000 points
• With bonus, taking into account the variation of number of robots in the room, it would be 3,700 ~ 3,800 robots (roughly). 
• We are talking about around 400 rooms to conquer 
• An average of 80 rooms per humanoid

Again this are not 100% accurate, but they are close. The real trick is not even the game but myself. My last game that was 137,140 points, I lost two lives due to my own errors, and one death was rather embarrassing. 

I believe in my core that 200K is possible, I actually believe that 500K is possible, 100K on average per man, but it would not easy, the biggest problem is not the game killing you but you killing yourself with simple mistakes. 

When I did my 199,860 game, I traversed 383 rooms, which is a lot but when you think that the game has 65,536 possible rooms, I just barely cracked 0.005% of all the possible rooms in the game. I know there are rooms I have never seen in the game, and those are the ones I'm most worried about, I've learned how to attack different rooms depending on the layout, without that knowledge, its all reflex. However reflex will only last so long, my 199,860 game was almost 2.5 hours, a 500K game is going to be closer to 6 hours with the way I play, I could speed up but I find my pace works well for me. 

I will be playing again this week, and I'll be pushing myself to play better and better, I'll break my own record, its not an "if", its a "when"!

Kill Screen in Berzerk at 137,140 points last night.

After getting 118K the other night I decided to play the Berzerk RC28 slow bullets again. I got such a sense nostalgia playing Berzerk last night. I haven't even owned the game for two years yet but playing it last brought back memories when Berzerk was the only game I owned. 

I would go into my basement at my old place, which wasn't insulated, with a light jacket, gloves and a hat to just play a game of Berzerk. I couldn't even stream back then, I was recording my games on my old iPod Touch resting against a lamp, it was a really shady setup but it worked and I loved every minute of it!

Last night was one of those night, everything felt right, and I was playing well! I had two dumb deaths, but I didn't let it get to me though, I rolled off the deaths and just kept on going. The most difficult thing about playing Berzerk is not letting the game get in your head, which even for a veteran Berzerker is not an easy thing to accomplish. 

I was at 137,140 points on my 4th man, with one man left in reserve. I was feeling good, I had a good pace, I was taking minimal risks but still playing safe. I actually thought that if I could keep my pace, of not playing too risky, I could finally break the 200K barrier which I got so close too last year. 

When I got the extra point and left the room, I knew something horrible happened, looking back at the video, you can tell that I knew something went wrong. The screen jumped and then the color on the bottom corner of the maze was wrong, and I knew something just went bad in the machine. 

I think I finally know how Bill Carlton felt in High Score when he was playing Missile Command, like Bill I knew before it happened that my game had just ended, it was heart wrenching. As of right now I still do not know what the cause of the kill screen was but my guess is I have a ram issue on the VFB-1000 video and control board. That is the only board in my machine that I haven't looked at or checked the ram chips in. Here is the video of when the game crashed on me!

 

I will continue playing, I know I can break 200K and if I can stop making stupid mistakes I think a score much high is possible! 

 

Getting back into the game I love so much

Well I took a massive break from playing Berzerk and Frenzy. Between moving into a new place, switching jobs, kids starting school, switching cars, life has just been non-stop busy for me.

 I finally got around to fixing my machine, and I have a Frenzy cabinet on the way to me. I will have both a Berzerk and a Frenzy arcade machines! So Last night I started with playing some fast bullets Berzerk. This is the one game out of the three I really struggle with, I tried playing two night ago but I wasn't in the right mindset to play the game.

My goal for the night was 20K, on my first game I got 24,590. What is even more impressive, or embarrassing depending on how you look at it, is I lost 3 men in the 8,000s and was still able to pull a 20K+ game.

After a couple of requests, I pulled the fast bullets EPROMs out and install my slow bullets EPROMs to play a game of slow bullets Berzerk. I hadn't played the game in months, I've been bouncing playing other titles but last night was the first serious game of Berzerk slow bullets I've played since before I moved. The game lasted over an hour and I got a score of 118,670. I'm really happy with that considering its been so long since I played the game.

My high score, which is now recognized by Twin Galaxies as a world record, is 199,860 points that I got on July 4, 2012. Since then I haven't played the game nearly as much I use to, and I'm getting back into playing the game nightly and I'm determined to be the first person in the world to play a perfect game of slow bullets Berzerk, which I will explain in a later post!

I must say it feels good to be back!