So what do you think of new Berzerk then?

[Spector]

Some people must now have played Berzerk with the voice enhancement. What do you think of it? Does it sound as good as they say?

[Scott Stilphen]

As far as 2600 "voice", it's pretty amazing considering the other 2 titles (Quadrun and Open Sesame), not only for having more clarity, but for having 3 different sayings (12 different words total!):

 

"Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!"

"Chicken! Fight like a robot!"

"The humanoid must not escape!"

 

I don't know the 'tech' aspect of how he did it, but it sounds as though he digitized the voice from the arcade version (or possibly the 5200 version?)

[dwh]

The voice phrases are played in between levels/screens.

Due to my bad hearing, I have to turn the volume really high to hear the voice.It also looks like the 'humanoid' has been redrawn a little.

All in all, it's a cool hack.

[King Atari]

I can't wait for a ROM, the game sounds awesome.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Someone please tell me more of these are gonna be produced. I want a real live cartridge of this puppy.

[Rob Mitchell]

So the voices are between levels .. GREAT! My concern is that the voices would be bleeping out the sound effects. Now if he can get the diagonal firing right ...

 

It just astonishes and amazes me that these games can be hacked and made better. Thanks for these improvements !!

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I can't speak for everyone elses copy of the game. But my copy sounds awesome! All the speech is clear and at the same volume as the rest of the sound effects. The only speech not clear is that on the "Humanoid must not escape" part of the word escape gets cut off and unless you know what he is saying...you want know that he is saying escape at the end of that one.

 

There were some small graphic enhancements as well, The little guy is altered and looks more like the arcade animation when he is hauling ass across the screen. Also a title screen was added with my favorite VCS effect...the pallet scroll changing its colors quite a bit.

 

All in all this is simply one of the best hacks I have seen to date! I don't say this to say that all the others are bad hacks...as they aren't. But this one actually adds several elements not already in the main game and really makes the game twice as much fun to play!

 

It is still berzerk don't get me wrong...but the added speech is icing to an already great classic.

 

[Albert]

As I've said before, the speech sounds fantatstic given it's coming out of an Atari 2600. The speech is played between levels, and the screen blanks out as there just isn't enough horsepower in the 2600 to draw the playfield and play speech at the same time. If you're a fan of Berzerk and the 2600, then you'll definitely want a copy of this.

 

Mike will be producing additional copies of Berzerk VE in the near future. We'll make an announcement here on AtariAge when he has more copies to sell.

 

..Al

[+johnnywc]

Out of all the exclusives at CGE, this one and Marble Craze impressed me the most. On my 13" tv, the voice for Berzerk VE is very coherent and the volume is on par with the rest of the sound effects. The graphic enhancements and the title screen really polish things off. I am VERY impressed overall with the game, and for $20 bucks it was the best deal there.

 

Hat's off to Mike Mika for a great "hack", although calling it that would be an injustice. He has truly expanded upon an already very good title and pushed it, in my opinion, to being a great title.

 

Here's hoping that a collaboration between Mike and Tom will someday get the robots shooting diagnol. Not easy, I'm sure, but greatly appreciated.

[Snider-man]

I believe I'm the only one who hopes - nay, PRAYS - that the robots will never shoot diagonally. I have enough trouble at the higher levels without them being able to match me shot for shot. When they finally are able to make those corner shots - EEP. I'l screwed.

 

Oh yeah, the Berzerk w/voice is one of the highlights of my collection as well. I had a chance to discuss it with Mike at length on the con floor. Cool guy, cool info, cool game.

[+Propane13]

Hello,

 

I'm probably going to get a little flak for this but, I didn't think it was that cool. Whenever the sound played, the screen lost synch, and this number that displayed on-screen started rolling up the screen. It would have been less noticable if that number had its graphics turned off while sync was lost for the speech-portion. I think it was a neat idea, but it needed a little more programmer testing before I'd buy it. This could have been a result of the TV at the expo, though, and not a problem with the game, but it didn't look that way. Did anyone else notice this, or was it just me?

 

Incidentally, I do look forward to Kickman.

 

Thanks,

-John K. Harvey

[+johnnywc]

I also noticed the flipping channel #2 when the voice played, and the volume was horrible at CGE. But when I played it at home the experience was very different: no flipping # and the voice sounded great. I do think it was the TV/atmosphere at the expo that made the game seem a bit less impressive.

 

As for Kickman, I can't wait for this one. Any news on this one?

 

Thanks,

[Albert]

I'm probably going to get a little flak for this but, I didn't think it was that cool.  Whenever the sound played, the screen lost synch, and this number that displayed on-screen started rolling up the screen.  It would have been less noticable if that number had its graphics turned off while sync was lost for the speech-portion.  

 

Hi John,

 

The number you saw on screen was being generated by the VCR we were using. Early Saturday, I couldn't find the VCR remote so I could turn that off, and I completely forgot about it until I read your message above. So that wasn't a problem with the game, that was just our setup at the show. And different televisions/monitors will handle the lost sync a bit better than others. I guess those old Commodore 1702s don't handle it very gracefully. It looks fine on a Sony Wega I've run it on at home.

 

..Al

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Well..I am no programmer...but it makes sense that the sound plays between the game screens. As for the synch going out..this is probably in part because to get the sound sounding good the synch may have been altered at that point for the sound to come clean. At the show the 2600jr and 7800 were connected to composite Comodore monitors and I am sure they aren't multisync capable. So that would explain why the displayed number would roll between the screens. This effect wouldn't have been nearly as noticable if the channel display had been turned off. Also it was nearly impossible to hear the game at the show because of all the noise from the Mame arcade setups that were around and the music that was being piped in from the band setup area.

 

For the rest of us that actually picked this up...it was by far one of my favorite purchases of the show!

[+Kaboomer]

Agreed! This is awesome! Sound quality is amazing and the blank screen is not annoying as it's only for a split second. Can't wait for Kickman! Will that have words?

[+Propane13]

Well, I'm glad to hear that the "floating two" was only a VCR glitch. As for the rolling, well... it should be possible to write to VSYNC every once and awhile to keep the frame still. No exquisite graphics are required, but a blank synched screen would be ok.

 

Thanks,

-John K. Harvey