Berzerk Recharged has just been announced!

[JPF997]

One of the all time greats is finally getting the remake it deserves and I couldn't be happier 👍

 

 

[Flyindrew]

YES!! This was the one I was waiting for . Looks awesome. Kind of like an updated version of "Berzerk" with a little "Wizard of War" thrown in

[Hwlngmad]

21 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

One of the all time greats is finally getting the remake it deserves and I couldn't be happier 👍

 

 

Looks pretty cool.  Definitely the Recharged line is really do some pretty nice things.  I hope Atari can keep it up.

[zzip]

I've been expecting this..

 

But the real question is, will it have a synthwave soundtrack?   (ducks)

[+Intellivision Master]

This is awesome.  Looking forward to playing it. 

[Lord Mushroom]

Looks nice. Better than expected. I just hope they made it co-op.

[+SpiceWare]

7 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Looks nice. Better than expected. I just hope they made it co-op.

 

Didn't watch the video?

 

[jerseystyle]

54 minutes ago, zzip said:

I've been expecting this..

 

But the real question is, will it have a synthwave soundtrack?   (ducks)

I think Author and Punisher would be a way better choice.

[digdugnate]

My love for you is like a truck, BERSERKER

Would you like some making f*ck, BERSERKER

[Lord Mushroom]

1 hour ago, SpiceWare said:

 

Didn't watch the video?

 

 

Whoops, missed that.

[+swlovinist]

Can't wait

[KidGameR186496]

Really cool seeing Berserk getting the spotlight in modern days.

 

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/10/atari-announces-berzerk-recharged-a-new-game-based-on-the-1980-arcade-classic

 

I also like that were getting an enhanced 2600 edition! It really makes you wonder if we'll see a new edition of, say, Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar, featuring the tracks that were featured in the OST CD that were cut from the final release due to memory constrains.

[famicommander]

This doesn't match the aesthetic of the other Recharged games at all and I think it looks significantly worse. I love Berzerk but the animated characters look like an early 2000s flash game. The wireframe style of all the other Recharged games looks infinitely better to me.

[MrTrust]

Disappointed.

 

Not being able to move while you fire is the whole essence of Berzerk.  This is like remaking Galaxian so you can have more than one shot on screen simultaneously.  No!  That's where the strategy and tension of the game comes from.  You make this an up-tempo twin-stick shooter, then what's to distinguish it from any of the other 1,000 new twin-stick shooters that are clogging up every online storefront out there?

 

Oooh, but it's got the big ball with the face on it and it says "Chicken, fight like a robot!"  So what?  I like retro games as games, not just some indulgence in nostalgia.  If you're not going to develop the concepts of the original in some way, I'll just play the original, then.

 

Now that you own it, Atari, maybe it's time for an A50 expansion so I can play it on there.  Be a better deal than this in my view.

 

famicommander is right about the graphical style.  

  

[+Sauron]

Looks like this will be another Recharged game I'll have fun playing while the grumpy old men critics shout at the kids to get off their lawn.

 

[MrTrust]

40 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Looks like this will be another Recharged game I'll have fun playing while the grumpy old men critics shout at the kids to get off their lawn.

 

Come now; don't be an apologist for low standards.  You're better than that.

[JPF997]

2 hours ago, famicommander said:

This doesn't match the aesthetic of the other Recharged games at all and I think it looks significantly worse. I love Berzerk but the animated characters look like an early 2000s flash game. The wireframe style of all the other Recharged games looks infinitely better to me.

Some people ( you know who I'm talking about) didn't like the synthwave look of the other recharged games so Atari changes things a little bit and now other people aren't satisfied, I guess sometimes you just can't win no matter what you do...

[+Sauron]

16 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

 

Come now; don't be an apologist for low standards.  You're better than that.

Have you played the game yet? If not, then how can you consider my opinion of what I saw in a short trailer to be a "low standard"? At least hold off judgment until the game is released. And really, stop whining about every small detail that doesn't fit your own personal tastes, and then claim it to be some objective truth that all must adhere to. It's tiresome.

 

 

[Nall3k]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

Disappointed.

 

Not being able to move while you fire is the whole essence of Berzerk.  This is like remaking Galaxian so you can have more than one shot on screen simultaneously.  No!  That's where the strategy and tension of the game comes from.  You make this an up-tempo twin-stick shooter, then what's to distinguish it from any of the other 1,000 new twin-stick shooters that are clogging up every online storefront out there?

 

Oooh, but it's got the big ball with the face on it and it says "Chicken, fight like a robot!"  So what?  I like retro games as games, not just some indulgence in nostalgia.  If you're not going to develop the concepts of the original in some way, I'll just play the original, then.

 

Now that you own it, Atari, maybe it's time for an A50 expansion so I can play it on there.  Be a better deal than this in my view.

 

famicommander is right about the graphical style.  

  

I could see a lot of modern gamers rejecting a game that forces you to stop moving to shoot. Adjustments were inevitable for today's market appeal.

[MrTrust]

3 minutes ago, Nall3k said:

I could see a lot of modern gamers rejecting a game that forces you to stop moving to shoot. Adjustments were inevitable for today's market appeal.

 

Well, of course that's why they did it.  That doesn't mean it's a good choice.  Today's market is wrong.  The masses are wrong about most things most of the time, but they're especially wrong about things today.

 

There are a billion different twin-stick shooters available for a song on modern consoles.  They're ten-a-penny and we've seen every possible permutation on the formula at this point.  What would be different and interesting is a game which focuses on survival in a robotic prison or whatever it is supposed to be.  The idea that you have to choose between running and fighting, survey the field and decide where you have an advantageous position, and when you need to just avoid death, there are not a million similar arcade-style games like that, and that is doing something with the distinctive of the original design.

 

This is a plastic lunchbox.  It could be anything.  It happens to be Berzerk because they just bought the license, but it has no meaningful connection to the original.  Whether that's a smart business decision for them is their business.  I'm the consumer; I don't care if their product sells.  I care that it is good.

 

11 minutes ago, Sauron said:

And really, stop whining about every small detail that doesn't fit your own personal tastes, and then claim it to be some objective truth that all must adhere to. It's tiresome.

 

It's not whining.  It's criticism.  Just because people might have fun playing the game doesn't mean it shouldn't be subjected to serious analysis and judged on form and not just function.  Tiresome?  Is there anything more tiresome at this point than the old "get off my lawn" chestnut?  As if I haven't praised Nutari to the heavens with many of the Recharged games and other new titles?

 

Not everything is a home run, and this definitely isn't.  Don't even need to play it to know.  Does that mean I begrudge you your fun?  No.  Why do you begrudge me my disappointment?

[famicommander]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Looks like this will be another Recharged game I'll have fun playing while the grumpy old men critics shout at the kids to get off their lawn.

 

I like literally all the other Recharged games. I think this one might be fun to play too, I just think it looks really awful from a visual standpoint. Noticeably worse than any of the other games in the series.

[+Sauron]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

Why do you begrudge me my disappointment?

You can be disappointed all you want, just don't state that your opinion on it is an objective fact and be dismissive of those who are less critical of it than you. 

 

[Defender_2600]

I like the other Recharged games, but I see that this modern interpretation of Berzerk, beyond the name, has few elements in common with the iconic original game. The gameplay, timing, art style, animations, sound, and atmosphere of the original game appear to have been lost.

 

Just my opinion and I'm sorry to say it, but what I'm seeing doesn't seem to be Berzerk to me.

 

[negative1]

4 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Disappointed.

 

Not being able to move while you fire is the whole essence of Berzerk.  This is like remaking Galaxian so you can have more than one shot on screen simultaneously.  No!  That's where the strategy and tension of the game comes from.  You make this an up-tempo twin-stick shooter, then what's to distinguish it from any of the other 1,000 new twin-stick shooters that are clogging up every online storefront out there?

 

Oooh, but it's got the big ball with the face on it and it says "Chicken, fight like a robot!"  So what?  I like retro games as games, not just some indulgence in nostalgia.  If you're not going to develop the concepts of the original in some way, I'll just play the original, then.

 

Now that you own it, Atari, maybe it's time for an A50 expansion so I can play it on there.  Be a better deal than this in my view.

 

famicommander is right about the graphical style.  

  

not sure you've played the other recharged games

 

thats why they are remakes, and not ports. you could consider them sequels too.

 

but every other recharged game has changed the gameplay too. some, so much you couldn't tell

why they named it that.

 

why expect it to be the same, because thats not what they're going for.

 

---

there were digital eclipse versions of classic games, joust, robotron etc, where they added graphical updates for players.

but they were optional.

 

also, asteroids, and centipede - millipede were revamped into new styles also on consoles - evolved :

 

 

 

 

those versions were enhanced too, but kept the core gameplay elements intact.

 

some people prefer games to look more modern, and that was the compromise.

 

later

|| || | || | 

ne gative 1

[MrTrust]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

You can be disappointed all you want, just don't state that your opinion on it is an objective fact and be dismissive of those who are less critical of it than you. 

 

I didn't start with you.  You started with me, passive-aggressively, with your "grumpy old man comment".  It was gratuitous and I take exception to it.

 

No, I don't believe it's a mere matter of preference, and that there is an objective goodness or badness to things.  Disagree with that?  Your prerogative.  You want to defend the game on its merits and have a discussion about it?  Up for it.  Don't obliquely reference me and accuse me of "whining" and "yelling at the kids" because things don't fit my personal preference.  That's not what I'm doing and if you don't want a debate, don't start one.

 

Fair or not fair?

 

27 minutes ago, negative1 said:

not sure you've played the other recharged games

 

Played 'em all.  Big fan of the series.

 

28 minutes ago, negative1 said:

thats why they are remakes, and not ports. you could consider them sequels too.

 

Yes, that is what I consider them.  A good video game sequel retains essential elements of the original and refines or recontextualizes them in new and interesting ways.  This game does not, or rather, nothing in the trailer leads one to believe that it does and there's much reason to suspect the opposite is true.

 

30 minutes ago, negative1 said:

but every other recharged game has changed the gameplay too. some, so much you couldn't tell

why they named it that.

 

Yes, and when they changed it in ways that jived with the original (Caverns of Mars) I would say they did a good job, and when they did it in ways that did not (Yars' Revenge), I would say that they did not.

 

CoM:R is different, but it has the same primitives: the relentless forward motion, the needle thread horizontal patterns, the memorization element.  It's a little more up-tempo and a little more robust with the resource management, but it's unmistakably CoM.

 

Yars' is not like that.  It has none of the cat-and-mouse of the original game.  It's a generic puzzle shooter boss rush game with a logo slapped.  Good enough in that case, because puzzle shooter boss rush games are not so very common as to be boring by default, but it isn't doing anything to take the original design and push it forward.  It's just stuffing it into a current genre mold because the original, kinda's sorta' if you step back and squint resembles that.

 

It's not unlike someone noticing that, hey, if you think about, Pitfall was really the first Tomb Raider, and then just making some generic 3D platformer with caves and ziggurats and slapping a trademark on it.  They did that.  The games ain't bad, but they're just not every memorable.  If you like them, that's fine.  I like them, but when somebody says they're mediocre and not living up to the promise of the original, that dude is not just being some miserable old prick; he's right.

 

1 hour ago, negative1 said:

why expect it to be the same, because thats not what they're going for.

 

I don't expect it to be the same.  I expect it not to look boring and lousy, which this game does.  I'm willing to be proven wrong, and I'll probably pick it up anyway, so if I end up being wrong, I will certainly change my tune here in front emof everybody.  But, no, this was one of the biggest things names they could have brought to the series, and it looks like hammered dog crap.  No apologies.  They're capable of doing better and they should have.

 

1 hour ago, negative1 said:

some people prefer games to look more modern

 

Well, there you go, as long as some people prefer, I guess it's beyond criticism.  I really don't even know what to say to things like this.