Moderately Interesting - Berzerk

[shadowdoggie]

The other day when I was trying to fix a couple of busted joystick I ran into something so mildly interesting and unimportant that I thought I'd just keep it to myself, but instead I've decided to mention it so that people could abuse and ridicule me and tell me to keep my simple findings to myself.

 

Berzerk seems to be the best game to test the responsiveness of joysticks, so I popped it in the system and started my tests. A few of the joysticks were in pretty miserable shape, so I was manually touching the metal domes to see it I could get any response at all.

 

What I wound up doing was shooting a bullet that completely stopped on the screen. This was done by pushing two domes at once (that went in opposite directions) and then shooting. I'm pretty sure that's why it happened. I repeated it a few times. Since you can only fire one shot at a time on the screen, the bullet remained motionless and stuck and I was not able to fire again. I was able to move the character over the bullet, and when I did, I absorbed the bullet and was able to fire again. What I didn't test was whether or not running one of the robots into the stationary bullet would kill them.

 

It has been my pleasure boring you with useless information.

[Philflound]

Cool, short of the fire button, which is easily tested, Adventure is also a good test game for joysticks since you can move your dot around.

 

I may have done this before, and I think the robots do explode when running into them. Could be a figment of my imagination though.

 

Phil

[oesii]

You've rediscovered for yourself an easter egg that's been known for awhile. Check out the "drop the gun" hint:

 

http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/26berzerk.htm

[NE146]

What I didn't test was whether or not running one of the robots into the stationary bullet would kill them.

 

Yes. They will die when they run into it.

 

p.s. That and a couple of other tricks can be found in the 2600 easter egg section at digitpress:

 

http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/26berzerk.htm

[shadowdoggie]

Ah... should have looked there first.

 

Thanks

[ZylonBane]

Oh joy, it's the battle of the moronically NSFW avatars.

[shadowdoggie]

Boy, you must feel really safe calling someone a moron from the safety of your single room efficiency, huh Iron Chef? You should mind what you say in here country boy.

 

I'll open it up for discussion though.

 

Does anyone else feel that my Avatar should be changed? If so, I'll consider changing it if the overwhelming majority feels that it is inappropriate.

[Xot]

Wow, before I got the Testcart, I always used Missile Command to test joysticks. I can't believe I never thought of Berzerk.

[shadowdoggie]

See... now that makes me question what an Easter egg really is. I would think that an Easter egg is something that was put into the game intentionally that is supposed to be found. I would call this some kind of bug. But then a bug is something screwy that happens when you are using the program normally. This is making something screwy happen to the program by purposely doing something screwy.

 

Is there a word for that?

[shadowdoggie]

See... now that makes me question what an Easter egg really is. I would think that an Easter egg is something that was put into the game intentionally that is supposed to be found. I would call this some kind of bug. But then a bug is something screwy that happens when you are using the program normally. This is making something screwy happen to the program by purposely doing something screwy.

 

Is there a word for that?

[FireTiger]

a bug's egg?

[ZylonBane]

Boy, you must feel really safe calling someone a moron from the safety of your single room efficiency, huh Iron Chef?  You should mind what you say in here country boy.

Thank you for confirming what I previously merely suspected.

[NovaXpress]

Does anyone else feel that my Avatar should be changed? If so, I'll consider changing it if the overwhelming majority feels that it is inappropriate.

Not necessarily inappropriate but it is extremely stupid.

 

This Berzerk gimmick is a bug, however we've seen that over the years any unexpected surprize is considered to be an Easter Egg. I prefer the original deifinition of an egg as being deliberate. Easter eggs weren't as much fun once the programmers were allowed to do it.

[Blackjack]

I don't think your avatar is "inappropriate". Since it's been asked, I don't like it...... but that's just a personal opinion that I would have never taken the time to share unless it was asked.

 

I think you should ignore the "jab" and use whatever avatar you want.