Berzerk: Recharged [Game Review]
Image: Atari / Sneakybox
Atari’s latest game in the “Recharged” series, Berserk: Recharged, is a blast from the past. The question is, is that a good thing?
Berzerk: Recharged hews close to Stern’s original arcade classic. The player is a human, who must move through screens of simple mazes, blasting robots and escaping before “Evil Otto,” a smiley face, materializes to chase and kill the player. Berzerk was a simple affair. You had the player character, who could move and fire a laser gun in multiple directions. There were only two kinds of enemies: the robots that shoot at the player, and the indestructible Evil Otto. Electrified walls would also kill the player.
Image: Atari / Sneakybox
Recharged has the same goals and overall concept, but adds enemy types, powerups, a dash mechanic, and new kinds of walls. There are now Turrets, exploding Pursuers, and ambling Crawlers added to the mix, each with behaviors different from the original Drone robots. Powerups include bouncing shots, big shots, a shotgun, shield, mines, speed boosts, bombs that clear enemy fire, and heals. The player can also dodge dash for a burst of speed, a feature common in most modern twin stick shooters. The mazes now have non-electric walls as well as electric, and walls that can be destroyed. The issue is, while these additions help modernize the game and make it more engaging for a modern audience, Berzerk: Recharged still feels stuck in the past.
The game should have pushed things even farther. Things get very dull very quickly, even with the new additions. Part of this is because powerups run out way too soon. The game feels sluggish, with movement only feeling better after getting the speed powerup. The player’s gun feels meager, only becoming more satisfying with powerups. But within seconds, these effects are gone. They’re on a strict timer, when they should have been tied to either room completion or player health. On top of that, finding powerups close enough to each other to get them to stack before they run out is rare.
Image: Atari / Sneakybox
Much more could have been done with Evil Otto. While he’s an innovative feature in the original game, inspiring later game villains like Resident Evil 2’s Mr. X, his implementation in this remake feels stale because it remains so simple. It’s a huge lost opportunity that could have been used to add a feeling of surprise to the game.
Berzerk: Recharged also has a Challenge Mode that features predesigned, finite mazes as opposed to the randomly generated endless mazes of Arcade mode. To complete a Challenge Mode level, the player must destroy all enemies in the preset interconnected rooms. These challenges get increasingly more difficult, but usually they’re not too much trouble to complete.
I didn’t get a chance to try the game’s co-op mode, but any time that feature is included in a game, it’s a welcome addition.
Image: Atari / Sneakybox
Berzerk: Recharged feels like a relic. In attempting to remain so faithful to the original game, it comes off as aged and under-featured compared to modern games in the genre. The game just isn’t engaging, sticky, crunchy, or varied enough to make me interested in sinking a lot of time into climbing the leaderboards.
Berzerk: Recharged is available now on PC (Steam/Epic), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Switch, and Atari VCS.
