Berzerk is a 1980 maze shooter arcade video game designed by Alan McNeil and released by Stern Electronics. The game involves a Humanoid Intruder who has to escape maze-like rooms that are littered with robots that slowly move towards and shoot at the Humanoid. The player can shoot at the robots to try and escape the room. Along with the robots, a smiley face known as Evil Otto appears to hunt down the player within each room. Stern premiered the game at the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) exposition in Chicago in late 1980. It was released shortly thereafter, and sold around 15,000 units. The game received ports for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200 and Vectrex home video game consoles.
Urban Legend:
On April 3, 1982, 18-year-old Peter Burkowski entered Friar Tuck's Game Room in Calumet City, Illinois. After playing and beating the high score in Berzerk, he collapsed and was pronounced dead the same day. Reports in newspapers suggested that officials were investigating if the player's heart attack was due to the stress endured while playing the game. Mark Allen, the deputy coroner, said that the autopsy found was due to a scar tissue in his heart which was at least two weeks old, and said that "it's possible that the stress of the games triggered the attack in Peter's weakened heart." The owner of the Friar Tuck's, Tom Blankly, said that the player's heart "had a Time Bomb in it that just happened to go off here. I expected it to hurt business, but if anything, business has been up."Rumours spread since the death of the player that other players had died since playing Berzerk.