1980 was a great time to be in the arcade. Atari released Battlezone and Missile Command, Namco put out Pac-Man and Rally-X, and Midway put out Wizard of Wor. Among these titles, Stern Electronics also released a little multidirectional shooter with voice synthesis known as Berzerk. In that game, you’re navigating an electrified maze filled with robots trying to shoot you, while at the same time avoiding the indestructible menace of Evil Otto.
Berzerk was an arcade hit, spawning a 1982 sequel Frenzy, as well as a board game adaptation and home console releases.
With its first cabinet release of 2024, New Wave Toys is currently taking orders for the Berzerk x RepliCade, as well as its companion cab, the Frenzy x RepliCade Survivor Series Edition. New Wave Toys sent me one of their Berzerk x RepliCades to try out.
What Is the Berzerk x RepliCade?
The Berzerk x RepliCade is a 1/6-scale working arcade cabinet that plays both Berzerk and its sequel Frenzy. It retails for $199.99, and is available directly from New Wave Toys. The mini arcade cabinet has the following features:
- Replica Berzerk arcade machine in 1/6 scale (12inch)
- Plays both Berzerk + Frenzy arcade ROMs
- NEW! Board Drawer front access door with replica PCB prop inside illumination compartment
- NEW! Metal Control Panel
- Coin Op Feature: Insert mini coins to add credits
- CRT-FX 2.0 with Reflection Reduction Tech
- Arcade Operator’s menu with customizable dip switch and cabinet settings
- Miniaturized control panel featuring Micro-Micro Switch 8-way joystick
- Plug ‘n Play HDTV and USB controller connectivity
- Hand crafted cabinet from traditional materials including wood, metal and plastic
- Illuminated marquee and cabinet accents
- RepliCade signature amplified mono audio reproduction with volume control and pad lock prop
- High-resolution cabinet art reproduction
- Replica Diecast metal coin door with cash box storage compartment (plus ATARI sticker)
- High score saving with non-volatile memory
- Built-in, high-capacity rechargeable battery
- Premium LCD color screen 4:3 aspect ratio (horizontal orientation)
- Officially licensed by Atari
- 100-Day New Wave Factory Warranty
Unboxing and Playing the Berzerk x RepliCade
As with previous x RepliCades like Ghosts ‘n Goblins, the packaging of the Berzerk x RepliCade was outstanding. The shipper box had a sizeable rip and dent on a corner, but importantly the box containing the cabinet itself was completely unharmed.
New Wave Toys is constantly improving on their cabinet designs in an effort to make their x RepliCades look and feel more accurate to their arcade counterparts. As such, they have included two new accessories that may be familiar to those that visited arcades where the cabinets were treated a little rougher. There’s a kick plate, which permanently attaches to the cabinet using 3M tape, and a security bar with padlock, which attaches magnetically over the coin box.
The security bar is magnetized for easy removal, as you’ll need access to the coin box. As with the Ghosts ‘n Goblins x RepliCade, you can actually add coins in through the coin slots to get credits to play the game. The Berzerk x RepliCade also allows you to gain credits by pressing a button instead of struggling with tiny replica quarters.
The Berzerk x RepliCade includes some Atari stickers (Atari bought the rights to Berzerk from Stern Electronics in 2023) as well as a joystick similar to the one used in the original arcade cabinet. As New Wave Toys warns you, though, that joystick is for display only.
The joysticks can be swapped simply by unscrewing the red joystick ball-top, and screwing on the black bat top joystick.
Another brand new feature for x RepliCades is the inclusion of a PCB prop, which can be accessed via a Board Drawer front access drawer. PCB stands for “Printed Circuit Board,” and is the main electronic component inside an arcade machine.
The back of the cabinet has the usual array of inputs and outputs. You can connect a charging cable, a couple of arcade controllers, and your HDTV or monitor via an HDMI cable.
Like all the other x RepliCades, Berzerk runs off of a lithium battery. The “Power” connector is for plugging in the prop power cord.
After charging up the Berzerk x RepliCade for a couple of hours, it was ready to play. Here’s the cabinet booting up:
And here’s some video of Berzerk showing the attract mode. Be sure to have your speakers on for this one!
You can access the main menu for the Berzerk x RepliCade to also play Frenzy. Here’s a video of the attract mode for that game, as well:
If you watched that video, you may have noticed that the marquee was flickering. No, that’s not a bug, it’s a feature! The separately available Frenzy x RepliCade is part of the new “survivor series” of mini arcade cabinets. While the Berzerk x RepliCade looks like it just rolled off the factory floor, the Frenzy x RepliCade has a beat-up look to it, as if it’s suffered a lot of abuse at the hands of teenagers at the arcade. Fittingly, the lights on the marquee behave as if they’re wearing out and need to be replaced. It’s a fun feature that happens only when you’re playing Frenzy on either of the two machines.
Berzerk x RepliCade – Final Thoughts
New Wave Toys just keeps knocking them out of the park with their releases. Berzerk and Frenzy play perfectly on both machines, though if you played them when they originally came out in the arcades like me, you’ll probably want to hook the x RepliCade up to your television to better see what’s going on. The joystick and the buttons on the cabinet are clicky and responsive, but you can also connect a USB game controller to make your life easier if you want to play either arcade classic.
If you’re just looking for a display pieces, either cabinet will look great on your shelf, or in your 1/6-scale arcade display. I especially love the look of the Frenzy x RepliCade, and kind of wish that New Wave Toys had sent me one of those. I’m hoping that we’ll see many more “survivor series” cabinets in the future, as they definitely conjure the image of a used and abused arcade cabinet in the corner of some grungy pool hall.
New Wave Toys seems to be constantly looking for ways to innovate with their releases, putting out cabinets that are more and more true to the 80’s arcade experience. The accessories and features of the Berzerk and Frenzy x RepliCades all speak to the attention to detail that they’re putting into their arcade machines. This is the second coin-operated 1/6-scale cabinet from New Wave Toys. It also has the improved CRT-FX lens, which gives a subtle visual curvature to the LCD screen to emulate the feeling of playing on an old school cathode ray tube display. It will be exciting to see where New Wave Toys goes from here, especially as they are starting to branch out into other machines familiar to arcades, like the Zoltar Speaks Fortune Teller Machine coming out later this Spring.
The Berzerk x RepliCade is a triumph of both form and function. It manages to combine a strong resemblance to its full-scale counterpart while maintaining playability, which is no small feat. Berzerk is one of the most classic games from the golden age of arcades, and the Berzerk x RepliCade is deserving of a space on any arcade fan’s shelf.
For more information, visit the New Wave Toys website.
New Wave Toys sent a unit for evaluation, but had no input into this review.
