9 Genuinely Haunted Video Games You Won't Believe
3. Berzerk - Get A High Score, Lose A Life
The great thing about the 80's seems to be that you can make up any ol' urban legend, as there was no quick "Let me check on my phone"-ness to debunk it immediately.
But of course, there's no smoke without fire, and there has to be some grounded evidence of foul play in these stories. Or so they go.
Berzerk, released in 1980, is regarded as one of the best examples of top-down shooters [of its time], inspiring the likes of Smash TV and such. The simple concept of shooting lots of robots proved popular at the time, with many trying to achieve the top score.
So far, so normal.
That is, until a nineteen year old died of a heart attack whilst playing Berzerk one year after its release, with a high score of 16,660. Weird, no?
Yet even weirder, an eighteen year old lad died the same way the following year, after also reaching high scores on the game.
Some say coincidence, some say it's the curse of the game's invincible bad guy, Evil Otto, cursing the players who dare try and trump him...