Posted: December 7, 2011
Frenzy Jim Bennett
Frenzy - Jim Bennett
Score 1,897,820
Frenzy (Stern Electronics)1982
Joe Barrett during his record-setting Frenzy Match - Kenosha City -
Video Game Capitol of the World? (1982)
City of Kenosha, Wisconsin - Frenzy Article (1982):
Kenosha News Photo: Joe Barrett during his record-setting Frenzy match.
"City video game capitol" by Jon Morgan (Staff Writer)
Kenosha, with three reigning champions and as many as 35 title holders, may be the video game
capitol of the world, according to Walter Day, owner of the Twin Galaxies International Scoreboard
in Ottumwa, Iowa.
Walter Day, who runs a clearinghouse for video game information, said Kenosha has kept him
busier than any other town.
But his job doesn't begin to compare to that of a video champion.
Joe Barrett, 14, 5723 65th Street spent almost 25 hours at the Pot of Gold arcade, 5716 75th
Street setting the world's record on Amidar. Nourished by pizza and Mountain Dew, he scored
18,201,100 during the non-stop marathon from 1:30 p.m. Friday to 2:15 Saturday.
Pot of Gold owner Tom Wood stayed open all night for the record setting. He said it is a house
endurance record but the national video game marathon record is 53 hours.
"If he had been prepared, rested up and everything, he would probably still be playing," Wood
said. He and Barrette had only intended to beat the previous record of 3.2 million. (held by
a Racine youth) but once he got going, he decided to go for 24 hours.
The champ was sleeping off his record attempt and unavailable for comment Saturday night.
His mother, Clina, said, "He told me he would never put another quarter in that machine again."
Other local champs confirm the need for dedication among video champs.
"You have to have good coordination, good eyesight, and you can't get mad at it," said
David Covell, 1508 87th Place, who holds the world's record of 375,000 for Atari's Space Duel.
Among the obstacles facing video champs are arcade owners who won't stay open for record
attempts or who frown upon the hours of play with one quarter, said Robert Jensen, owner of
six area Bun and Games arcades.
He said he has been up all night three or four times with record attempts, calling it good
for business. "The other kids come and watch - It's like a tennis match."
Among champions his rooms have produced is Jim Bennett, 18, 7722 2nd Avenue. It took him
18 hours July 4, to reach a record 1,897,820 on "Frenzy." The Frenzy record still stands and
Walter Day said it is not likely to be beaten soon.
Current Frenzy Scoreboard for Twin Galaxies
http://www.twingalaxies.com/
Rank Score Player Date Achieved Verification
1 4,933,702 Joel D West July 31, 2011 DVD
2 4,874,931 Paul Dean December 4, 2005 Referee
3 4,804,540 Mark Smith July 16, 1983 Referee
4 4,789,909 Mike Mann July 1, 1983 Referee
5 4,737,827 Rick Kelly December 12, 1982 Referee
6 4,719,986 Jay Bennett November 6, 1982 Referee
7 1,143,743 Randy Gordon November 12, 1982 Referee
8 1,069,380 Alexi Anastasio December 1, 1982 Referee
9 77,240 Ron Corcoran May 19, 2003 Referee
10 56,695 Donald Hayes May 31, 2009 Referee
Frenzy Scores of 1980's to High and impossible to beat? 2002 TG Thread started by Ron Corcoran:
Twin Galaxies Frenzy posts discussion regarding the Frenzy score of 1,897,821 by Jay Bennett
below, to be an impossible score. Yet today's scores on Frenzy are twice that in time duration
and score with 42 hours being the time to complete the Joel West score at Richie Knucklez Arcade
in 2011.
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December 28, 2002 - Ron Corcoran - Begin TG Thread:
TG Forums: "TRIVIA - TG Scoreboard (Sep. 3, 1982)" by RCorcoran
http://forums.twingalaxies.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=383&start=0
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Did you know the following scores we on the TG scoreboard in 1982?
Alpine Ski 254,587 Randy Edwards
Amidar 18,210,100 Joe Barrett
Asteroids 40,101,910 Leo Daniels
Asteroids Deluxe 2,269,230 Leo Daniels
Astroblaster 64,610 Phil Iaty
Battlezone 12,009,000 Ken Chevalier
Berzerk (Fast Bullets) 68,300 Joel West
Bosconian 442,400 Peter Zemke
Carnival 221,780 David Schooling
Centipede 12,311,126 Mike Baird
Crazy Climber 428,650 William Lee
Defender 50,999,975 Ned Troide
Dig Dug 6,198,490 Antonio Medina
Donkey Kong 1,453,700 Steve Sanders
Eliminator 527,900 Jim Benda
Frenzy 1,897,821 Jay Bennett
Frogger 442,330 Mark Robichek
Galaga 7,857,090 Slate Thompson
Galaxian 185,900 Glenn Tate
Gorf 404,600 Peter Wrench
Kangaroo 183,000 Scott Parr
Looping 295,550 Charles Brown
Lunar Lander 1,275 Mike Barnhart
Make Trax 1,508,310 Walter Day
Missile Command 72,547,630 Kevin Baughan
Ms. Pacman 214,300 John Turner
Omega Race 1,434,800 Steve Garrett
Pacman 5,999,820 Sam Blackburn
Pacman Deluxe 2,935,590 Eric Schwibs
Phoenix 672,590 Orlando Funderburk
Qix 1,166,604 Bill Camden
Rally-X 120,450 Joel West
Reactor 128,450 Antonio Medina
Robotron 112,000,600 Eric Ginner
Scramble 561,480 Dan Hummer
Space Duel 375,920 David Covell
Space Fury 222,590 Loren Hawkison
Space Invaders 210,000 Ed Troide
Star Castle 7,842,950 Ron McCoy
Stargate 389,029 Dwyne Andrews
Tempest 3,086,355 Leo Daniels
Tron 3,195,329 Sterling Ouchi
Vanguard 3,110,000 Scotty Williams
Venture 148,850 Bobby Zier
Warlords 583,750 Allen Toney
Wizard of Wor 204,700 Mike Good
Zaxxon 1,660,200 Robert Wykoff
_________________
Ron \"Mr. Atari\" Corcoran
Twin Galaxies Chief Editor
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permafrostrick Post subject: Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2002 4:41 pm
September 11, 2003 - Rick Carter
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1.9 million on Frenzy? 1.4 million on Donkey Kong?
Man, you really did have some bogus scores back then.
That 6 million pacman score you put in boldface maybe was also...but maybe not... if he
managed to get past the split-screen once then reach the second split-screen and his game
end there with not much monster eating at the start 6 million would roughly seem right to
reach the 2nd split-screen.
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cubeman - Mark Longridge
Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2002
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I'd say the pacman scores over 3,333,360 are all bogus, however there is one way to change my
mind, by sending me an inp file where you clear the split screen.
The 6 Million on Dig Dug is an obvious fake.
They used to do restarts on kill screen games and then add scores from multiple games together.
The logic was you could carry over the men from the first game because you didn't really die by
player error. When the Guinness contests started up this was banned.
Frenzy had a leeching trick, but even so getting 1.9 million is going to take a heck of a
long time. I talked to Sanders several times, he no longer claims 1.4 million.
Mark Longridge
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berzerk1 Post subject: 1982 classic scores
January 6, 2003 - Phil Younger
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I think a lot of these games are of course too high but there are some that are easily within
reach. Take frenzy for example I played one game that turned over at 1,000,000 points. Frenzy
has a bonus of extra man every 5,000 points. Somewhat same as asteroids. This game took me 10
hours to play so that's about 100,000 points per hour. I could have gone on but the arcade was
about to close. In this case a score of 1,900,000 19 hours is definitely possible. I think the
highest score on TG database is over 4,000,000 possible but difficult.
Phil Younger
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2011 - Frenzy and Q*Bert Marathon World Records at Richie Knucklez Arcade:
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TG Forums: Joel West World Record Frenzy Marathon Post:
http://forums.twingalaxies.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=26408
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Oski Post subject: Frenzy and Q*Bert Marathon
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011
52-year-old Joel West has started his quest to play Frenzy for 100 hours and set two
world records and also George Leutz's his third attempt this year at taking out the Q*bert
world record of 33,273,520 points, a record attempt that could top 70 hours of play on one
coin to accomplish.
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Oski Post subject: Re: Frenzy and Q*Bert Marathon
Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 8:09 am
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Joel West runs out of lives at 4,933,702 points in 41 hours 43 minutes... a new Frenzy
World Record. Rick Carter breaks the Nibbler world record 1,002,222,360, George Leutz's
Q*bert run ends at 60.5 hours; 26,990,145 points he was close and David Cruz ends Tron
at 14,007,645 points (WR).
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August 7, 2010
City Resorts to Pac-Man for a Reboot
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703988304575413612071687980.html
"In a Bid to Attract Visitors, Economically Troubled Ottumwa, Iowa, Has Restyled Itself
Video-Game Capital of the World " By DANNY YADRON
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OTTUMWA, Iowa-In hard times, cities often look for an edge to generate buzz and draw new
businesses. Ottumwa-a fading manufacturing town far from the high-tech glitz of Silicon
Valley-wants to be the Cooperstown of video games.
. . .
After declaring itself home to the International Video Game Hall of Fame last year, Ottumwa
this weekend is inducting its first class of honorees during a four-day festival at the
local convention center. Big Bang 2010
. . .
Joel West, 48, of Gastonia, N.C., set the mark for highest score in Frenzy ever on Oct. 31, 1982,
a record duly recorded in Ottumwa but later broken. He came to Big Bang this weekend to try to
reclaim the title, along with the record for the longest time playing a video game. (Mr. West
was aiming for 85 hours.) He fasted for 15 days to limit bathroom breaks and, he said, boost
his stamina. "I want my grandson to see I did something," he said.
. . .
At around 6 p.m. Thursday, Mr. West's scratched and dented arcade machine froze, 12 hours
into his attempt at glory. Replacement parts were unavailable. He plans to start eating again
when the weekend is over.
. . .
"I want my wife to see me," he said. "I've lost a lot of weight."
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Beginnings with Stern's Berzerk and later with the Sequel Frenzy:
Alan McNeil, an employee of Universal Research Laboratories (a division of Stern Electronics),
had a dream one night involving a black-and-white video game in which he had to fight robots.
This dream, with heavy borrowing from the BASIC game Robots (Daleks in the UK), was the basis
for Berzerk, which was named for Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series of science fiction novels.
("Evil Otto" was named for a disliked fellow-employee.)
The idea for a black-and-white game was abandoned when the color game Defender was released
earlier the same year to significant success. At that point Stern decided to use a color overlay
board for Berzerk. A quick conversion was made, and all but the earliest versions of the game
shipped with a color CRT display. The game was test-marketed successfully at a Chicago singles
bar before general release.
Irony. It can create a great number of unique stories. Including the game of Berzerk.
Alan McNeil hated computers. He could never get them to do what he wanted. He hated how cold
and calculating they could be, and wished they could be more human. He found a way to do
that: become a video game designer.
When posed with the problem of creating a video game, McNeil was inspired by a series of
books entitled The Berserker Stories by Fred Saberhagen. In this series of stories, evil
robots were out to destroy the human race. The game took shape.
However, instead of making the robots super intelligent killing machines, McNeil added the
human touch. The robots became bumbling fools, often killing themselves by accidentally
shooting each other, bumping into each other, or running into an electrified wall while
in pursuit of the player. For an even more human touch, speech was added. McNeil wanted
a huge number of phrases for his evil, bumbling machines, however, speech chips were quite
expensive at that time. McNeil cheated by recording a small number of words and using every
possible combination of those select words for the phrases. It worked, and Berzerk was ready
for testing.
Berzerk was originally programmed as a black and white game. Color was a luxury in games as
the project began, but by the time is was finished, games such as Pac-Man, Galaxian, and Defender
made color a standard. McNeil had to scramble to convert the game to color before testing began.
As the game went into testing, McNeil and his colleagues at Stern noticed a trend that would
become a large problem. Players would simply hang around the room for long periods of time.
The robots did not come after them directly and there was nothing to make the player move on
after wiping out the robot forces. Back to the drawing board.
McNeil's boss suggested a time limit for each room, but McNeil refused. He had another idea:
A horrible creature would come after the player if he/she spent too much time in the room.
He created Evil Otto.
Evil Otto was tongue-in-cheek to start. First off, Otto was named after one of McNeil's
co-workers. Secondly, the Evil Otto character was drawn as a smiley face. Why? McNeil had
no idea what the ultimate creature should look like. With what was supposed to be temporary,
McNeil drew Otto as one of the "Have a Nice Day" smiley faces that annoyed him at every turn.
However, as some of McNeil's co-workers sampled the game, they stopped as the grinning Evil
Otto bounced towards them, and were then met with destruction. The thought of players being
afraid of a smiley face seemed evil enough to McNeil, who left Otto as is as Berzerk went
into production.
Berzerk hit arcades in late 1980. The game initially sold 17,000 units, Stern Electronics
best seller. Berzerk, however, had a very unreliable joystick which began to slow sales.
Another 8,000 units were produced with a much sturdier joystick before Stern hit financial
trouble. A sequel known as Frenzy was introduced in 1982, but few were produced before
Stern closed their doors. Both games are popular collector's items today.
Other Related Exhibits: Frenzy
A great many casualties became of the video game industry in 1983 and 1984. Two of those
casualties included the game of Frenzy and the company that made it.
Frenzy, which first appeared in mid 1983, was the sequel to the companies biggest hit Berzerk.
It took everything that had made Berzerk a hit and added to it tenfold, including more
intelligent enemies, tons of hidden features, blast away walls, and much more.
Critics sang the praises of Frenzy, saying that it was even better than the original classic.
However, Stern Electronics was already having a great deal of financial problems at this time.
Although the company had tasted success with in-house titles such as Berzerk and with licensed
hits such as Scramble, the majority of their titles did not sell well and they had been having
trouble keeping up with other companies such as Atari and Bally Midway as the market peaked.
At this point, the financial woes became an even larger issue as the video game market began
to decline. Smaller video game manufacturers began to feel the pinch and Stern was one of them.
Even though Frenzy was well received by reviewers and in test locations, only a few thousand
machines were produced. A few home versions managed to be licensed before the bottom fell out
of the company, but they are also rare finds.
Stern no longer produced video games from this point. The company's name was purchased and used
for brand recognition on pinball machines for several years after this but the company as it was
known was a thing of the past.
The cost of Frenzy machines on the collectors market can vary greatly. While some collectors would
jump at the chance to own this rare machine, others know little of its existence and look at it
as nothing more than a failed game. Regardless, though, the machines do end up in the hands of
happy collectors that continue the Berzerk battle in their own homes.