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| This villain was proposed but was rejected by the community for not being heinous enough or lacks what is necessary to be a Pure Evil villain. Therefore, this villain shall be added to our "Never Again List", where proposed villains rejected by the community shall be placed to prevent future proposals of the same evil-doer. They can be proposed again (with the permission of an administrator) if new elements appear in their series that can change their status as non-PE villains. Any act of adding this villain to the Pure Evil category without a proposal or creating a proposal for this villain without the permission of an administrator will result in a ban. | ||
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| “ | Intruder alert! Intruder alert! | „ |
| ~ Evil Otto's alert. |
Evil Otto is a recurring enemy and a major threat in the 1980 arcade game Berzerk and its 1982 sequel Frenzy, often seen as and even interpreted in other parts of the series as the main antagonist.
Personality
| “ | You are never safe on the planet Mazeon. Even when you've destroyed the mechanical heavies, Evil Otto, the mad and merciless mind behind the robot gangs, leaps out from where he's been observing the battle. You flee in panic because you know that you cannot kill Evil Otto and that, once he catches you, you'll never escape. He will pound you to a lifeless pulp, grinning like a maniac all the while. Your only hope is to get out of the electrified maze before Evil Otto catches you. | „ |
| ~ The Atari 2600 description of Evil Otto. |
In the Berzerk and Frenzy games, Otto has a very undefined personality, only chasing the player and doing nothing else that can display a real personality, beyond that permanent smile on his face.
Evil Otto commanding the robots in an Atari 2600 flyer.
The Atari 2600 and Atari 5200 versions as well as the board game explain that Otto is controlling the robots (known there as Automazeons) and sending them out to kill the main character, which would seem to contradict the robots' alert when Evil Otto appears, though the Atari versions interpret the alert as being said by Evil Otto himself, and this can be argued to go with the original arcade version as well since the alert happens even when there are no robots in the room, and how in all promotional material the robots are never attacking Evil Otto, but going after the main character alongside him.
If taken into account that in these versions the robots are his minions, he shows no signs of caring about their destruction whenever he kills them in the games, and additionally is described to be a mad and merciless maniac that takes joy in beating the main character to a pulp.
Since the robots (much like the game) are inspired by the robotic self-replicating machines from the science fiction novels and short stories by Fred Saberhagen collectively known as "Berserker" (1967-2005) which strived to destroy all life in the universe, the robots and by extension Evil Otto, might seek the same goal, though their primary objective in all pieces of media related to Berzerk are to find and kill the player/Humanoid Warrior.
Biography
| “ | The indestructible Evil Otto and his robot army are on the move, relentlessly pursuing the Humanoid Warrior as he seeks his way out of the maze. Can he eliminate all the robots and escape before Evil Otto attacks him? | „ |
| ~ The Berzerk board game cover on the game. |
Evil Otto appears and kills the player.
Whenever the player wastes too much time in a stage, this evil smiling face will appear and start chasing the player, moving in a bouncing motion. It is able to phase through walls and cannot be killed by any means, so whenever it appears the player must run away as fast as they can. If he touched the player, they will instantly die.
Though the arcade didn't provide any plot, the console versions of the game did. In the "astro date" 3200, the last survivor of a small group of Earth people lands on the planet Mazeon, where his spacecraft is immediately destroyed by faceless robots known as Automazeons, the only beings that could live in this uninhabitable planet, led by their creator, a supernatural entity known as Evil Otto. They imprison this humanoid (also called Humanoid Warrior) in a seemingly endless maze of countless rooms where even the walls are death to touch and the Automazeons alongside their leader Evil Otto are hunting him down.
In the sequel Frenzy, Evil Otto returns, this time with new robot variants, one designed after human skeletons and the other robotic tanks. Frenzy also marks the debut of Big Otto (known as Mama Otto in an ad), possibly the mastermind behind it all and who unlike Evil Otto in the game, is invincible, since shooting Big Otto has no effect.
Big Otto starts out with closed eyes and a neutral expression, but kill all of the robots in the room, and his face turns into a slight frown. If the player kills Evil Otto in that room, not only does he immediately respawn as usual, but the Big Otto summons four more Ottos (called Baby Ottos in an ad) onto the screen, all moving at top speed towards the main character. When Evil Otto is killed, Big Otto's expression changes to one of rage, with glowing red eyes and a frowning mouth. When the player dies he smiles though his eyes remain the same as before, either closed or open.
Powers and Abilities
| “ | You have a laser gun too―and a pair of legs to get you through that maze in a hurry. And you'd better move fast—here comes Evil Otto, the orange happy-faced ruler of Mazeon. Don't let that smile fool you for a minute! Otto is the deadliest threat of all—and your laser blaster is powerless to stop him! | „ |
| ~ Ad description for the Atari 2600 version. |
| “ | Evil Otto attacks, one "life" lost, but the exit and victory are close. | „ |
| ~ The board game cover on Evil Otto.. |
Evil Otto's face appearing in the exploding robots in the arcade (left) and Atari 2600 (right) versions.
Evil Otto doesn’t have much in terms of abilities. In Berzerk, he is able to instantly kill the player with a touch, he can phase through the walls and he cannot be killed by any means. An Atari 2600 flyer implies he is the one who created the robots and gave them the power to destroy the Humanoid Warrior (who they can reduce to nothing with a single shot), though the original arcade version seems to imply this as well, since every time the robots explode, for a split second you can see Evil Otto's face.
In the sequel known as Frenzy, two of him are able to spawn and start at the left end of the level. Otto retains all his previous abilities (and has allegedly become more indestructible than before) except that the player is now able to kill him (or stun him as an ad states), though it takes three shots and Evil Otto will just immediately respawn back at the left end of the level, getting faster each time, meaning he can ultimately only be delayed.
Urban Legends
Evil Otto has been featured as a supernatural force in several urban legends and creepypastas, surrounding deaths of people who played the game (this being one of the things that made Berzerk infamous, since it was the first video game known to have been involved in the death of a player), though the claims of there being a curse behind Evil Otto have been throughly debunked.
Two deaths of players related to Berzerk which occurred right after they posted their high score (one posting a ridiculously high score, the other posting his high score then beating it within 15 minutes) are often attributed to Evil Otto, though again, these deaths have already been explained as one is just fake and the other was caused by a heart condition. A third death was a young man who was stabbed by his friend after they had an argument over who gets to play the game, but obviously Evil Otto or any other supernatural force had no part to play in this.
The urban legends suggest he also has the ability to seemingly curse people with death, usually heart attacks and according to the fake story of Jeff Dailey, he may have some sort of demonic abilities over people’s lives due to Jeff’s score of 16,660 containing the number of the Beast. Again, these claims are all fake and are only powers he shows in urban legends.
Trivia
- Alan McNeil, the game's main designer, claimed to have based aspects of the game on one of his nocturnal dreams.
- Evil Otto was named after Dave Otto, security chief at Dave Nutting Associates (McNeil's former employer). Alan McNeil (the game's designer) recalled several incidents where Dave mistreated him and other employees, such as locking McNeil and his fellow employees out of the building to enforce a noon-hour lunch as well as piping "beautiful" music into every room, and considered Dave rather evil.
- Some have theorized Evil Otto was made as some sort of Evil Knockoff of Pac-Man, due to Evil Otto and Pac-Man sharing similar designs and because Ms. Pac-Man was originally a game called Crazy Otto.
- Evil Otto's voice has been used and referenced in other pieces of media, such as Futurama for the Anti-Human Patrol robots and it was the source for Chipspeech voice Otto Mozer.
