Robotron 2084 (Arcade & Atari Lynx) - Let's Play 1001 Games - Episode 697
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I'm Gaming Jay: Youtube gamer, let's player, fan of retro games, and determined optimist... Join me in this series while I try out EACH of the video games in the book 1001 VIDEO GAMES YOU MUST PLAY BEFORE YOU DIE, before I die. The game review for each game will focus on the question of whether you MUST play this game before you die. But to be honest, the game review parts are just for fun, and are not meant to be definitive, in depth reviews; this series is more about the YouTube gamer journey itself. From Mario games to the Halo series, from arcade games to Commodore 64, PC games to the NES and Sega Genesis, Playstation to the Xbox, let's play those classic retro games that we grew up with, have fond memories of, or heard of but never got a chance to try! And with that said, the game review for today is...
Robotron 2084
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotron:_2084
Robotron: 2084 (also referred to as Robotron) is a multidirectional shooter developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz and released in arcades by Williams Electronics in 1982. The game is set in the year 2084 in a fictional world where robots have turned against humans in a cybernetic revolt. The aim is to defeat endless waves of robots, rescue surviving humans, and earn as many points as possible.
Jarvis and DeMar drew inspiration from Nineteen Eighty-Four, Berzerk and Space Invaders for the design of Robotron: 2084. A two-joystick control scheme was implemented to provide the player with more precise controls, and enemies with different behaviors were added to make the game challenging. Jarvis and DeMar designed the game to instill panic in players by presenting them with conflicting goals and having on-screen projectiles coming from multiple directions.
Robotron: 2084 was critically and commercially successful. Praise among critics focused on the game's intense action and control scheme. Though not the first game with a twin joystick control scheme, Robotron: 2084 is cited as the game that popularized it. It was ported to numerous home systemsâmost of which are hampered by the lack of two joysticksâand inspired the development of other games such as Smash TV (1990). The game is frequently listed as one of Jarvis's best contributions to the video game industry.
Robotron: 2084 features monaural sound and raster graphics on a 19-inch CRT monitor.[5] It uses a Motorola 6809 central processing unit that operates at 1MHz.[7] To produce multiple sounds on a single audio channel, the game uses a priority scheme to generate sounds in order of importance.[8] A custom graphics coprocessorâwhich operates as a blitter chipâgenerates the on-screen objects and visual effects. The coprocessor increases the transfer speed of memory, which allows the game to simultaneously animate a large number of objects.[7][9]
The game was developed in six months by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, founders of Vid Kidz.[7] Vid Kidz served as a consulting firm that designed games for Williams Electronics (part of WMS Industries), whom Jarvis and DeMar had previously worked for.[10] The game was designed to provide excitement for players; Jarvis described the game as an "athletic experience" derived from a "physical element" in the two-joystick design. Robotron: 2084's gameplay is based on presenting the player with conflicting goals: avoid enemy attacks to survive, defeat enemies to progress, and save the family to earn points.[11] It was first inspired by Stern Electronics' 1980 arcade game Berzerk and the Commodore PET computer game Chase. Berzerk is a shooting game in which a character traverses a maze to shoot robots, and Chase is a text-based game in which players move text characters into others.[7][12]
The initial concept involved a passive main character; the object was to get robots that chased the protagonist to collide with stationary, lethal obstacles.[7][8] The game was deemed too boring compared to other action titles on the market and shooting was added to provide more excitement.[7][13] The shooting elements drew inspiration from 1978 arcade game Space Invaders (1978), which had previously inspired Defender.[14]