lynx review – robotron: 2084

Okay, okay, I’ll review another one! Can’t get an hour of sleep without the world demanding more Lynx reviews. Who knew. So, looking through my games, I thought I’d review another popular arcade conversion that tackled a unique control system and a baffling story line. Anyone remember Robotron: 2084?

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“Stand behind me, Mikey! Your mom and dad will be… oops.” (and in case you’re wondering, this is exactly what the game play looks like)

It was eye-catching, and ear-catching, back in the arcade salad days. It had those intense, “futuristic” sound effects (remember how Defender sounded so cool the first time you walked by), the sounds that kind of reminded me of a Fixx song actually. And all sort of pulsing colors, too (the memorable level-change animation from the arcade, with that sort of colorful 2001 ”stargate sequence” effect is intact in the Lynx conversion). But for the longest time, I always got it confused with Gorf, a talking game which pleaded with passers-by to “play with Gorf…play with Gorf” in this creepy, desperate electronic voice. Or with Berzerk (“Coins detected in pocket!”). The problem is Robotron didn’t talk at all, so my confusion makes little sense. They looked kind of the same maybe? Fuck if I know. Trivia note: a better reason to remember Berzerk might be how it secured its place in history by, um, actually killing people (number one on this list).

But what really got the crowds wasting quarters on this game was the controls. You had two joysticks. Say what?! Welcome to Crazy Town. One controlled your robot dude. One controlled its gun (which I guess was just his arm, like Megaman or something, but he was too tiny too tell, and there’s no way such a ridiculous weapon looked the way it’s depicted on that box). Also, like the rest of Williams’ oeuvre, this game was borderline impossible, perfect for arcade quarter munching. Of course, this control system was the perfect carnival barker, making victory seem almost within reach.

Why two joysticks? Interesting story really. The designer, Eugene Jarvis, claimed his double-joystick control brainstorm came to him in rehab after an automobile accident injured his right hand, making it impossible to use the usual joystick/button combination. Instead, he imagined a protagonist named, er, “Eugene,” who fired his weapon nonstop, sort of like a heavily-armed drunk or a Pittsburgh police officer, who you could maneuver with one joystick while aiming his constant barrage of deadly bullets with the other. This did give you a fighting chance in this game for a few screens, which like I said earlier, were hard as shit.

Lucky for Lynx owners, the challenging difficulty level is intact in the conversion. But what about that unique and essential control system? Nope!

Game Play 

Your little Eugene still fires nonstop like Jesse “The (Dead) Body” Ventura from Predator, but instead you rotate the aim around your body clockwise by hitting A or B. This means to shoot someone above you requires three taps of the button to fire down, left, then finally up. This means you’re sort of firing your gun like a lazy firefighter struggling to aim his hose and spraying everything on the way. This means you won’t make it very far. But the game is replayable as hell. And that’s what saves it.

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“I ain’t got time to breathe.”

But how about this crazy, futuristic story line though? According to the cycling between-quarters plot (transferred intact and word-for-word from the arcade version), you are some sort of experiment gone wrong, trying to save the “last human family,” consisting of a “Mommy,” “Daddy,” and, er, “Mikey.” But unlike Mikey from Life cereal fame, he’ll eat anything but a robot’s foot. You see, if you don’t save these members of the last human family, they are uncerimoniously stomped to death by lumbering green automatons. It’s sort of horrible really. The green robots seek them out and…splat. They walk over them leaving nothing but a tiny electronic scream and a skull and crossbones in their wake. Yikes. I’m going to assume that the skull and crossbones is there to represent what actually happened to Mikey and his parents, and the makers of the game are just censoring the carnage. You know what I mean? I’m pretty sure being curb-stomped with metal feet doesn’t transform you into a skull and crossbones. Unless those green robots are actually eating Mikey and the Last Human Family-Sized Meal.

Each progressive screen is like a time-lapse video of multiplying bacteria.

But, yeah, did I mention this game is hard? You aren’t going to save them for long. Things escalate quickly. Things become hard to follow. Things are screaming, squawking, thumping. Basically, the screen just fill up with more and more piles of digital shit.

Weapons

“Due to a genetic engineering error, you possess superhuman powers.” Wait a minute. Who made you? Who made who? The Last Human Family? Since they’re constantly running away from you in fear, it can’t be them. Even more incriminating, the Last Human Family sometimes has like ten Mikeys on the screen. What is this, Screamers?! So if the Last Human Family is something we’ll never understand, this means you must have been created by your Robotron overlords…in what has to be the most colossal fuck-up of all time. How did that scene go down? “Hey, Blarg. We were experimenting on the Second To Last Human Family over here, and in the middle of all the blood and screaming, uh, well, we seem to have give one of them lethal gun hands with unlimited ammo.” “Bleep!” (anger).

Enemies

Grunts: “Red Lectroids from Planet 10!” I always think these are the “Electroids” in this game because I’ve seen Buckaroo Banzai too many times. No, these are just red-suited clockwork fools called “Grunts.” Sorry, I mean “Ground Roving Unit Network Terminators.” Easy to zap.

Hulks Robotrons: Hulks are green, blocky robots who step on the family’s heads like this is anything that should be in a game readily available to children.

Spheroids: Just a red circle. It zips around creating “Enforcers,” little triangles that shoot X’s at you. The Spheroids seem to have a limited amount of Enforcers they can spawn. Enforcers are dangerous as they’re the first enemies you’ll encounter that fire back at you.

“Quarks: Just a purple square. It zips around creating “Tanks,” little rolling robots that shoot bouncy balls at you. The screen which introduces the Quarks and Tanks is by far the hardest screen to clear, especially when the screen is full of those lethal bouncing Quark-birthed Tank balls. What did I just say?

Electroids: Any swirl or triangle or square littering the game area. You die if you touch them, but they make no move to attack you.

Brain Robotrons: Aaaaaaah! These are terrifying. My money is on the Brains as the culprits who created you. They’re these blue-and-purple guys who look a lot like the Martians in Mars Attacks! They’re mission is to grab Mom, Dad, or Mikey and transform them into “Progs.” Aaaaaaah! I’m not sure what the Brains do to them exactly, but once they touch your precious family, they turn into murderous versions of the Xanadu cast, leaving light trails behind them as they streak around after you. Probably on roller skates. You know you’re in trouble when you hit this level and the Brains teleport in at the beginning, all slow and cocky. One more thing, in the opening scrawl, it says “Beware of the Brain Robotrons that possess the power to reprogram humans into sinister Progs.”

Reprogram?

Reprogram.

I rest my case.

Strategy

Run! Ignore the last family. No way they’re not in on it.

p.s. A note about my ongoing World Records. I do have the record in this game, as well. According to a tiny notebook which I kept since 1993 (and cut in half so it could be stored in a Lynx box!), I reached the seemingly ridiculous Level 39 and accumulated 698,875 points, beating some guy named Ron by a healthy 274,425 points. But you won’t see my name on that International Scoreboard because, apparently you now have to pay (!!!) for this privilege. Yes, you heard that right. You have to pay them to submit your record-setting scores to Twin Galaxies. Because that’s your reward for being the best, kids. So it looks like they’re going to settle for me submitting my record-setting balls in their breakfast because, yeah, thanks, but I’ll just keep track of everything in my head or this half notebook, scammers.

Future Dave looks back at his teeny half notebook! Such high scores! Silver dollar included for scale.