The Retro Critic

Rise Of The Robots

How do you follow a game like J.J. & Jeff?

With robots, that’s how!

And with the new Transformers movie out, it seems fitting to be looking at a silly game in which some well-rendered CGI robots awkwardly punch each other in the face.

Rise Of The Robots is a Street Fighter-style fighting game (I’m being generous) in which you’re a cyborg who goes around fighting various robots who get increasingly more challenging in order to eventually defeat artificially super-intelligent robot antagonist The Supervisor.

But this is the final boss, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Besides, I’m not looking at the 3DO version of the game with its cool-looking full-on cut scenes and more defined plot. No, that would be absurd. It’s much more fun to check out a game packed with FMV sequences butchered for the Sega Genesis, don’t you think?

The plan for the game was clearly to be ambitious and show off the respectable graphics on as many ports as possible, unfortunately this all backfired when the game itself turned out to be a bit of a nightmare to control and visually clunky on more or less all ports.

What was meant to be an epic sci-fi cityscape opening cut scene ended up looking like this:

Wow, it’s just like I’m watching Blade Runner!

Underwater.

Really, this is more reminiscent of playing Earthworm Jim on the Game Boy: it just doesn’t feel or look right.

Each robotic opponent was meant to be introduced by a cool FMV sequence but, on the Genesis, we just get a description of who’s stepping up to the plate.

An enemy’s approaching?

Sure, I’ll wait.

*cue elevator music*

The early robots you fight are stockier and blockier, like tractors or Wall-E’s mum. They’re relatively easy to defeat but they would be far more fun to beat if only you didn’t feel like you were playing Tekken: The Mr. Magoo Edition.

When you think about robots fighting, surely you don’t imagine two machines slowly approaching each other before one of them twitches a bit and the other bursts into random Karate kicks:

Must not zoom in on that cyborg’s package Must not zoom in on that cyborg’s package Must not zoom in on that cyborg’s package Must not zoom in on that cyborg’s package Must not zoom in on that cyborg’s package Must not zoom in on that cyborg’s package Must not zoom in on that cyborg’s package….

Darn.

Was this cyborg built to be naked or can he possibly put on clothes because I’d recommend doing that.

He’s making those high-tech washing machines needlessly VERY uncomfortable.

The whole game is somewhat reminiscent of Batman Forever also on the Genesis, strangely, but where the Mortal Kombat-style moves just didn’t work in a platformer of that type, here they don’t work in a fighting game where it really should work! Now I’m sorry I’m having to make this comparison but there’s definitely a Shaq Fu-level of ineptitude at work here.

At least Shaq Fu was so ridiculous it had a camp quality to it, this is a game with delusions of grandeur (and some potential, admittedly) which completely fails at what it’s trying to do.

What am I looking at here?

This is just like the last 15 minutes of the first Transformers film: I think I’m looking at a robot but all I can see is an eclectic mix of metal tubes, painted car parts and cogs.

In case you haven’t noticed, by the way, this game is big, nay, HUGE, on upside-down “L”s.

“RISE OF LHE ROBOLS”

It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

Maybe if you read it upside down, Robot Satan or Robot Beetlejuice appears or something.

Every robot comes with a list of their ups and downs, which is frankly completely pointless since it’s blindingly obvious that they get stronger as the game goes on and it’s not like you can modify your cyborg at all to strategise against specific bots based on those specifications. In fact, you don’t really get loads of combos or that many moves to work with so your skills are limited to begin with.

Now I know what you’re thinking but I assure you that this isn’t a page from Mark Wahlberg’s passport.

We all know what his true weak points are: plastic plants.

Some robots do have a cool design to them so, like I said, there was potential there to create something solid. This ape-like robot, for example, looks appropriately tough and challenging:

This one’s almost like a Gundam or something, bringing a welcome anime vibe to the proceedings:

That’s another problem: this guy looks intimidating, like he can do all sorts of crazy stuff like fly, shoot grenades out of his back Edge Of Tomorrow-style, perhaps turn into trucks? And yet, all he does is weakly meander your way, trying out his two predictable kicks as you get ready to Mr Miyagi his butt like it’s 1989.

Can you imagine playing Super Smash Bros. with every character only being able to perform two measly kicks but only if they step forward really slowly?

Might as well retitle it Super Smash Brozzzzzzzzzzzzzz… at this point.

Yes it’s kind of neat to see some nicely rendered 3D motion on a Genesis game but it’s not like we signed up to watch The Iron Giant here: this was meant to be a game! So therefore the gameplay and the features of the fighting itself should have been as important as the graphics if not more so.

I never thought I’d say this but… even the misguided Fight Club game on Playstation 2 was a far better fighting game.

And that was mostly a bunch of still images with some punching here and there.

Anyway, you finally get to The Supervisor, who, for some reason, is doing lunges.

Stretching before the big fight, I guess?

To be fair, she is a worthy final boss.

Think of her as the T-1000 from Terminator 2 crossed with the T-X from Terminator 3 and those skinny dudes who show up at the end of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.

She can mould herself into various forms such as a preying mantis-like insect:

And some kind of big trident (or shiny hair brush):

See, this is what I was talking about: a robot that does something cool!

They finally got the right idea!

Shame it came to them so late.

I do like the look of this last “level”, it’s very Lawnmower Man, and, especially when you know that the game was meant to have this big, intricate plot, it once again makes you wish you were playing a straight-up side-scroller version of that game with a focus on plot and badass robots doing badass things rather than this increasingly frustrating mess.

You beat The Supervisor and the game abruptly ends because attempting to include more FMV sequences would have meant more of this barely visible imagery:

And a 16-bit cartridge melting at the sides all over your console.

Now, even though Rise Of The Robots may be a flawed flop, there are plus points to it and I do recommend trying it out on some consoles, just not the Genesis. The Super Nintendo version, for example, is definitely more polished and better put together than Sega’s attempts. The music and sound effects, at least, are pretty cool and the cut scenes are far more watchable.

Rise Of The Robots was great idea: a robot fighting game with a futuristic, dystopian plot and original music by Brian May. On paper, it sounds all kinds of awesome. It’s just a shame things didn’t work out as well as they could have.

Can’t fault the ambition at work, though, and I have played worse fighting games, believe it or not, so I do think the worse versions of the game give the game as a whole a bad name when some of it is actually not bad.

It still ain’t good either, though.

My advice: try the SNES or 3DO version, rock out to the CD-I version’s soundtrack and ditch the Genesis one.

Oh, and the Game Gear one because…

I mean look at it!

LHE END