Reader Reviews

Rise of the Robots (PC)

by Peej

Let me take you back to the Autumn of 1994 (those of you that were born then, of course, and not letting the best bits of you wriggle down the milkman's leg). It was a great year for me because, for the first time ever, I'd actually got my own PC at home. No more installing rubbish on the work PCs, no more having to put up with the mysterious speaker drivers. No, this raging beauty of a machine was a Pentium 75, 4MB S3 Graphics card, Sound Blaster 16 WITH Joystick port, and a 14" SVGA Monitor (which I still had up until recently... ugh!). I seriously thought my boat had come in.

Being nearly broke from spending a hodload of savings on this beige and blue beast, I was left gagging for something to play on it. With a mere fiver burning a hole in my back pocket, and knowing nothing of this PC gaming madness I scuttled along to my local Gamezone (you remember Gamezone? Had a huge plastic fake glowing Kryten head outside, and lots of plastic-headed staff...). It was cold, dark, raining... I'd skipped out of work early on my way to evening college lectures and Gamezone seemed like a welcome haven in a storm.

I browsed through the shop. At the time the PC gaming section was pretty miniscule and I didn't really expect to see much for my fiver, but there on the shelf was a game I'd heard mutterings about. "Rise of the Robots" it was called. The cover pic looked fantabulous - a big metallic looking robot, a big sticker saying "Soundtrack by Brian May" - I mean BRIAN MAY for chrissakes. "Heavy combat action, metallic madness" - the buzzwords swam before my eyes like tadpoles in nitric acid.

I had to do it. I dashed to the counter, handed over the box, mistook the sales assistant's choked mirth as a snigger of approval, paid my fiver and left with my purchase... a rather disappointing 3.5" floppy disk in a lusciously over-produced box.

I fidgeted through college that evening, cycled home like a maniac (no mean feat up Headington Hill!) and got in, scoffed something, then sat down in front of the PC with my first ever games purchase for it...

It installed OK, and then I started to play...

Oh god. If I could describe to you what it felt like, I'd have to make an analogy like someone sinking their teeth into a gorgeous crisp-looking red apple only to find that the thing's one big rotten bruise. It's like taking home a nightclub stunner only to find that she's got danglies. It's like parking your brand new sports car outside a paper shop then coming back out to find someone's keyed it. All of these things and more.

For starters, it's got about the most convoluted set of controls of ANY fighting game EVER. Secondly, special moves matter not a fig. Walk up to your opponent, repeatedly kick them, they die, you win, rinse and repeat.

Graphically it did stun me (at the time) but sonically well, let's just say that after five minutes play you're reaching to yank your speaker cable out of the back of your PC in order to hang yourself with it.

I read with some interest that copies are changing hands for considerable sums of money on eBay now. Maybe it's become a collector's item and I might get my investment cash back, but I won't be able to get back the crestfallen hours I spent trying to convince myself that it wasn't all that bad, nor can I ever rid myself of the acrid taste of that first PC gaming disappointment.