Played as part of Atari 50.
Pretty wild for the time, although at the end of the day it's a bit disappointing it isn't really a shooter, and winds up more like a 3D version of Miner 2049er, if it was actually good. Not like crazy good, but it's fun once you get acclimated to the unintuitively slower pace and lag.
Pretty wild for the time, although at the end of the day it's a bit disappointing it isn't really a shooter, and winds up more like a 3D version of Miner 2049er, if it was actually good. Not like crazy good, but it's fun once you get acclimated to the unintuitively slower pace and lag.
This game didn't make sense at all but it was made in a time where looking cool enough could absolutely make up for that
Atari's 1984 arcade game I, Robot is not only incredibly impressive for its time, but it is also the wackest game of Simon Says I have ever experienced.
Cool gaming.
Cool gaming.
This game is just extremely fun and simple to play through and experience. Simple concept of clearing out the floor turning the colors from Red to Blue by having your robot dude walking in the areas to fill them out. Making sure not to jump when this giant eyeball opens it's eye. Then once you clear out all the tiles and move on to the giant eyeball, destroying it using the laser, you then avoid obstacles by shooting them and collecting these crystals for more points. It's fun and quick and exciting. I really enjoyed I, Robot (1984), I recommend you all to play it if you have Atari 50. I played it on Atari 50 and enjoyed my time with it.
Crazy 3D visuals for 84, absolutely incredible what they accomplished here. Game feels pretty strange though.
PERSONAL BEST: 58,218pts
Oh, what a technological marvel is I, Robot! It's a hodgepodge of lateral sci-fi influences like Asimov and Orwell that really has nothing to do with their stories other than set a generic backdrop of playing a robot, but that's not what matters here. It's hardly that a three-dimensional arcade game like this is concieveable, let alone that it lends itself to a simple gameplay that even today is accessible and hasn't aged one bit. If you imagine those 2D platformers like Miner 2049er, where the objective is to cover every platforming surface, this game is it but done in beautiful 3D spacing and with simple enemy patterns who you can also shoot to death. The game tanked back then because people didn't get the hang of the 3D spaciness, but playing it today is surprisingly compatible with the 3D game systems most people have become acquainted with today.
Each level you have to cover all red surfaces and turn them into blue, and after which there always comes another section that are Galaga style shoot-outs, except your focus is to dodge obstacles more than anything. Every third level you encounter a boss battle, which is another gauntlet where your goal is simply to run to the end of the course and endure. It's this system of levels that goes unchanged for some time, and after about 26 levels, they start to repeat, only with changing colour schemes and enemy patterns.
I Robot is a bonafide classic and an essential part of the gaming canon and history that needs to be republished in some form, like in a compilation, or in an online service.
It also has a hilarious "doodle mode", where you can essentially finger-paint with game models and polygons. You know, if you feel like it.
(Glitchwave project #009)
Oh, what a technological marvel is I, Robot! It's a hodgepodge of lateral sci-fi influences like Asimov and Orwell that really has nothing to do with their stories other than set a generic backdrop of playing a robot, but that's not what matters here. It's hardly that a three-dimensional arcade game like this is concieveable, let alone that it lends itself to a simple gameplay that even today is accessible and hasn't aged one bit. If you imagine those 2D platformers like Miner 2049er, where the objective is to cover every platforming surface, this game is it but done in beautiful 3D spacing and with simple enemy patterns who you can also shoot to death. The game tanked back then because people didn't get the hang of the 3D spaciness, but playing it today is surprisingly compatible with the 3D game systems most people have become acquainted with today.
Each level you have to cover all red surfaces and turn them into blue, and after which there always comes another section that are Galaga style shoot-outs, except your focus is to dodge obstacles more than anything. Every third level you encounter a boss battle, which is another gauntlet where your goal is simply to run to the end of the course and endure. It's this system of levels that goes unchanged for some time, and after about 26 levels, they start to repeat, only with changing colour schemes and enemy patterns.
I Robot is a bonafide classic and an essential part of the gaming canon and history that needs to be republished in some form, like in a compilation, or in an online service.
It also has a hilarious "doodle mode", where you can essentially finger-paint with game models and polygons. You know, if you feel like it.
(Glitchwave project #009)
don't you love it when you get vaporized from existence for jumping
Another early experimental 3D game with shooter and timing mechanics combined with some platforming. The art style is certainly reaching for something ominous, but it's held back by my oft derided rainbow vomit color palette.
A stunning way to send off Atari arcade manufacturing with 3D polygonal visuals like this. The game design itself is a bit obtuse though, probably best described as a platforming "Red Light, Green Light". Oddly haunting and aesthetically pleasing.
(Atari 50)
Not only is this one impressive for the era, this one's actually a bit enjoyable
Not only is this one impressive for the era, this one's actually a bit enjoyable
For Atari's final arcade title, this is a decent one to end their saga with. Pretty cool 3D graphics for the title relying on listening to what the eye says grabbing all of the red tiles to move on with the second half being a shooting segment which is pretty fun. It can be a bit much sometimes but still a decent way to end things here.
Kind of cool they added Doodle City here and called it an "ungame" too.
Kind of cool they added Doodle City here and called it an "ungame" too.
(played as part of ATARI 50)
Whoa. This is quite the final game for Atari in the arcades - an exceptionally goofy bizarro-universe full-3D PAC-MAN with red-light/green-light mechanics, a customizable camera angle, and rail shooter stages.
The maze levels border on incomprehensibility but fall just on the right side of overly complex. Once you get the rules down, they're actually a pretty good time, despite the camera being kind of disastrous from any angle. Also the shooter stages are probably about twice as good as STAR FOX on SNES (there's even an Andross-style big space head boss!), and they serve as a great palate cleanser between the more cerebral main levels.
While the 3D looks pretty darn good, you can't help but feel like it's not really adding anything to the gameplay. After struggling with the camera and trying to grasp the layouts of the more complex puzzle stages, you might come to the same conclusion I did - that it would just be easier and more enjoyable in 2D. That's not great.
What is great, though, and more important than any of that, is Doodle City.
Whoa. This is quite the final game for Atari in the arcades - an exceptionally goofy bizarro-universe full-3D PAC-MAN with red-light/green-light mechanics, a customizable camera angle, and rail shooter stages.
The maze levels border on incomprehensibility but fall just on the right side of overly complex. Once you get the rules down, they're actually a pretty good time, despite the camera being kind of disastrous from any angle. Also the shooter stages are probably about twice as good as STAR FOX on SNES (there's even an Andross-style big space head boss!), and they serve as a great palate cleanser between the more cerebral main levels.
While the 3D looks pretty darn good, you can't help but feel like it's not really adding anything to the gameplay. After struggling with the camera and trying to grasp the layouts of the more complex puzzle stages, you might come to the same conclusion I did - that it would just be easier and more enjoyable in 2D. That's not great.
What is great, though, and more important than any of that, is Doodle City.
Doodle "The Ungame" City ft. Illuminaticide
Mind-bendingly ahead of its (or anyone else's) time
Mind-bendingly ahead of its (or anyone else's) time
Mais do que mera curiosidade tecnológica, I, Robot é um platformer 3D ainda original e criativo, mesmo quase meio século depois. Parte de sua singularidade se deve, claro, ao fato de ele ser um pioneiro do gênero – ou, melhor, do próprio conceito de jogos em três dimensões. Apesar de ele ter vindo antes de Super Mario abalar a indústria e criar o conceito do que entendemos por jogo de plataforma, o jogo não surgiu num vácuo. Já havia games de plataforma nessa época, tais como Miner 2049er. Eram aventuras confinadas a uma única tela e que o foco era caminhar por todas as plataformas, mudando suas cores ou estado, em vez de chegar ao fim do “nível” ou vencer todos os inimigos. I, Robot leva esse conceito às três dimensões, adicionando uma interessante narrativa entorno de uma inteligência artificial que ganha consciência se revolta contra um Grande Irmão digital – narrativa esta que contextualiza tanto o gameplay quanto a sua estética de early(iest) 3D. Não tem um fim propriamente dito, com os níveis se repetindo depois do 26, mas os níveis que existem são bem montados e demonstram que já em 1984 “level design” não era uma habilidade mística que só seria criada por Shigeru Miyamoto.