Rise of the Robots

The Good
Released after a tidal wave of immense hype, this game (also released for the Commodore Amiga) is something of a legend in 'bad game' circles. The developers had obviously spent all their time tweaking the gorgeous, rendered sprites, without spending any time writing a game.

The Bad
Problems are legion - you can defeat all the opponents with a single move, you can't turn around after leaping past the enemy, and, most damning of all, the game is less fun, less intelligent, and shallower than the old Sinclair Spectrum classic 'Way of the Exploding Fist', or the contemporary 'International Karate +' (or, for that matter, 'Mortal Kombat'). Worst of all, it sold absolutely loads, and there was even a sequel, which, astoundingly, was almost as bad. See also the similarly disasterous 'Microcosm', and 'Epic', amongst others.

The Bottom Line
Legendarily over-hyped, under-delivering graphical demo posing as a game.

The Good
The CGI backgrounds look great, but that's about it.

The Bad
Don't even get me started on this piece of crap! Rise of the Robots is just one of those games that is so unplayable and completely devoid of redeeming qualities that you'll literally suffer severe brain trauma from it. Here is what the game has to offer you:

Poorly Balanced Gameplay
The biggest wound here is the play-balancing. Part of what made the PC's top fighting games (you know, games like Xenophage and Mortal Kombat) so fun, fair, and replayable was that you could select from all of the game's characters (excluding the boss characters) and tinker around with all of them to see which character best fits your playing style. Each fighter had different abilities and shortcomings, but made for fair fighting nonetheless. In Rise of the Robots, however, you are stuck playing as the weakest character in the game: the Cyborg. Sure, this is a story-driven game, and not a tournament game like in Xenophage and Mortal Kombat. But when you can only select from the weakest character in the game, and are pitted against the most aggressive robot ninjas on the planet, you've got problems. You can select from different characters in the two-player mode, but the gameplay is so poorly balanced no matter which characters you select. If you're the player gaining the unfair advantage, you'll still be quite unsatisfied. If you're the weaker player, you'll be extremely infuriated when the game ends. Please, developers, the fighting genre is intended for balanced fighting, not for clear victories and clear losses.

Horrible Advertising
Mentioning how many terrible lies there are in the advertising would be giving it way too much credit. They talk about stunning animation, a professional soundtrack, and an "enhanced hit detection matrix that enhances playability". How about this one word to describe it all: LIES. Like I mentioned earlier, the computer-generated backgrounds look great. However, the smooth animation that was promised is completely missing from the game: there's only one frame for each action performed by the game characters. If you ask me, I almost got sick having to watch the characters chunking around on my computer screen. The professional soundtrack that was promised is also nowhere to be found. Every tune included with the game is a simplistic piece of techno garbage, and the sound effects are just about as low-quality as the music. Finally, if you ask me, the hit detection in the game is just awful and actually enhances unplayability. Sometimes, you can hit a fighter with full health and it'll instantly die, but other times, hitting the same fighter with full health won't cause any damage at all.

Which then brings us to...
...the generally lazy interface. Why can't you jump or crouch? Why is there only one attack button? Why is there no "quit to DOS" option in the main menu? Whatever the answers to those questions are, somebody must have been really bored when making this piece of crap.

The Bottom Line
If you're one of the people who had to suffer through this manure-in-a-box, I feel sorry for you. Even for the most hardcore fans of the fighting genre, Rise of the Robots is a game that must be avoided by any means necessary. It's just plain garbage.

The Good
Ha! You've got to be kidding me, right? I mean, admittedly the graphics are quite good (something along the lines of Killer Instict, only a few years earlier), but it's just SPRITES, for *'s sake.

*The Bad
Arrrrrrgh! Where do I start? I mean, Rise of the Robots beats the likes of Sango Fighter, Super Fighter, Stick Fighter 2 (I'm not kidding) or even FX Fighter in the "worst game in the history of mankind" category. Dude, it's even worse than Arcade Volleyball, which actually had some kind of play value.

Well then. Shall we?

• The worst programming in a fighting game to date. Especially considering how early of a game it is, SVGA on a 486? I mean, sure, there's The 7th Guest, but DUDE, THIS GAME SUCKS!
• Oh, the all-so-beloved secret moves. Hmm. Perhaps it was just the demo version, with its magnificent two robots, that had so little interesting moves to keep you busy that you'd probably fall asleep before even a single round is over.
• Music? Sound? Get outta here.
• Story! Bwahahahaha! (did this game even have one?)

The Bottom Line
In Cartman's terms, "LLLLLLLLLAME!"

The Good
Well, the CD makes a nice coaster. If not, you can use it to play frisbee with your dog. Or you can just leave it to rot on the shelf of your local store.

The Bad
In short: the fact that it exists.

I mean, was Mirage SERIOUSLY thinking this was an awesome game? What were they smoking when they thought people would actually PLAY this? I mean, the gameplay is some of the worst I've ever encountered; AI is about as dumb as a doorstop, and you can just smack an opponent down with the same move OVER and OVER and OVER....you get the idea. And they don't even bother trying to fight back half the time!! These stupid opponents must like the feel of being kicked in the face repeatedly, no wonder they're all inept.

The sounds, music, and graphics? I'll handle them all at once: they all SUCK. Sounds are all generic and uninspired, the music is crap, and the graphics are even worse.

And one last thing I hated about this game: the hype that surrounded it. People, it doesn't take much to take a pile of horse dung programming, slap it onto a CD and market it as the game to end all games. And that's exactly what happened here.

The Bottom Line
I don't care just how curious you are about this game; treat this game like a horrible skin rash. You don't want to see it, and trust me, you'll be much better off if you don't.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to find a much better fighting game for my PC...

The Good
Good graphics, cool looking robots, the cutscenes were decent. Cool Moves.

The Bad
Not that fun. No depth. Couldn't jump over your damn opponent!

The Bottom Line
All looks, no depth, no fun.