Masterpiece: Robotron 2084

Masterpiece: Robotron 2084

Robotron 2084 helped create the genre of twin-stick shooters, and it still …

Ben Kuchera – Jul 2, 2010 12:17 pm | 119

When you pick up a game for the first time, you’re often subjected to tutorial levels or sections that hold your hand until you master the game’s mechanics… and these sections can last an uncomfortably long time.

It’s no wonder that many of us often find solace in the high-concept games of the classical arcade era, that beautiful time in the 1980s when Pac-Man was god and Defender was thought to be too damn confusing. There is one game that towers above even those in my—admittedly minority—opinion: Robotron 2084.

The game popularized the twin-stick design, where one joystick moved your character and the other controlled your direction of fire. (You only had one weapon.) The joysticks were of course digital back then, so you could only move and shoot in eight directions. There was no scrolling and there were no surprises. The game showed you the entirety of the level for a second before play began; you had a tiny moment to see the four walls and to take in where the enemies were and in what numbers. This was the game’s way of bowing at you before the attack.

Four walls, monstrous enemies, a human family

Robotron 2084 was, above everything else, fair. It showed you everything it had, and then it tried to kill you.

The game’s story is minimal: you are a superhuman in the titular year, fighting to save surviving humans from the robots hellbent on destroying their humanity. Before the game even begins things have gone to hell, and the game gives you a sense of desperation even with the limited graphics and colors of the time. These aren’t just survivors, you’re told, this is “the last human family.” You’re put in an impossible situation, and you can try to fight your way out, but in the end you will succumb to the enemy’s advanced numbers.

Can we imagine that Eugene Jarvis, the creator of both Defender and Robotron 2084, felt some impending doom or lost someone close to him? In both games you have to save nearly helpless humans from an encroaching threat. In his mind, who were these people? Why was destruction so assured?

In 1990, Jarvis helped to further chase these concepts with the also-classic Smash TV, but that game doesn’t elicit the same kind of primal reaction Robotron enjoyed. In Smash TV, the player fights in a sort of Running Man-esque game show for cash and prizes against waves of enemies that enter the arena. There is no one to save, and new waves enter the arena as each level progresses.

In Robotron, you begin the game in the middle of the screen, with every enemy you’re going to fight in that level already on display. There are no surprises, there is nothing hidden up the game’s sleeve. This is a deal you will rarely get in life, an experience that calmly shows you everything it has to offer before throwing it all at you.

The dual-stick shooter is an overdone style among each console’s digital distribution services. Notable examples include Geometry Wars, Everyday Shooter, and Super Stardust HD. But there was a certain power in the simplicity of Robotron. After a while, players begin to look through the screen, trying to find the patterns and an ephemeral path through the attacking hordes in order to survive until the next level. There is nothing else to worry about or to work out.

Who needs scrolling levels? Who needs surprises? Robotron is a fist fight between you and a worthy opponent. It feels like a duel, even if the flashing graphics suggest a sickly sweet radioactive nightmare. Everything is sharp noises and bright colors, but the gameplay, if nothing else, is honorable. Today, everyone respects it, but everyone thinks they can improve the mechanics in some way…

Bliss is finding an arcade with a well-maintained machine that still runs on a single quarter. If the time comes when I can’t find one, I’ll buy one for our basement and teach my sons to play properly. Robotron 2084, in some ways, teaches you to be a gentleman. Albeit a slightly brutal one.