Ask any twelve year old kid with third-degree monitor burns on his face, "Hey kid, what's the most popular kind of video game around?" and he'll tell you, "Golly gee whilickers, mister, that would have to be fighting games. Got fifty cents? I'll show you one!" (A brief word of advice: don't fall for that last bit û it's a con.) Sub-Zero is more popular than Newt Gengrich (probably because Sub-Zero has a more even temper and is a lot more fun at parties). However, for some strange reason, the PC has seen very little of the mountain of fighting game titles in the arcades and on home video game systems. Is it that the computer just can't handle the fast action required of today's fighting games? No. Acclaim's PC release of Mortal Kombat proved that fighting games can be done on the PC, and done well. Taking that into consideration, I suppose Time Warner Interactive deserves some recognition for releasing the Mirage Technologies fighting game Rise of the Robots on the PC, in both floppy and CD-ROM versions. Sadly, the fact that it exists on this platform is one of very few positive things I can say about Rise of the Robots.
Technically, Rise of the Robots is a fighting game, but to call it such is giving it far too much credit. That would be like dressing up Emmanuel Lewis in shorts and gloves, dropping him in a ring and calling him a professional boxer. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's start with a little impartial pseudo-journalism here, and after I've communicated the facts I'll give vent to my personal feelings of hatred and exasperation.
Yes, Rise of the Robots is a fighting game. (I'm biting my tongue. Hard.) Its setting is the Electrocorp manufacturing complex. Apparently, the head robot, known as The Supervisor (how they came up with that name we can only guess) has been infected with the Ego virus, and has given orders to all its under-bots to waste anything that they see. Naturally, the human bigwigs at Electrocorp want their building back, so they've constructed a (very boring) humanoid cyborg to battle its way through the complex and defeat the amok Supervisor. (Actually, this sounds a lot like a job I once had.)
Graphically, Rise of the Robots is miles ahead of its fighting game competition. All the robots are rendered in 3D Studio. They look absolutely stunning in their hi-res graphics, and they each have an animation sequence (again done in 3D Studio) that, while simple, is smooth and very attractive. Ya want graphical flair? Rise of the Robots has got yer graphical flair. Up the wazoo.
The graphics are great, and you'd better enjoy them a whole hell of a lot, Trusting Consumer, because once you stray into the actual game you're in for a lot of trouble. As a consumer, you buy the game, marvel at the wonderful cut scenes, and then start a game; you are about to get, as we in the industry call it, "[EXPLETIVE DELETED] in the [EXPLETIVE DELETED]." The graphics were cool, and you should have left it at that; but noooooooo, you had to try the game, foolish person that you are.
As I "played" Rise of the Robots, (and who out there can call oral surgery "play"?) I got the acute feeling that no one on the design team had ever played a fighting game. Okay, maybe one of the Beta testers had spent a buck on Double Dragon a few years back, but that's it. Nobody who's played fighting games enough to know that they like them will find anything of value in Rise of the Robots, spiffy graphics aside. There is one attack button. One!! One button and the right joystick combination does all your punching and kicking. For those of you with those new-fangled sticks with two buttons on 'em, you can use the other one to block. Considering that there are some damn fine multi-button controllers out there (yes, even for the PC!) this half-assed excuse for a control system should be enough to insult any self-respecting consumer into taking this dog back to the kennel. But wait . . . there's more!
If you want to play a full game (the kind where you beat one robot and go on to face the next one on the list) you can play as one character and one character only û the cyborg. You can play as the other robots, but only as a one-fight mini-game. Even drooling morons can think of that and say, "Hey, that's like stupid and stuff!" Also, all the robots feel essentially the same. And none of them can jump over an opponent. Apparently, the designers at Mirage Technologies decided that's one fighting game staple that's completely over-rated. Each robot has up to two special moves (yes, two. How's that for variety? I'll bet it'll be a long time before you've mastered two moves, eh?). Now, I've played a fair share of fighting games, and the special moves here aren't especially hard, but I still couldn't pull them off consistently. Usually I'd blame my own lame self, but not this time.
Most of the robots are actually pretty original. They were all designed as factory workers, so you'll be fighting against opponents you won't see in other fighting games. Until you reach The Supervisor, that is. (Actually, if you're stubborn enough to play this game that long you're probably beyond all help.) The supervisor is a morphing humanoid, and is visually comparable û down to the pixel û to the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I can picture James Cameron on the phone now: "I don't care how, get a goddamn lawsuit on these idiots now! What the hell do I pay you for, ya friggin' shyster?! Sue! Sue!! Sue!!!" Maybe he has more important things on his mind.
I'm sure I've written something about style versus substance before. Why yes, that phrase seems to have a familiar ring to it. Rise of the Robots is a classic standard-setting example of a game that's all style and no substance. Absolutely none, whatsoever. It has no gameplay. It has no justifiable reason to exist. Avoid it. I wish I could have.
