This game was never supposed to be funny - but it was so bad it was almost good.
Hyped up more than the next release from Ultimate, this was supposed to be the best ever fighting game featuring advanced opponent AI, a huge variety of game characters, superb backdrops, adrenaline pumping arcade action and the ultimate animated ray traced characters.
One out of five wasn't bad I suppose...
The characters looked cool when they were stationary.
Anyway - this game was released on the Commodore Amiga, A1200, Amiga CD32, SNES, Megadrive and more. It was even given the classic arcade cabinet treatment - how this happened I'll never know.
Here is a 'teaser trailer' for the game hyping up just how great this was going to be:
As far as I remember the game ended up being pretty similar to the 'work in progress' screens shown in the video above.
There was no enemy AI (which had been done years earlier in Karate Champ and Way Of The Exploding Fist), no real variety of moves (each move pretty much did the same thing and it was a lottery if a blow was landed or not)
I played it on a friends SEGA Mega Drive - and you guessed it, I laughed my ass off. I found that pressing the same joypad and buttons repeatedly got me through round after round as I defeated each opponent with ease.
I was either I was the greatest ever arcade gamer or the game was extremely sh*t. I vote for the latter.
This game was sooo bad it was funny. We've all played some dross over the years (Flight Path 737 anyone?), and this one is up there with the best / worst of 'em.
Of course this (now classic game for all the wrong reasons) has been slated to the max over the years (and rightly so) - and for me it's the video game equivalent of a golden raspberry. A real funny game - no matter what system you played it on - they were all equally as bad as each other.
There were poor games, there were crap games, there were sh*t games, and then there was RISE OF THE ROBOTS. To this day it remains funny.
Classic Arcade Action (ahem) on the Amiga:
Classic Arcade Action on the Megadrive:
Classic Games and Funny Games
Hello, Retro. Chuckles here. I've read your 'Rise o' the Robots' and you're right--the gameplay is laughably predictable--especially with someone as amateurish me playing the thing. At any rate, my theory was that the money must have run out during the latter part of development of this game--because it's not a totally incompetant game--the graphics and motion are impressive (for that time-period). You gotta feel for some of the developers who've visited memory lane and read the reviews which disparaged the lack/loss of AI control during this ) game. 'Interesting' because other beat-em-ups' AI's really could give you a run for your money(!)
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