In the beginning there were vector graphics, and honestly they’re still pretty fantastic. Vector eventually gave way to sprites, and sprites to polygons, but the first major truly 3D game got almost completely ignored despiteI, Roboteventually getting recognized as an arcade classic. Being fondly remembered in the long term is great and all, but games in the ’80s arcades made their money in exactly one place: the arcades. There was no console do-over (AsteroidsandOmega Raceon Atari 2600, sure, but where were the mid-tier games likeMad Planets?) or long-tail digital distribution, so whileI, Robotwas eventually recognized as being much better than its reception indicated, there was no recovering from it having bombed. And then somehow forty years passed and now it’s getting a sequel.
Jump The Unjumpable, Shoot The Unshootable
I, Robotis the newest Atari license getting a makeover by way of Llamasoft, following on the heels ofAkka ArrhandTempest 4000. While the game has been dressed up and given an unmistakably Llamasoft coat of paint, anyone familiar with the arcade game will be able to instantly hop in and start playing, guiding the newly-horned robot through the stages and racking up a decent score while quickly realizing that, while there’s more than a little that’s familiar here, there’s also a whole lot that’s new. Llamasoft’sI, Robotis a proper sequel to the arcadeI, Robot, rather than a remake and there’s a lot more going on than simple visual overload.
Blast Authority In Its Big All-Seeing Eye as Llamasoft Gives I, Robot A Well-Deserved Update
An I, Robot with the full visual overload, verbal madness, and sheepie baas that it just wouldn’t be a Llamasoft game without.
The hero inI, Robotis a little bot rebelling against an all-seeing eye that’s laid down the law of No Jumping. Seeing as most levels are broken up into smaller fragments this is highly limiting, so when the eye isn’t watching the robot jumps from one section to the next. The entire level is made up of paths broken into squares, and every square the robot travels over changes color. Additionally, when jumping from one area to the next a new path of squares is laid down, so that first jump between sections makes a path you can travel over without worrying about setting off the eye’s instant-death gaze.
The object of each level is to travel all the paths and convert them to your color while avoiding or shooting any enemies, and once complete the level shatters into its component pieces and is heaved with great force right into the giant stupid eyeball’s authoritarian gaze. Between one level and the next is an on-rails shooter section where the bot flies into the screen blasting purple triangles called tetras. Get them all and rack up a nice score bonus, and there are a number of scoring tricks to uncover throughout the game as well. Trippy graphics and higher resolution aside, all the little tweaks and hidden features are where the newI, Robotfully differentiates itself from the original.
The first couple levels will look familiar to anyone who’s played the arcade game, but Level 1 (actually the second level, it starts at zero) introduces the first secret goal. Shoot the birds flying in from the level background and the next second or two of shots will color in any tile they fly over, saving the robot a huge amount of time zipping forward and back to claim them manually. This isn’t explained anywhere and is left to the player to discover – just one of many buried mechanics hiding in the game. There’s not even a tutorial, for that matter, but instead each level has a short line of instructions that’s not going to be of much help to new players who have never seen the game before.
Trippy graphics and higher resolution aside, all the little tweaks and hidden features are where the newI, Robotfully differentiates itself from the original.
“Do not jump while eye is open. Remove all tiles to finish level.” doesn’t really explain that there’s no jump button and instead you just move towards where you want to go, and if it’s on the same plane there will be a line connecting the square you’re on to the ones you can jump to. Or that the eye only squints a bit and never closes, but instead is only dangerous when both fully open and turned red. Additionally, as you play the squares don’t just change color, but rather there are tiles on top that pop off and fly to hit the eye, which has a number on it corresponding to how many tiles are left to uncover in the level. Anyone familiar withI, Robotwill pick up on the old mechanics instantly and the new ones quickly, but it might be a bit of a wall for new players.
That’s more a warning than a knock on the game, though, becauseI, Robotis a fantastic reimagining of the arcade original. Each level is something different, such as the ones with poison green tiles that cause the robot to make a squelchy/farty sound as it travels while leaving a green trail behind, only gotten rid of by jumping and important to remove because the poison turns deadly every ten seconds or so. Arena levels show up every few stages, where tiles are removed not by traveling over them but shooting enemies who recolor the tiles when they explode. One level is based on Llamasoft’sDeflex, while another is based on the arcade classicAmidar. Some sections let you shoot with wild abandon and others give a bonus for no enemies killed, and each new level is completely different from the ones that came before.
Row Row, Fight The Power
Between each level is the tetra shooter section, and like the main levels, no two are the same. The tetras initially hang out on a pleasantly curved plane, easily taken out for a hefty all-clear bonus, but from the second level on the shooting field becomes something more similar toPolybius. The gentle plane turns into a tube shooter or deceptively curved surface, and new enemies show up to both clutter the screen and provide a nice increase in firepower. The initial shot tempo is decent enough, but the more things are destroyed the faster it gets, and when the screen is packed there’s a pyrotechnic show exploding with more light and color than it seems like a monitor should be able to hold. Insane firepower is nothing like invulnerability, though, and it’s as easy to lose a life in the bonus section as it is in the main levels.
Death doesn’t end up being too much of a punishment, though, because while it won’t help with earning a high score, you can choose any level at any time and start a new game from there. Each level also comes with a set of bonus goals to chase after, flashing stars on the level select letting you know you’ve achieved it and solid ones indicating it’s still to be earned. For when the levels get stressful there’s also an Ungame mode where you can play with the light synth backgrounds just for the fun of flashing colors at yourself, and there’s even a Sheep Test feature in the options, which is apparently just a series of baa sound effects most likely recorded directly from Jeff Minter’s flock. It wouldn’t be a Llamasoft game without them, after all.
Closing Comments:
I, Robotis an incredible sequel to a lost arcade classic, instantly playable by fans of the original, but with more than enough new gameplay hooks to make it stand on its own. All the features of a Llamasoft game are present, from the occasionally rude level name to an audio soundscape comprised of baa-ing sheep and endless samples, plus the visual overload that dials it back on the main part of the level and goes for broke during the shooter sections. Each level is its own little arcade puzzle, with the player needing to untangle how the enemies are going to move this time and what the best path through looks like, and whether you want to do a full run from Level 0 to the end or just take it a couple levels at a time and continue as needed,I, Robotis happy to accommodate. The authoritarian eye should probably be paying much closer attention to the robot’s moves, but its laziness means you may cram an entire level of rebellion right through its all-seeing cornea.
No jumping allowed, as proclaimed by the ever-watching eye overseeing an arena being traversed by a rebellious robot. Travel each stage in I, Robot to recolor it, hopping from one section to the next when not being watched, and then ram the entire level into the giant eyeball before flying to the next.
