“Welcome, my son. Welcome to the machine.”
-Pink Floyd
Pinball machines whir and buzz around us, their bumpers clacking and the lights on their boards flashing with bright neon colors. DDR blazes it’s pop music in the background, Galaga and Donkey Kong chirp to our lefts and rights. Dozens of people line up to play their favorite arcade games. Except this one. Sunlight pours in from the windows behind us, covering the screen in a glare as we try to block it out. Nothing really helps and within seconds my friend next to me is screaming. “No, not my humans!” as his voice takes on a high pitched, squealing tenor. People turn to look in our direction and I play it cool, giving them a smile and nod as I turn back to the game. They just don’t understand. This is Robotron: 2084.
Developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar in 1982, Robotron can be accurately called the grandfather of twin stick shooters. Set in the year 2084, robots have taken control of the world and killed off most of humanity. Players take control of a superhuman (kind of looks like a carrot in a lab coat) doing their best to save the last few humans and destroy the robot overlords.
Noble pursuit of human rights is not why my friend screams at the screen next to me though. Each human is worth points, and the more you collect, “saving” them by running into them, the more points you score. Chaining them together means big, big points. As two avid twin stick shooter players, we’ve made it our mission this week to take and keep the high score on the machine each day. With no offense to the people around us, the competition isn’t that tough or demanding. But the game sure is. Green and yellow enemies roam the levels trying to kill off humans before you can reach them and chasing you down as you try to shoot them. Some look like giant hulking behemoths, others like little flying police robots. Getting hit or touching any enemy a single time means death, and that’s exactly what happens when a little robocop catches my friend unaware. Game over. Gently, sort of, I push him out of the way and take my turn.
Yes, this is a Nex Machina review, but the mention of Jarvis and his earlier games serves a point, I swear. Back in the day when you paid for games with quarters Robotron was hugely successful, and for a man who also developed Defender you can understand how highly critics regard it when they say that it might be his most important contribution to the gaming industry. Guinness ranked it as the #11 arcade game in it’s list of technical, creative and impactful games. It features in media such as the popular book Ready Player One and the similarly popular Fallout 4 as an Easter egg players can find and enjoy. It was ported to multiple platforms and sold over 19,000 cabinets worldwide. Sequels were planned for cabinets and a movie adaptation was in the works but then… the North American Video Game Crash of 1983 happened. While spin offs and sequels did eventually get produced, they never really held the same feel and charm of the original.
Thirty five years later, at the end of June 2017, Robotron : 2084 finally got its proper sequel. Nex Machina, developed by Housemarque and with Jarvis himself consulting, does its best to channel the old school arcade feel of games long gone. Again the world is over run by robots and again the last few humans are in need of rescue. Playing as a motorcycle riding… robot person (maybe?) you set off into the world to kill the machines and rescue your humans. Like it’s spiritual inspiration, humans are again worth points and the more you save the more you score. Enemies again can kill you with one hit but this time you are armed with power ups, shields and secondary weapons to help you make your way through the world. To say this game is similar to Robotron is an understatement, but imitation is flattery and this game does it in all the right ways.
Click here for the full review... https://thewellredmage.com/2017/08/03/nex-machina/
