Thursday 2 September, 2004

I'm playing this for research reasons. Seriously!

Robotron is an interesting game that everyone seems to remember rather fondly. In particular, there is always mention of the intensity of the game as well as the sense of impending doom. I think this is certainly true though I would add that the game has a lot of onscreen caos as well! It's a cool game and I'm enjoying playing it every now and then. (for research purposes)

Robotron is a hard game, and it is made even harder due to the controls. The original arcade version was played with dual joysticks. I've had to play it on a keyboard. This is a clear example of an arcade game with special affordances due to the hardware input!

My current high score is 39,175 (and I reached wave 5).


There's a pretty good shockwave version up at:
http://www.shockwave.com/sw/content/robotron

Get a decent gamepad, man (woman?). Most of them these days have 2 analog sticks - perfect for Robotron :)

Or, if you have a PS2 (I seem to recall you do?), you could go hunting for one of those converters which let you plug your PS2 pad into a USB...

Man. :-)

Yeah, I guess I should get a gamepad...but I'm afraid I wouldn't put it to enough use to be worth the investment. I have the same internal argument about buying another PS2 controller. (I only have one). Sure, it's fun to be able to play with a friend....but I have the Dreamcast to do that! (as well as other non-electronic games). In the end, I guess I'm happy I didn't go out and buy another controller...since I've spent that money on more games!

Anyways, do you think the dual sticks on a gamepad are close enough to the dual sticks of the arcade cabinet?

They're a darn sight better than a keyboard. I tried PomPom Games' "Mutant Storm" (a Robotron clone of sorts), and the gamepad worked very well indeed.