I Robot . . . You Pulp

A Review of Rise of the Robots

by Erwin Maclan

There is one thing you can easily say about Rise of the Robots: it is a pretty game to look at. From a graphics point of view it is superb. Fully ray-traced art, design and animation kick anything on the market right now on this genre (although I still have to see a full version of One Must Fall).

Rise is a "beat me up" kind of game in the mold of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Basic premise goes along the line of a bunch of robots revolting against the company and starting to takeover the place. You, a cyborg, are sent in to deal with the problem.

This is where Rise has a slight advantage over SFII and MK: there a slightly better plot. And this is built on in the game; a very atmospheric intro creates the perfect mood borrowing heavily from sci-fi novels.

Now back to the pretty pictures. It is important in these type of games, were fast pace action and timing are important, that animation is smooth and response is quick. Rise succeeds in these areas. There is no slow down and anything I do on the controls is immediately reflected in the screen.

Second you don't need a super beefy machine to run it at all. I've tested it on a 486-33 DX machine and even with full detail running I get the same fluid animations.

Now the bad news. Despite all the points this games wins in the graphic department, this games comes along as a disappointment. It seemed the makers did not put as much effort in other areas as it did the in the graphics. After the "golly gee wow" factor of the graphics dissipates, the games loses that particular aspect that makes the player want to come back for more.

The sound effects and music are adequate but does not create, much less hold, an atmosphere that pumps the player up. Second, although there is a usual array of moves the player can perform, the matches has a tendency to degenerate in a slugging match with the winner being decide on the one who can hit the fire button quicker.

The AI for your opponents is quite good though, with your enemies learning quickly from your moves. But as with these games it is much better to play against second player.

All in all, a decent enough game but could have been a lot better.

Gamer's Zone Scorecard

Product:	Rise of the Robots
Company:	MS-DOS 5.0 or better 386/33 or better 4MB RAM SoundBlaster compatible sound card Joystick or Mouse CD-ROM Drive
Cost:	$PRICE

System Requirements:

n/a

Breakdown:

Fun Factor 2
Graphics 5
Sound 3
Interface 3
Replayability 2

Overall Score:

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