Atomic Robo-Kid

[Melf]

Among the plethora of shmups available on the Genesis is Atomic Robo-Kid, a game that has received heavy criticism over the years. Guess what? It's about to receive some more. Sega-16 sat down with the game, and came away...less than impressed, to say the least. Our write up (http://www.sega-16.com/forum/../Review-%20Atomic%20Robo-Kid.htm) has all the details, so check it out, if you can tear yourself away from Robo's beady little eyes long enough to click the link.

[David J.]

Hey, I like the game. I think I'm the only one

I remember when I first saw the box art to this game when I was seven or eight, around 1995 and I laughed. At the time the first Genesis games really held my intrest because, they where well... old. And I never saw a lot of them.

[Joe Redifer]

I remember looking at pictures of this game before the Genesis was released (or right around the same time). My thoughts were "OMG looook at teh grafx OMG they look like real good or sumthin! They look like R-Type grfx only a bit better and I like R-Type OMG teh Genesis roxOrZ teh TurboGrafx sux and Nintendo is teh crap OMG teh GENESIS OWNZ!"

Then about 8 or 10 months later the game was finally released. I don't know if it was that long, but it was a long time later. I rented the game and became very angry. It was nothing like a real shooter! I could turn around and go up and down at will! This was unacceptable. The graphics weren't as good as I had remembered and the sound was pathetic, so I returned the game to the rental store and set it on fire (the store, not the game... though I assume the game burned as well). A few store employees died but I'm sure they understood. They rebuilt the store the next day and from then on Atomic Robo-Kid was not allowed within for any reason. The store still stands to this day (though it really, really really sucks now.)

[JFLY]

Is the PC Engine version any better?

[Joe Redifer]

It'd probably be worse since the PC Engine only has one background layer.

[Flash1087]

Man oh man, do I wanna play this!

Why?

GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT. I paid $20 for Spy Fiction on the PS2, after all.

[j_factor]

Is Spy Fiction really that bad?

[Flash1087]

Is Spy Fiction really that bad?

Yes. Yes it is.

Let me make a diagram:

Fun is on the left, Spy Fiction on the right, public humilation would be about in the middle

[]---------------------------------[]--------------------------------------[]

That's how far away Spy Fiction is from fun, and what a gap it has from other non-fun activities.

[winona]

Hah!

I played this game on emu after reading the review thinking that it couldnt possible be that bad.

I got to act 7 without dying one on my 1st try thinking that the difficulty level was a load of crap. Then i got to the maze with securo-o-bots all over the place.

First they took meby surprise and i lost my neat 3 way shot. Then it was essentially game over since I couldnt get in a position to shoot anything before I was insta killed by the turrets. ) Lost something like 8 lifes. And never even got close to completing the act.

[janus]

Surely it can't be as bad as Atomic Runner?!

[j_factor]

Atomic Runner wasn't bad. If it weren't for the one-hit kills, it'd have been really good.

[janus]

It was annoying having to press a button to turn round though. I didn't like having to do that in Ranger X either. It just felt awkward (although Ranger X made up for it by being AWESOME).

[j_factor]

Did you expect to be able to turn around with mind control, or what?

[Melf]

I think he meant being able to just use the D-Pad to turn around, and I tend to agree. Having to press a button to do so in combat could really be distracting sometimes, until you got used to it.

[janus]

Hah yeah, I meant having to press the A button to turn. It could be tough to keep up at times, especially since it was always scrolling.

[j_factor]

But if you turned around with the d-pad, you wouldn't be able to move around and face the same direction, which is important for this game.

[PC509]

This was one of my first Genesis games. I loved it and hated it at the same time. It was ok game play wise, got frustrated after a while... Pissed me off in the end... Graphics were ok. But, it didn't make me want to come back and play it again and again.

[Kirby2000]

Never had any problem with Atomic Robo Kid MD. First, I had enjoyed the arcade game. Second I liked the quirky graphics, and that poor C3-PO-esque droid was quite charismatic for me.

All of the criticisms aimed at the game in the review were valid. But the cramped environments, those respawning monsters, the cramped environments (Did I mention those?) made the game original. In brief, clearly not so bad to play, and scoring huge kudos for having some personality.

Oh, and I can't grasp how Curse, for instance, can get a better note than ARK. Just can't get my head around it. Blows my mind. (etc....)

PS : I'll admit that much: the enclosed laser fights that put you against another small robot, well, they sucked. They sucked in the arcade version, and they did in the PC-Engine version, and they do here, too. No denying that.

[Benjamin]

Never had any problem with Atomic Robo Kid MD. First, I had enjoyed the arcade game. Second I liked the quirky graphics, and that poor C3-PO-esque droid was quite charismatic for me.

All of the criticisms aimed at the game in the review were valid. But the cramped environments, those respawning monsters, the cramped environments (Did I mention those?) made the game original. In brief, clearly not so bad to play, and scoring huge kudos for having some personality.

I agree, I like the game, enough to grab the Japanese MegaDrive version for the art and color book, too. :) It's still not one I'd recommend to people though since there's really not much going for it now. Some of the boss encounters and turrent placements do make me wonder though if the game was designed as a quarter muncher, and those traits were not removed from the console versions.

As far as the button press to turn, that's needed for strafing in what is a free roaming shooter. Defender, Fantasy Zone, and other free roaming shooters would have to do similar if they allowed an ability to move backwards and continue to fire as well. It's been used in other games, too, such as Granada, and nothing something unique to the game. I think that's part of the appeal to me -- there are so few shooters that utilize that strafing style gameplay, and the ability to move around a non-forced scrolling game is a nice change of pace.