Robotron : 2084 is among the few truly great classic arcade games, being among the first generation of truly great arcade coin ops. You may have spent many hours in arcades during the great classic video gaming era (1980-1986 or so), and chances are, you ran across a Robotron. Williams Electronics, with its group of visionary and magical group of game programmers, fathered a full line of blockbuster arcade machines during this period, such as Joust, Defender, Sinistar and Stargate, and Robotron is one of that line.

Since that time, most of the imagination and original thinking behind truly great arcade games has left the industry. I happened upon Williams' great classic through the Williams' Arcade Classics package, which I obtained at a local software store. One I got home I was immediately addicted. Nowadays, I enjoy Robotron on a variety of platforms, such as WAC, but also the Apple/IIe, Atari 5200 and 7800, and the actual arcade machine. The gameplay found in this game, I believe, is timeless and is rarely found in any other arcade title. It is with this that I present you the joy that is Robotron.

The premise of this game is amazingly simple. You are a mutant human, who by some freak of nature has the ability to shoot energy pulses from his body in eight different directions! His job is plain: save humanity from their own creation -- the ROBOTRONS! The gameplay is pretty unique. You have two joysticks, the left of which controls your movement in any of eight directions and the other controls your fire, also in any of eight directions. You get thrown in a room with various evil baddies strewn about, and then fast-paced electronic chaos begins.

You gotta kill all the robots while at the same time finding some way to grab humans and avoid death. Sound easy? I think not. One of the most entertaining points of this game is to find avenues of escape and ways to get out of dying. The skill and fortitude that the player demonstrates in getting out of bad situations is what makes Robotron what it is. Just as you are about to avoid a squad of grunts you immediately run into a spheroid or one of the evil hellspawn it generates. You are constantly on the move, directing your fire to blaze a trail toward empty space where your man might have some breathing room. For just a second. Hey, being trapped in a room with a bunch of pissed robots can take a lot out of a man.

Click above for the final chapter.

		Not much of a threat, but can be dangerous in large numbers. This starts to be a problem in later waves when they appear by the bushel.
		These indestructable dudes walk around the playfield, killing off the humans, and getting in the way of your well placed shots.
		1. They launch evil cruise missiles 2. They convert humans to zombies. 3. They do this really fast.
		Brains convert the poor, unsuspecting humans into these hideous, flying electronic zombies. Blast 'em.
		These pains in the ass float around and start spitting out those sadistic enforcer robotrons if you don't make an effort to kill em quick.
		Sphereoids churn these out. They shoot bolts-o-death at you, and your ass is grass is three or four of them get loose on the screen at once...
		Worse than sphereoids. You get a screen full of them and kill 'em quick because they create the maniacal tanks.
		Made by the Quarks, they fire these rebounding balls-o-death at you. If 5 or 6 get made, you're pretty much screwed.

		Eugene Jarvis didn't know what a revolution in games he was creating when he came up with this little pixellated dude. Get ready for the ride of your life!
		Eugene Jarvis didn't know what a revolution in games he was creating.

As you play more and more Robotron there are some subtle strategies that will allow you to progress father and die less often with some degree of consistency. As I've played the game myself, I've come across some hints that I think will really help you kick lots of robot ass. 1. Know your surroundings! When the wave begins, you'll notice that you have about two seconds to "take in" your surroundings before the evil baddies start to come after you. This allows you some time to formulate your plan of attack (and often, escape) you go begin combat. Typically you should use this time to figure out a way to get into an open space, away from mass quantities of grunt Robotrons. Failure to do this is what leads to sudden death at the start of many waves. Don't get too mad if you lose a life or two; sometimes a level sets up in a way that it's impossible to do otherwise. This is easier than it sounds, by the way. Electrodes play a big role in determining your path. There might not be any grunts in one direction, but a wall of electrodes instead. It is often more to your advantage to steer through a crowd of grunts since they'll come after you fairly quickly whereas the 'trodes just sit there. 2. Kill them quarks! On levels containing quarks, you should make it a point to kill 'em quickly. Ignore the humans completely unless they are right in your path. Quarks spit out lots and lots of those tanks, and if more than five or six of them get on the screen at once you're going to have a hard time trying to get out of dying. The tanks fire these bouncing shots which will bounce off the walls at you, and if there are lots of tanks around, there will be nowhere to run. 3. Kill them sphereoids! Make it a point to kill the sphereoids first. Do it. Do it always! Though there may only be two or three on the screen (more appear as the waves progress), they create lots of those enforcer bots that, just like the tanks, will kill your ass really quick. Note that the Sphereoids tend to stagger in their trajectory kind of randomly, so don't get too close. They might fly right into you and that's -1 life right there. Note: You may have to chew your way through a wall or two of grunts just to dispose of all the sphereoids, but don't let them get in your way. You're a man with a purpose! 3. Know the brain levels! This is your chance to clean house, my man. The brains appear and immediately start going after the humans in their quest to convert 'em into hideous progs! So, you get a chance to scoop up lots of points killing brains and lots of point grabbing bodies. But, be careful, since the brains are constantly spitting out the cruise missiles, and these can be pretty hard to hit, especially when they travel diagonally and when there are many en route to smear you all over the floor. Typically I make it my point to get as many humans as I can. You can get so many of them that you will more than likely get a lot of 5000 point bonuses right after one another, and they add up to 25000 point free men fairly quick. You can get 2-3 free men on a brain wave if you play it right.

Randy, plumage@hooked.net: Simply, the brains (and this is a bug) all go after mikey first. once he's progged they take off after everyone else. use those couple of seconds of breathing space to locate mikey then expend all your effort killing brains heading towards him and you (they'll just be on the way to mikey). contrary to what is on your site you can grab other guys while defending mikey. keep him alive and eliminate the baddies and you'll have a room full of humans. yum! ps- i think there are some brain levels that are all mikeys. in this case you're screwed and should revert to any means necessary to get mass humans.

kalla's note: This guys idea really does work, by the way. Use the fact that they chase after Mikey to your benefit, though you had still better watch out for the evil cruise missiles.

John Thornton, JThorn1934@aol.com: Brain screen: Yes, the Mikey trick on wave 5 does work. Also, the Brain screens are sequential, based on groups of 20 (actually all board combos are based on 20): 5, 25, 45 etc. - Mommy screen (brains go for Mikey.) 10, 30, 50 etc. - Daddy screen (brains go for Daddy) 15, 35, 55 etc. - Mikey screen - the hardest IMHO (Looking for Mikey, again.) 20, 40, 60 etc. - Family screen - (not too sure, but I think its Daddy.) At the start of ALL brain waves (not just wave 5), the brains search for one particular human. When that one is changed to a prog, then the brains are released to kill at hearts content. When the wave starts, all the brains will turn and move towards the one that they have to get first, so if you can zero in on it; keep it alive and unrescued for as long as possible. Other 20 wave qroupings: Tanks in regular screens: waves 27-40, 47-60, 67-80, etc... Tanks and Spheroids exclusively: 24, 44, 64, etc... Tank waves: One trick that was not mentioned in your page is the 20 shot tank limit. If the tanks shoot 20 shots in a row, without you killing a single one (shot, not tank) they will not shoot anymore. Of course, once you fire and hit a tank "bullet" it resets back to 0 shots fired and starts all over again. I think the limit was put in the original to save computing power (too many things on the screen) and it was faithfully transferred to Williams Arcade Classics; which I also bought at Wal-Mart. Don't worry about humanity on these waves, just save your own butt. Another tip: the closer you are to a shooting tank, the slower the shot moves. This sets up an interesting strategy where it is sometimes better to move in the middle to slow the shots, and then break for the outside, shooting in. Fast angle tank shots are the supreme killer on this wave, as you well know. Keep out of the corners! Spheroids: These suckers aim at you in the beginning of many waves - I've seen a number do 90 degree turns just to run into me. If you destroy a spheroid and ALL the enforcers that it has released, that spheroid will not (usually) reappear if you die. This hint works most of the time and is a good general rule. Quarks, which generate tanks, stay dead. Limits: Due to the 8 bit processor, the machine could only count up to 255. Once it hit 256, it "rolled over" to 0. This causes some interesting and frustrating things to happen: 1. Once you hit wave 256, you started again on wave 1. 2. If you get 255 extra men, and you reach that 256th extra man, the machine will roll over and give you 0 extra men. You still have the man you're playing. I lost two 25,000,000 point (6 hours each) games this way. Both times I was going for the record of, at that time, 100,000,000 points. I was quite pissed. I later rationalized it as giving the machine such a butt-whupping, that it quit. Rolling over your men is as close to beating Robotron as you can get.