Williams/Vid Kidz 1982
Inspired by his never-ending quest for progress, in 2084 man perfects the Robotrons: A robot species so advanced that man is inferior to his own creation.Guided by their infallible logic, the Robotrons conclude: The Human race is inefficient, and therefore must be destroyed.
You are the last hope for mankind.
Back in 1982, when Robotron came out in the arcades, it was definitely a technological marvel. The brainchild of video game masterminds Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, Robotron is one game that showcases all of the usual talent and Flair of the Williams games of the era, Robotron proved to be one of the most intense video games to hit the arcades in those days, and continues to enjoy that distinction even today, in an arcade populated by "me too" fighters and racing games.
In short, Robotron is a game of shooting everything that moves. In practice, there's a little more to the game than that, but what it all boils down to is that you have two joysticks, one to move and one to fire, and there is plenty of stuff there that needs to be fired at. In a nutshell, the Robotrons happen to be wiping out humanity right and left, and you, a mutant superhero thingie, must save them.
Moving around the screen and firing in all directions, your goal is to wipe out all of the robotrons (except for the indestructible hulks, who cannot be destroyed and save as many of the humans as possible. Of course, if there weren't plenty of obstacles in the way, this would turn out to be a rather boring game.
Mommy, Daddy and Timmy somehow happened to become the last surviving human family, and because of this fact, you happen to have been assigned to save them. For each family member you save, you will receive an increasing amount of points (from 1,000 to 2,000 and increasing from there. Surprisingly, with all of the ensuing carnage, they seem to walk around as happy and oblivious as ever to their surroundings.
Grunt robots (short for Ground Roving Unit Network Termination, which seems something of a stretch for an acronym) are the most common robots in the game. Most of what they do is to move around, and be blasted to smithereens right and left. Each of these is worth 100 points. Still, you have to watch out for these, as there tends to be plenty of them to go around.
Hulk robots, on the other hand, are less common, but can destroy humans, and are indestructible. It is a good idea to just stay away from these. Your shots will keep them temporarily at bay, but it's not a good idea to mess with these too much.
Enforcers and tanks will notbe on screen at the beginning of a round, but are generated by spheres and quarks (not shown here). These are bad news, as they will hunt you down and shoot back at you. Get rid of these as quickly as possible. The enforcers are worth 150 points, and the tanks are worth 200 points. Sphereoids and quarks are worth 1,000 points apiece.
The electrodes will appear in the screen scattered at random. These are stationary, and can be destroyed by a single shot, but are nonetheless deadly, for both you and the robots who happen to blunder into them.
The brains are the most dangerous enemies in the game, having the ability to fire homing missiles at you, and to turn humans into dangerous Progs. The brains are worth 500 points apiece, and the cruise missiles 25 points. The progs are 100 points apiece.
