Rise of the Robots

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: