Rise of the Robots

Rise of the Robots is a computer game developed by Mirage Media and released by Acclaim in 1994. The game was also ported to the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Rise of the Robots is noted as one of the least successful and acclaimed fighters of all time. Featuring incredible graphics for the time, it suffered from a myriad of crippling gameplay problems.

Plot details

The plot, heavily inspired by such movies as Blade Runner, Metropolis and Terminator 2, centers around events in the Electrocorp factory in the fictional city of Metropolis 4, set in an unspecified time in the future.

When Electrocorp’s plan to develop a fully sentient, artificially intelligent being to run Electrocorp’s vast internal working spirals out of control, the ECO35-2 cyborg, (a.k.a. Coton), is sent in to crush the imminent rebellion at the factory. The insurgent robots are led by the Supervisor, the result of Electrocorp’s Leader Project whose aim was to create a droid capable of replacing humans in management rather than production positions. The Supervisor was made self-aware and given a neural-learning CPU, giving it the ability to adapt and think on its own. A revolutionary design not only on account of its artificial intellect, the Supervisor’s body was constructed out of polymetamorphic titanium alloy, which, by adjusting the flow of electrical charge, could reshape and mold itself into any form.

By contrast, the ECO35-2 droid is a cybernetic human being. And although most of the body was disposed of in order to be replaced by superior mechanical parts, the ECO35-2 houses a human brain within its metal framework. As opposed to the fully artificial android that is The Supervisor (or more correctly gynoid, as the Supervisor’s body is shaped in female form), this makes Coton in essence human rather than fully robotic.

When the Supervisor droid assumes control over the Electrocorp plant, the plant's activities are quickly shut down under the guise of technical modifications. The service droids that populate the plant in most of Electrocorp’s parts are infected by a strain of the ego-virus, which induces them to act independently of their original program and come under total control of The Supervisor. Careful not to attract public attention to Electrocorp and uncertain of the Supervisor’s motives, the ECO35-2 is sent in to investigate and proceed to eliminate the Supervisor and any threat along the way.

The game

The game is divided into a single player mode and a two player versus mode. In single player you play as the ECO 32-2 Cyborg and confront the Supervisor’s minions as you fight your way through Electrocorp's facilities. Among others, these include assembly lines, building blocks and nuclear waste facilities. Accordingly, most the robots the player encounters along the way are simply utility droids not specifically designed for combat such as forklifting and building droids. The order of levels was fixed in rising difficulty, where the sixth and final level was a confrontation with the Supervisor droid herself. Each character would be introduced by a short CGI sequence.

In two player versus mode, one player controlled the ECO35-2 droid by default, while the other was constrained to choose between the five characters seen in single player mode (a special cheat code would enable the Supervisor as well). This, combined with restricted action range, a problematical control system and a limited set of moves made the game awkward to handle. Furthermore, because the characters were positioned in climbing difficulty in single player mode, this made them clearly imbalanced in two player mode, where some droids were able to kill with one blow and others could inflict only minor damage. As such Rise of the Robots was unable to contend with more popular fighting titles of the time such as Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter.

Although the game boasted original soundtrack music by Brian May (former guitarist of Queen), only a short intro from "The Dark" appeared in the final release, while the actual in-game score was done by Mirage. Whereas May did in fact record a full soundtrack, EMI wanted to delay production of the game, which consequently prompted Mirage to proceed without the music rather than reschedule its release date.

Follow-up

Despite its failure to gain popular attraction, Mirage released Resurrection: Rise 2 in 1996 as a more conventional fighting game with extended features. The story expanded further upon that of the original game. Originally made for computer systems, it was ported to the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn as well, again with little success.