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I, Robot |
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Manufacturer:
Atari Year: 1983 Class: Wide Release Genre: Shooter Type: Videogame Monitor:
Number of Simultaneous Players: 1 Maximum number of Players: 2 Gameplay: Alternating Control Panel Layout: Single Player Ambidextrous Controls:
Sound: Amplified Stereo (two channel) |
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DescriptionThe first videogame using 3-D filled polygons. I, Robot placed the player in a (at the time) bewildering landscape of surrealistic shapes and sounds. Using a Hall-effect joystick, two fire buttons and two buttons to control the players viewing angle, the player controls "Unhappy Interface Robot #1984" as he tries to clear each cleverly designed level of red tiled polygons.Know anything more about this game? Cabinet InformationI, Robot's cabinet was identical to the Firefox upright, and similar to the Major Havoc dedicated. It featured a narrow "waist" area, a small control panel and an angled "top box" that held the monitor and seemed to be almost "winged" by the vertical speaker grills that flanked the sides of the monitor. The base flared out about 6 to 9 inches from the floor (I could measure it if you want) to form a sturdy base that angled in to a smaller flat front. The cabinet only had artwork around the "waist area" and control panel.Game IntroductionBig Brother has said no jumping, but it is all poor robot#1984 loves to do. He must travel through each maze-like level, eliminating the shield protecting Big Brother's watchfull eye and then destroy the eye itself. After each level, he gets to fly though space to the next level, where he begins his task anew.Game PlayThe game play consists of moving robot#1984 over all of the red tiles while avoiding objects flying at you from the back of the screen. Eliminating the red tiles diminishes the shield at the back of the playfield which prevents you from flying to the next level. To get to all the red tiles, players sometimes need to leap across empty space which creates a permanent bridge between the two points. Leaps across empty space have to be timed so that the "eye" of Big Brother in the back of the playfield, which randomly opens and closes, does not see robot#1984 and destroy him.When all of the playfield's red tiles have been eliminated, the shield disapears and the player can then leap to the final red tile on the level which destroys the "eye" and ends the level. The victorious robot then jumps off the playfield and flys through space to the next puzzle-like playfield. While flying through space, the player needs to avoid polygon obstacles while blasting stars. Every five levels, the space flight sequence is replaced with a flight through space ending with a large "head." The head, when faced, shoots spikes at the player in the real world - not robot#1984. All the spikes need to be shot while in front of the robot or they will circle behind and destroy him. The playfields are not randomly generated. However, they always vary from level to level. A unique feature of the game, which greatly aids game play on some levels, is the ability to change one's perspective of the playfield at anytime by moving the "camera" viewpoint through a certain range of possible locations. The camera viewpoint always remains behind robot#1984. An interesting option called "Doodle City" allows the player to spend a few minutes drawing and experimenting with the game's polygon objects. Drawing objects can also be animated, spining or orbiting on one of their axis. Players chosing to spend time in "Doodle City" can switch to the game with a diminished number of lives based on how long they spend doodling. MiscellaneousThe game has 99 different playfields with 99 different space sequences between them. Completing certain levels allows the player to jump to higher levels, thus bypassing intermediate playfields. Legend has it that only 1000 were produced. Atari was only able to sell 500 in the US so the rest were shipped to Japan. If this is true, the serial numbers must not be sequential. A production run of 1200 to 1500 is probably more likely.Scarcity in collections (VAPS.org)Common - There are 28 known instances of this game owned by one of our 900 members. Of these, 26 of them are original dedicated machines, 0 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards have been placed in another game cabinet, and 2 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.Of the 42,694 video games (3,154 unique) tracked by the Video Game Preservation Society, this game ranks a 21 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most commonly seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on ownership records. Wanted - There are 5 VAPS members currently looking for this game. Rarity is NOT necessarily an indication of value. Some common games show up as very rare here because collectors don't want them (they are common because arcade operatos might be sitting on tons of them in warehouses), while some fairly scarce games are grabbed by collectors every time they show up. Additionally, some games made in the last 5 years are still making money for operators and are thus not yet affordable to the typical collector. For a clue to value, compare how many people have this game vs. how many people want this game and then click on the eBay links to help determine an accurate price range. TechnicalThe game uses a 6809 microprocessor and four Atari Pokey sound chips.TriviaI, Robot was, apparently, originally to be called "Ice Castles". The game was a complete flop at the time, players were really unable to cope with the surrealism and "newness" of the graphics.Although probably not the entire reason why the hall-effect joystick was not copied by other manufacturers, Atari was granted a patent (now expired) for a "finger control joystick utilizing Hall effect", which can be viewed at http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US04459578__&s_clms=1 eBay ListingsClick here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for the I, Robot Videogame machine and items related to it.Click here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for machines and parts made by Atari. Alternatively, check out the IAM/KLOV custom report of the hottest coin-op machines on eBay, powered by Ace.com (updated throughoutthe day).
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