Tribute to a Star: See Michael Jackson - Moonwalker 1990 videogame by Sega

Robotron: 2084

Manufacturer: Williams
Year: 1982
Class: Wide Release
Genre: Shooter
Type: Videogame

Monitor:

Orientation: Horizontal
Type: Raster: Standard Resolution
CRT: Color
19-inch Wells-Gardner

Conversion Class: Williams
Number of Simultaneous Players: 1
Maximum number of Players: 2
Gameplay: Alternating
Control Panel Layout: Single Player
Controls:

Joystick: 8-way
Joystick: 8-way

Sound: Amplified Mono (one channel)

Click here to contribute another image.

Robotron: 2084 3-D Model (QuickTime (TM))
Robotron: 2084 Control Panel Image

Robotron: 2084 Description

The object of the game is to save the last human family (although it seems they had a really big family) and kill anything or anyone who gets in your way. Two joysticks are used for play control; one for movement and the other for firing.

Know anything more about this game?
Click here to contribute a description or other text information.
Thanks!

Cheats, Tricks and Bugs

There is a bug in Robotron that can make the game crash when you shoot into the corners. This is said to be avoidable by turning the fancy attract mode of the game off.

In wave five, the first brain wave, a mistake in the brains' algorithm can help you gain a vast amount of points. There is one Mikey with lots of Mommies - however, the mistake in the algorithm causes the brains to seek out Mikey rather than the Mommies. Therefore, if you can keep the brains from getting to Mikey without picking him up yourself (at least until you rescue all the Mommies), you stand to gain a huge amount of points -- up to 5,000 points for each Mommy.

During the tank wave, try to avoid shooting the tanks' shots for as long as you can. If the tanks fire 20 shots that do not hit anything, the tanks will cease firing.

There is an easter egg hidden in the game with the game's credits. To exploit this easter egg, you must execute the following commands during gameplay:

Move the move joystick right and the fire joystick up and press the one player start button.
Move the move joystick up and the fire joystick down and press the two player start button.
Move the move joystick down and the fire joystick up.

When the last sequence has been entered, the credits will be displayed until the fire joystick is moved from the up position. These sequences must be done within a quarter of a second of each other. You can hold a sequence as long as you like, but when you let it go, you must execute the next sequence within a quarter of a second.

Conversion

By swapping the twelve program ROMs and the one sound ROM, Robotron: 2084 can be made to play Joust, Stargate and Splat without any hardware modification other than to the controls. With a little more work you can add Defender, Bubbles and Sinistar.

Game Introduction

The enemies in the game are called Robotrons and there are five different kinds of them: Grunts, Brains, Enforcers, Tanks and Hulks. There are also three different kinds of human family members who must be rescued including women in pink dresses, men in blue suits and boys in red shirts.

Game Play

Each kind of Robotron has a different way of attacking you and also different point values. Points are also scored by destroying the missiles that they fire at you, by destroying other enemies that appear during each wave and by saving humans.

Grunts (100 points) do not shoot but they will attack in large numbers.
Brains (500 points) can fire Cruise Missles (25 points) at you and turn humans into Progs (100 points).
Spheroids (1000 points) can create Enforcers (150 points) which fire guided mines (25 points) at you.
Quarks(1000 points) will create Tanks (200 points) that will try to run over you or fire Bounce Bombs (25 points) at you.
Hulks are indestructible and will kill humans as they approach. Your blaster will only halt them as long as you are shooting them.
Obstacles such as Electrodes in your path can be removed by firing at them with your blaster.
Humans are worth an increasing point value. The first human scores 1000 points, the second is worth 2000 points and so on until the point value reaches 5000. The point value will remain at 5000 for all the remaining humans in the same wave. When the wave is completed or you have been killed, the points awarded for saving another human will be reset to 1000.

During each wave, you must destroy all the Robotrons (with the exception of the indestructible Hulks) and rescue as many human family members as possible in order to proceed to the next wave. When you complete wave 255 it will appear as if you just started the game! wave 1 starts it all over. Your score will be unaffected.

Miscellaneous

Play the game on-line (requires Shockwave) at http://www.shockwave.com/sw/content/robotron

Scarcity in collections (VAPS.org)

Very Common - There are 258 known instances of this game owned by one of our 900 members. Of these, 233 of them are original dedicated machines, 8 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet, and 17 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

Of the 52,008 video games (3,346 unique) tracked by the Video Game Preservation Society, this game ranks a 89 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most commonly seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on ownership records.

- There are 26 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 operators 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.

Technical

The ROM revisions are as follows:

Yellow/Orange:

The default difficulty is 5.
The demo calls the Quarks 'Cubeoids'.
The default high score is 131682.

Blue:

The default difficulty is 3.
The default high score is 151782.
The 'shot-in-the-corner' bug is fixed.

Trivia

The game was programmed by Eugene Jarvis.

The unique dual-joystick control was created because of two occurences: Jarvis liked the game Berzerk, but hated the joystick-and-button run-and-shoot configuration; and the fact that Jarvis's right hand had been broken in a car accident shortly after he finished creating Stargate.

The human characters in this game are named Mommy, Daddy and Mikey. The idea and the inspiration for the character Mikey was from the 1970's commercial for "Life" cereal.

Fixes

A common problem with Robotron machines is that the game resets when powered up. This is due to the +5v dropping too low on the CPU board. This can be fixed by re-flowing solder, replacing connectors or just cleaning the bent connector pins.

eBay Listings

Click here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for the Robotron: 2084 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 Williams.

Alternatively, check out the IAM/KLOV custom report of the hottest coin-op machines on eBay, powered by Ace.com (updated throughoutthe day).

COMPARE PRICES ON:
Robotron: 2084

1. Robotron 2084 Arcade Game (1982)
Auction ends in: 2 weeks, 1 day
eBay Stores (Fixed Price):
$1,650.00

2. Robotron 2084 Non Jamma Arcade Pcb Marquee / Header
Auction ends in: 3 days, 3 minutes
eBay Stores (Fixed Price):
$29.99

3. ROBOTRON 2084 UPRIGHT ARCADE Game by WILLIAMS
Auction ends in: 1 hour, 2 minutes
eBay Stores (Fixed Price):
$1,095.00

Click Here To Browse This Category on eBay!
(exits this site)
Powered by Ace.com

Manuals

Instruction Manual 11 Pages, 868 KB File.
Drawing Set 32 Pages, 2571 KB File.
Instruction Manual 11 Pages, 96 KB File.

Foto-Finder™

The Encyclpedia of Arcade Video Games, Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256): Page: 121; Color photo;

Robotron: 2084 - Title screen image

Photo contributed by: kurt buehler

Click here to contribute another image.

Return to the index | Return to the Main Page

If you wish to use material from our web sites, please take a look at our Acceptable Use, Copyright, and Trademark Page. Except as described on that page, any use of the information found here may not be copied or reprinted on any medium, either physical or electronic, without the express written permission of The International Arcade Museum.