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Robotron: 2084 is one of the single greatest arcade games ever made, period. Released nearly 25 years ago in 1982, it's a perfect example of what happens when more time is spent on gameplay tuning than graphics enhancements. Brutal and uncompromising in its difficulty while still being accessible and fun, Robotron has weathered the years well and is now available on Live Arcade.
The story and gameplay are both extremely simple. The robots have revolted, killing all humans on earth except for The Last Human Family. It's up to our nameless hero, in his white suit and huge goggles, to run around the single-screen playing field shooting all the robots, rescuing as many of the wandering humans as possible along the way. Clear a level of all threats and it's on to the next, where more and deadlier enemies await.
What made Robotron unique back when it came out was its control scheme- one 8-way joystick for running, another for shooting. While dual-stick shooters have been popping out of the woodwork on Live Arcade lately, Robotron is the original and still damn good fun. Geometry Wars and Mutant Storm may have spoiled me with their 360 degrees of firepower, but learning to manage the limitations of an 8-way shot is a challenge worth meeting.
As nice as the controls are, what really makes Robotron one of the definitive classic is its level design. Each single-screen arena starts off with all threats present and obvious, giving the player almost two full seconds to come up with a strategy to deal with the chaos. With a bit of practice that time will be put to use planning path clearing, threat management, family rescuing, and possibly even survival. Never more than a second or two away from death at any time, the plan had better be a good one.
The Xbox Live Arcade edition of Robotron adds several new tweaks to the game that home versions haven't had before. Online scoreboards are nice, of course, but Digital Eclipse has managed some multiplayer action as well. While competitive doesn't really cut it, being just a simultaneous score competition with an opponent whose game isn't even viewable, cooperative is a blast. Player 1 controls movement, Player 2 gets to shoot, and when the level is completed they switch roles. Major communication, both verbal and by on-screen action, is required to get past even the first couple of levels.
It's also worth noting is that this is the single most accurate version of Robotron yet released. The original game was designed with its hardware limitations in mind, so the tempo was controlled by the machine being unable to do more than a handful of things at a time. Modern-day consoles don't have these problems, meaning Robotron felt ridiculously hard because everything moved all at once. While the Live Arcade version (and original, for that matter) isn't a cakewalk by any means, slowing the game down to the intended speed means it feels a lot more like play than previous home versions, which could be a brutal kill-fest of the player.
While many "classic" games haven't stood the test of time, Robotron is still going strong 2.5 decades later. The new additions are a nice bonus, but the real meat of the game is the single player mode in all its glory. Fast, fun, and brutally hard but fair, Robotron still has the gameplay magic to make you want one more round even after all these years.
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