I actually am an Irobot machine owner. When I first got it, the ram went bad right away. Thankfully the previous owner had some spare chips to fix it. Its a great piece of history. Great video, sir!!!
I'm from a small Northern English town called Selby that had a TINY arcade of its own...and they had an "I,Robot"! I was obsessed with it and me and my mate were in awe of its technical marvels. The innovations were amazing...the graphics...the ability to switch camera angles...The fact that it was the early 90s before there was home hardware that could have even RUN the thing speaks volumes. A true classic that deserves more love.
Fun little anecdote about Dave Theurer, came to mind when you mentioned him. I attended a Q&A panel a couple years back with a bunch of the original Atari guys and someone asked if there were any stories of projects starting with one idea and then going in completely unexpected directions. Rich Adam told this awesome story about how he visited Dave who was working on a first-person/behind-the-ship view remake of Space Invaders and was getting nowhere with it, unable to find that little magic hook. The next day Rich walked in and the game onscreen was completely different. Rich asked him what the heck that was and Dave said he was inspired by a dream the previous night to overhaul the game completely, and the result of that dream was Tempest! So cool that Tempest started out as a Space Invaders game, I never would have thought of it but once you know you can't unsee it. Dave is an absolute wiz, lots of stories of him coding through the night and coworkers arriving the next morning to find Dave had written practically an entirely new game while they slept.
I was 12 when the machine hit arcades, and to be honest I was a bit scared to play it. The visuals were impressive but also confusing and disorienting. It wasn't obvious to me what the player was supposed to do. I tried it a couple of times but died so quickly that I never learned how to play it. I remember there was a big eye that would one-shot me whenever I tried to jump. It felt unfair. EDIT: I forgot to add that it was expensive to play. It was at least two tokens, maybe even three. That wouldn't stretch very far on my meager allowance.
I remember playing this in the arcade in Southsea, UK around 1984-1985. Having watched your video on how rare the game was and how unreliable the electronics were, I consider myself rather lucky to have played a working version in the arcade! Also, it's a great game. I come back to it quite often on MAME!
Thank you once again for one of your great narratives! Very fun. The Student Union at Montana State University had an arcade with an I Robot machine in 1984, and I loved it. I was a student in CS and was learning computer graphics, and... there was this machine! As a starving student, I spent way too many quarters on it. Along with QIX, it is one of my all-time favorites.
@@swapd0 Meant console Mech Warrior one 1988 Dos among others. I collect 8088, 286, ect. Have a Franklin 1200, Epson Equity 1+, Compaq Deskpro 386 2O mhz among many others. Can't think of another console 3D game though unless you can I'm sure there's a few
Visually incredible for a 1983-84 game. I don't think any general public hardware would have been able to faithfully reproduce it until several years later.
I remember an article that Atari forced their arcade hardware designers to make VLSI custom chips for things sold in such small quantities that the wasted development cost never paid by needing fewer parts per PCB. I wish Atari would have made this into a homecomputer as an 800XL successor (or perhaps even the ST). But likely RAM and perhaps the custom GPU was prohibitively expensive.
I only ever saw and played this once on the actual machine, at a motorway service station on the M1, back when it was originally released in the UK. I thought it was mindblowing at the time, totally unlike anything I'd seen before. I've always liked the early vector and 3D games, like Battlezone and Star Wars, but this was absolutely amazing at a time when solid 3D polygons were a totally new thing. Luckily I have a full-size Mame cabinet and I've been able to rediscover this game in recent years, and it is surprisingly playable on a digital arcade joystick, even though it was designed for analogue controls. I do wonder if Geoff Crammond's game The Sentinel (aka The Sentry in the USA) took inspriation from this, as the visual style is somewhat similar, especially the robot.
Yes Kim.... A few years back I was going through mame romz and came across it... I thought at first it was related to the will Smith film... but then I saw the date if release and therefore thought maybe the film based on it! Wrong again. I was very surprised by its graphics etc and wondered why I'd never heard of it etc. But there we go.... Say hello to Larry fir me- Reddifer if your here; I wave! And anyone else i watch.... much love. Long time sub of many. R
One of great pleasures of playing game on MAME is to read trivia that comes with it, that's where I learned about guys like Mark Cerny, Owen Rubin or Eugene Jarvis.With groundbreaking game like I, Robot, it's just too good to pass up.
I cannot believe that this game came out in _'83._ I can understand the game not doing well because at the time it would've been _immensely_ complicated, but I can't understand how it fell into obscurity the way it has. They should've talked about this for years.
I was on holiday in the North of Scotland, a wee place called Hopeman, in 1986. The local chip shop had an I, Robot, and I played it to death :) Great vid KJ.
One of the most impressive memories I have of being completely mind-blown by an arcade machine was FIREFOX !!! I already loved the film/book and being able to play and experience it for myself with those visuals (and awesome sound) was just incredible. I’d so love to see/try it again. To own one of those amazing cabinets would be probably my top of the list dream arcade machine, definitely top 5 !...
Firefox was a pretty great game and one of my favorites as well. It was quite nicely done, much better than Mylstar's Mach 3. This game had a pretty awesome musical score as well! 👍
I only learned of this game some years ago when I was playing around with the MAME emulator. It's easily one of my favourite old arcade games to play now.
As a youngster my brother told me about this game at a local arcade being in 3D polygons. Conceptually I knew what he was talking about and conjured up visions of The Last Starfighter movie renders in my head. Well when we finally got to the machine I couldn't help but feel disappointed in the plain and somewhat garish graphics. With age and perspective it's easy to see both why this game was a groundbreaking big deal while at the same time falling down because of the huge limitations of the technology of the time. That arcade was Pak Mann Arcade in Pasadena, CA.
I played the coin op at Arcadia in Ryde Isle of Wight when it was first released. I Robot is an amazing game and cabinet and it really looked like it landed out of the future. In a way it was almost The Last Starfighter machine and I enjoyed playing Doodle City. Such a pity we've never seen a home release in an Atari compilation. While I was more of a fan of Tempest, Battlezone and the Star Wars arcade games, I Robot brings back a lot of memories next to a dark pillar in Arcadia with a shooting gallery game and pinballs to my right.
What a strange thing? I've watched hundreds of videos about arcade games from various eras and it has never been mentioned once! Really enlightening video!
The Hall effect joystick also allowed for moving the joystick only slightly which in turn moved the player object slowly. This was a glorious game. No one played it at the arcade I went to. All the high scores were mine :) I eventually bought the machine from the operator. He didn't understand why I liked it. He sold it, minus the cabinet which really burned me, for 400 dollars Canadian. The joystick was not a disaster, I wouldn't characterize it to that degree. It was very playable whenever I played it.
I actually got to play this in a mall arcade in 1984. It was quite amazing. I even played the paint mode. They probably missed an opportunity by not making it tie in with the last Starfighter movie
I loved I, Robot. I used to play it all the time, in the arcade. Of course, I grew up in the Bay Area in the 80's, so I would have access to all sorts of games that I'm finding out were obscure and "flops". I'd like to make an update. I probably will, some day.
Amazing that any other 3D game was wireframe at the time. Even the mighty Amiga never managed anything as polygonal and smooth as this. Athough this game is sort of on rails/narrow corridor. The 3D objects seem very solid with vibrant colours and really smooth. I wonder wat the fps was. The gameplay doesn't really appeal to me as it's a bit like Space Harrier but I love the style; especially the triangular lazer effect. It makes me wonder if a different game design and control system using the same hardware might have been a smash hit. I suppose even a Star Wars death star licence would have.
This game should've offered the Doodle Mode as part of the game by tacking it AFTER the game over of the actual playing session. No money wasted and plus you get a fun little diversion even after you lose.
I, Robot was the stuff of legend, a real holy grail for the emulation community in the late 90s. The hype was pretty high in the run up to the working MAME release.
I had still not seen texture mapped polygons (I would not purchase my first Voodoo 1 daughter card for several years), but I remember just staring at the I Robot playfield and thinking...this is the future...it is REAL 3D!
Remember this appearing in my local arcade and being amazed by it. The owner told me he eventually got rid of it as it made hardly any money. Everyone would gather round and watch it but they were all too scared to play it!
I remember seeing this in Warwick University's student Union. Impressive game, and more impressive graphically than the Perq I'd looked at earlier that day. Also: Pi-there by Automata on the spectrum is kind of a clone of I Robot.
I used to play this back in 1984 at my local arcade - Paradise amusements in Coventry. Feel quite lucky now I know how rare it was. It's still a go to game on Mame for me.
An IROBOT machine has a cameo in The Goonies... albeit in a deleted scene. Its in the background of a confrontation with the preppy bully (with the car) character, the kids, and Brand that takes place in the convienence store that Chunk is originally seen playing a game at the intro.
Was fortunate that back in the dim and distant, the local arcade was really good for getting new titles in, and this was indeed one of them. Loved it then (even though I was absolutely crap at it), still love it now (and am slightly less crap at it).
I played this as a kid in the 80s, in arcades now and then, and I hadn't a clue what was going on. It was so unusual at the time so you wanted to play it, but I found it very difficult and wasn't worth the money back then. The controls appeared weird I think as well. I would like to try it now though once again to see if could understand it all.
My mother worked at a convenience store that would lease games from the local arcade when she worked there, and this is one of the many they had. I only played it once back then, and didn't understand what I was supposed to do, but I'm glad I played it back then, because so far that's the only cabinet I have seen of it.
I saw a picture of this game years ago and wondered if it had any ties to S.T.U.N Runner. Great video and interesting to learn more about I, Robot. It's so cool seeing these early 3D titles whether with polygons or with sprite scaling.
Thanks Kim. I honestly can't remember encountering this machine but considering the expense you mentioned, I can see why one didn't turn up in Barnsley lol.
We had one of these in our arcade in Leicester in the mid 90's, one of the older machines we had including Centipede and Pole position. It seemed a bit of an odd game. There was also a choice where you could just play around with the polygons for whatever reason and not get zapped. The cabinet was similar to that used on the later Star Wars upright.
That hardware would have made a killer Xybots style 3D maze shooter. Imagine this, the main screen vertically oriented "tate" style up in front of you a second smaller screen below in plane with the control panel horizontally oriented (so it more or less matched the width of the larger vertical screen) showing the map a radar and stats/player info using a simpler tile graphics based hardware (they could have used a much simpler secondary hardware board for that)
Thanks for the videos. Kim. They're so well researched and narrated that I find myself just believing everything you say as soon as you say it. Like you've put so much hard work and integrity into your fact-checking and research that it is almost certainly as accurate as it can be.
Well that was grand. Would have loved to have given this a go back then but I can't ever even remember seeing it in the wild. Some great ideas and unique elements, will need to go look it up 😃
Great video kim ,just wish I had more time to watch ur lives on twitch ..kids and missus take up all my time at the moment lol ..I will drop In again when I find time ..love ur lives especially the amiga ones
I came across it in Mame with someone me confusion what the hell it was. I have no memory of it being in arcades as I was 7 when it came out. Itty bitty but would have remembered it. The first couple of tries, it was confusing. But weirdly kept coming back to it. It’s definitely addictive once you figure it out. I do like that it tells you what you did wrong when you die.
Seeing this game makes me wonder what an Amiga or Atari ST port would have been like. Both computer platforms did have solid polygon shooters like Captain Blood, Skyfox, etc.
This game really should've been ported to other systems like the 32X or Jaguar, it really could've used the more powerful hardware to make the game better
I play this on MAME a lot and really, really like it. The word "underrated" gets used and abused on the internet a lot these days, but this game really is. I can completely understand why it flopped though.
But if you see the gameplay of the arcade game BLASTER from Williams electronics. Who lead developer Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar. The guys behind ROBOTRON and DEFENDER. You can see where Atari could have borrow some ideas from the game BLASTER. For IROBOT.
I've loved this game since I first saw it. Every time I saw it I piled a few 10ps. in. After about a year those I knew of all failed due to the cheap ASICs (though I didn't know this at the time). There was a stand-alone emulator for Windows before it got into MAME and that stand-alone has a more up to date version available for Windows that uses the Mathbox so can use the computer's native resolution.
Our favorite local arcade a couple of hours from Chicago (in a town delightfully called "Normal" at that) was, unbeknownst to us, a kind of testing ground for companies like Bally-Midway, as occasionally games were put there that were no more than prototypes (it took me literally decades to figure out one game I played there as a kid: the Galaxy Express 999 Laserdisc game, "Freedom Fighter"). I, Robot was there too at one point, and it took me weeks to work up the courage to play it. I finally did, and was so scared of the talking/eye/face that I seem to recall walking away from the game in the middle of my play session. Needless to say, I wish I had stuck it out a bit more, haha.
Wow, never heard of this one. Only heard of a movie called I Robot. This game looks way ahead of it's time. Was a physical game created for console? If not, this needs to be put on a arcade classics collection.
The original concept for the game might be the earliest example of an attempt at a 3D platformer. After all, it did say in the design document that it'd play similar to a "3D Donkey Kong". The final product does bare some similarities to the genre at least...even if there was no dedicated jump button.
I think it is more like an advanced successor of Q*Bert, and certainly also has similarities with Crystal Castles (which may be what became of the princes fantasy game they mentioned in the text).
I’ll say this game is forgotten! As someone who lived in the arcades back when, I don’t EVER remember seeing this game… not even once! And the arcade I would peruse would always import coin-ups from Japan and other regions, so the selection there was always exciting and varied, so it’s not like this arcade was small or limited to regional releases only. 🤷
Back in 1984 When i was going to Belfairs and my mate Gavs parents owned the local sweet shop on the corner of Londonrd and Herschell rd, they had I robot in the shop for 6 months!!
Interesting to hear about the hall effect joystick. Atari was definitely ahead of its time on that one, but I guess their implementation wasn't the most reliable. Today, you'll see some aftermarket game controllers use hall effect sticks as a selling point and claim to be more reliable than the standard potentiometer stick design.
It was my gangs favorite at the time. Seemed to us it was too difficult to be popular. We could afford to keep putting quarters in and get to the upper levels. If you were on an arcade budget, it was pretty expensive to get good at it.
Despite its notorious unreliability, the cab on Brighton's Palace Pier remained on the floor for many years, possibly into the early 90s if memory serves.
Yknow who should do a port job of this to modern systems? M2 If you know your shmups and sega ages stuff, you'll know they'd by far be the best team for the job!
Hey Kim, smashing video as always 🙌🏻 I’ve started following you when you were playing bass in your videos, do you still play? I’d love to see you playing again. Cheerio
One thing you didn't address is whether or not they licensed the "I, Robot" name from Isaac Asimov, or, if not, if he made any statements against them using his story's name.
even though capcom was legendary for it's arcade contribution, Atari was the king of arcades for being unique or downright revolutinary in the 80's till the end. this game is a reason why.
Sad thing is, I actually liked I, Robot. From the graphics and game play, to Atari's awesome cabinet (also used in classics such as Major Havok and Star Wars Return of the Jedi). I just think that the intended audience didn't yet have a grasp of playing 3D games in a 3D environment at the time. Kind of like how it was in the mid 90s, when the audience was finally ready, but a lot of the game publishers were not.
I only knew about it due to the Ahoy video on computer graphics. Never saw this one in the flesh, but then given Battlezone and Star Wars I guess it's no surprise this game exists.
They used to have this in the lobby of our local swimming pool back in the year something something. I think I played it a couple of times and thought it looked great but didn't know what was going on really.
Great video and brilliant background as always with just one minor mistake....Dave Theurer's surname is not pronunced as everyone thinks it might be. It's German in origin and it's pronounced almost the same as Toyah as in Toyah Wilcox. Thanks to the Ted Dabney Experience podcast for that useless information! 😁
I only became really aware of this game about a week ago - hadn't even gotten around to hoping for a Kim Justice video on it! Top quality stuff as always.
The did plan a VCS2600 version or "I Robot" but abandoned it?! May the unfinished prototype code have become the 2600 version of "Zaxxon"? The colours and perspective are quite similar. I played that Zaxxon a lot in my youth and still find its 3D effects with shadows etc. quite unique, despite the jerky 3D scrolling, 2 step sprite zoom and simple motion of enemies has technically not much common with the actual Zaxxon arcade game or its homecomputer conversions. I wonder why nobody else used a similar 3D graphics engine on 2600. With more skill (Coleco games for 2600 were infamous for looking cheapish by omitted features and lack of memory) it certainly could have turned into something truely exciting. When as a kid on TV I saw a quick scene of I Robot, I had though this was the actual original of Zaxxon on VCS. Another game inspired by I Robot may have been "Rainbow Walker".
Ive always been disappointed this game never made its way into any of the Atari collections for pc and console, especially considering its historical relevance.
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I actually am an Irobot machine owner. When I first got it, the ram went bad right away. Thankfully the previous owner had some spare chips to fix it. Its a great piece of history. Great video, sir!!!
So luckyyy
I'm from a small Northern English town called Selby that had a TINY arcade of its own...and they had an "I,Robot"! I was obsessed with it and me and my mate were in awe of its technical marvels. The innovations were amazing...the graphics...the ability to switch camera angles...The fact that it was the early 90s before there was home hardware that could have even RUN the thing speaks volumes. A true classic that deserves more love.
Fun little anecdote about Dave Theurer, came to mind when you mentioned him. I attended a Q&A panel a couple years back with a bunch of the original Atari guys and someone asked if there were any stories of projects starting with one idea and then going in completely unexpected directions. Rich Adam told this awesome story about how he visited Dave who was working on a first-person/behind-the-ship view remake of Space Invaders and was getting nowhere with it, unable to find that little magic hook. The next day Rich walked in and the game onscreen was completely different. Rich asked him what the heck that was and Dave said he was inspired by a dream the previous night to overhaul the game completely, and the result of that dream was Tempest! So cool that Tempest started out as a Space Invaders game, I never would have thought of it but once you know you can't unsee it. Dave is an absolute wiz, lots of stories of him coding through the night and coworkers arriving the next morning to find Dave had written practically an entirely new game while they slept.
huh. neat!
I was 12 when the machine hit arcades, and to be honest I was a bit scared to play it. The visuals were impressive but also confusing and disorienting. It wasn't obvious to me what the player was supposed to do. I tried it a couple of times but died so quickly that I never learned how to play it. I remember there was a big eye that would one-shot me whenever I tried to jump. It felt unfair.
EDIT: I forgot to add that it was expensive to play. It was at least two tokens, maybe even three. That wouldn't stretch very far on my meager allowance.
Yeah...
Had to budget man. 😔
I remember playing this in the arcade in Southsea, UK around 1984-1985. Having watched your video on how rare the game was and how unreliable the electronics were, I consider myself rather lucky to have played a working version in the arcade! Also, it's a great game. I come back to it quite often on MAME!
Thank you once again for one of your great narratives! Very fun. The Student Union at Montana State University had an arcade with an I Robot machine in 1984, and I loved it. I was a student in CS and was learning computer graphics, and... there was this machine! As a starving student, I spent way too many quarters on it. Along with QIX, it is one of my all-time favorites.
This game is so ahead of his time that every time you see it in a ranking like arcade games by year, it looks misplaced.
When I think 1984 it's deffenatly not real 3D graphics. Consoles didn't do this till like SNES StarFox. Insane
@@shiroshine7227 You got computers 3D games many years before starfox...
@@swapd0 Meant console Mech Warrior one 1988 Dos among others. I collect 8088, 286, ect. Have a Franklin 1200, Epson Equity 1+, Compaq Deskpro 386 2O mhz among many others. Can't think of another console 3D game though unless you can I'm sure there's a few
Visually incredible for a 1983-84 game. I don't think any general public hardware would have been able to faithfully reproduce it until several years later.
I remember an article that Atari forced their arcade hardware designers to make VLSI custom chips for things sold in such small quantities that the wasted development cost never paid by needing fewer parts per PCB. I wish Atari would have made this into a homecomputer as an 800XL successor (or perhaps even the ST). But likely RAM and perhaps the custom GPU was prohibitively expensive.
A beautiful game. Fond memories playing this as a kid. Remember DON'T JUMP WHEN THE EYE IS RED !
I only ever saw and played this once on the actual machine, at a motorway service station on the M1, back when it was originally released in the UK. I thought it was mindblowing at the time, totally unlike anything I'd seen before.
I've always liked the early vector and 3D games, like Battlezone and Star Wars, but this was absolutely amazing at a time when solid 3D polygons were a totally new thing.
Luckily I have a full-size Mame cabinet and I've been able to rediscover this game in recent years, and it is surprisingly playable on a digital arcade joystick, even though it was designed for analogue controls.
I do wonder if Geoff Crammond's game The Sentinel (aka The Sentry in the USA) took inspriation from this, as the visual style is somewhat similar, especially the robot.
Have you ever had a chance to play I, Robot, either on MAME or on an actual Arcade? Throw your comments up, and thanks for watching :)
Yes Kim....
A few years back I was going through mame romz and came across it...
I thought at first it was related to the will Smith film... but then I saw the date if release and therefore thought maybe the film based on it!
Wrong again. I was very surprised by its graphics etc and wondered why I'd never heard of it etc.
But there we go....
Say hello to Larry fir me-
Reddifer if your here; I wave!
And anyone else i watch.... much love.
Long time sub of many.
R
One of great pleasures of playing game on MAME is to read trivia that comes with it, that's where I learned about guys like Mark Cerny, Owen Rubin or Eugene Jarvis.With groundbreaking game like I, Robot, it's just too good to pass up.
@@acecarrera1 im pretty nerd like when it comes to that kind of thing
I love reading about the arcade boards used for whatever game...
I played it at Pak Mann arcade in Pasadena, CA maybe 10 or 11 Y.O.
It was above my head I recall.
Great episode, knowledgeable and nostalgic as always 👍
I cannot believe that this game came out in _'83._ I can understand the game not doing well because at the time it would've been _immensely_ complicated, but I can't understand how it fell into obscurity the way it has. They should've talked about this for years.
I was on holiday in the North of Scotland, a wee place called Hopeman, in 1986. The local chip shop had an I, Robot, and I played it to death :)
Great vid KJ.
One of the most impressive memories I have of being completely mind-blown by an arcade machine was FIREFOX !!! I already loved the film/book and being able to play and experience it for myself with those visuals (and awesome sound) was just incredible.
I’d so love to see/try it again.
To own one of those amazing cabinets would be probably my top of the list dream arcade machine, definitely top 5 !...
Firefox was a pretty great game and one of my favorites as well. It was quite nicely done, much better than Mylstar's Mach 3.
This game had a pretty awesome musical score as well! 👍
I only learned of this game some years ago when I was playing around with the MAME emulator. It's easily one of my favourite old arcade games to play now.
As a youngster my brother told me about this game at a local arcade being in 3D polygons. Conceptually I knew what he was talking about and conjured up visions of The Last Starfighter movie renders in my head. Well when we finally got to the machine I couldn't help but feel disappointed in the plain and somewhat garish graphics. With age and perspective it's easy to see both why this game was a groundbreaking big deal while at the same time falling down because of the huge limitations of the technology of the time.
That arcade was Pak Mann Arcade in Pasadena, CA.
I played the coin op at Arcadia in Ryde Isle of Wight when it was first released. I Robot is an amazing game and cabinet and it really looked like it landed out of the future. In a way it was almost The Last Starfighter machine and I enjoyed playing Doodle City. Such a pity we've never seen a home release in an Atari compilation.
While I was more of a fan of Tempest, Battlezone and the Star Wars arcade games, I Robot brings back a lot of memories next to a dark pillar in Arcadia with a shooting gallery game and pinballs to my right.
What a strange thing? I've watched hundreds of videos about arcade games from various eras and it has never been mentioned once! Really enlightening video!
The Hall effect joystick also allowed for moving the joystick only slightly which in turn moved the player object slowly. This was a glorious game. No one played it at the arcade I went to. All the high scores were mine :) I eventually bought the machine from the operator. He didn't understand why I liked it. He sold it, minus the cabinet which really burned me, for 400 dollars Canadian. The joystick was not a disaster, I wouldn't characterize it to that degree. It was very playable whenever I played it.
I actually got to play this in a mall arcade in 1984. It was quite amazing. I even played the paint mode. They probably missed an opportunity by not making it tie in with the last Starfighter movie
I loved I, Robot. I used to play it all the time, in the arcade. Of course, I grew up in the Bay Area in the 80's, so I would have access to all sorts of games that I'm finding out were obscure and "flops". I'd like to make an update. I probably will, some day.
Amazing that any other 3D game was wireframe at the time.
Even the mighty Amiga never managed anything as polygonal and smooth as this. Athough this game is sort of on rails/narrow corridor.
The 3D objects seem very solid with vibrant colours and really smooth. I wonder wat the fps was.
The gameplay doesn't really appeal to me as it's a bit like Space Harrier but I love the style; especially the triangular lazer effect.
It makes me wonder if a different game design and control system using the same hardware might have been a smash hit. I suppose even a Star Wars death star licence would have.
This game should've offered the Doodle Mode as part of the game by tacking it AFTER the game over of the actual playing session. No money wasted and plus you get a fun little diversion even after you lose.
I, Robot was the stuff of legend, a real holy grail for the emulation community in the late 90s. The hype was pretty high in the run up to the working MAME release.
I had still not seen texture mapped polygons (I would not purchase my first Voodoo 1 daughter card for several years), but I remember just staring at the I Robot playfield and thinking...this is the future...it is REAL 3D!
Remember this appearing in my local arcade and being amazed by it. The owner told me he eventually got rid of it as it made hardly any money. Everyone would gather round and watch it but they were all too scared to play it!
I remember seeing this in Warwick University's student Union. Impressive game, and more impressive graphically than the Perq I'd looked at earlier that day.
Also: Pi-there by Automata on the spectrum is kind of a clone of I Robot.
Mad props for throwing in Big Rigs when talking about "unnatural driving" in a racing game.
I had no idea this game existed until today and now I want to play it so bad. Great video Kim
I used to play this back in 1984 at my local arcade - Paradise amusements in Coventry. Feel quite lucky now I know how rare it was. It's still a go to game on Mame for me.
An IROBOT machine has a cameo in The Goonies... albeit in a deleted scene. Its in the background of a confrontation with the preppy bully (with the car) character, the kids, and Brand that takes place in the convienence store that Chunk is originally seen playing a game at the intro.
I loved this game we had one in the arcade in my city. Also I was so happy to see you share Johns Arcade.
I look forward to your documentaries more than anything else on TH-cam. For gamers of my age your content and in-depth commentary is just superb.
Was fortunate that back in the dim and distant, the local arcade was really good for getting new titles in, and this was indeed one of them. Loved it then (even though I was absolutely crap at it), still love it now (and am slightly less crap at it).
I played this as a kid in the 80s, in arcades now and then, and I hadn't a clue what was going on. It was so unusual at the time so you wanted to play it, but I found it very difficult and wasn't worth the money back then. The controls appeared weird I think as well. I would like to try it now though once again to see if could understand it all.
My mother worked at a convenience store that would lease games from the local arcade when she worked there, and this is one of the many they had. I only played it once back then, and didn't understand what I was supposed to do, but I'm glad I played it back then, because so far that's the only cabinet I have seen of it.
Starglider 2 had a “painting with Rolf” option
I saw a picture of this game years ago and wondered if it had any ties to S.T.U.N Runner. Great video and interesting to learn more about I, Robot. It's so cool seeing these early 3D titles whether with polygons or with sprite scaling.
Thanks Kim. I honestly can't remember encountering this machine but considering the expense you mentioned, I can see why one didn't turn up in Barnsley lol.
Played this alot as a kid in the arcades, i liked it and was wowed by the graphics.
Remember, the law is no jumping!
Ooh a take on one of my favorite games of all time. Thanks for the upload!
We had one of these in our arcade in Leicester in the mid 90's, one of the older machines we had including Centipede and Pole position. It seemed a bit of an odd game. There was also a choice where you could just play around with the polygons for whatever reason and not get zapped. The cabinet was similar to that used on the later Star Wars upright.
That hardware would have made a killer Xybots style 3D maze shooter. Imagine this, the main screen vertically oriented "tate" style up in front of you a second smaller screen below in plane with the control panel horizontally oriented (so it more or less matched the width of the larger vertical screen) showing the map a radar and stats/player info using a simpler tile graphics based hardware (they could have used a much simpler secondary hardware board for that)
Never played it, but it was at a local mall when I was a kid. Amazing looking game for it's time.
So this game will apparently be included in the Atari 50 compilation set to be released November.
That should be fun to try out.
Thanks for the videos. Kim.
They're so well researched and narrated that I find myself just believing everything you say as soon as you say it.
Like you've put so much hard work and integrity into your fact-checking and research that it is almost certainly as accurate as it can be.
Well that was grand. Would have loved to have given this a go back then but I can't ever even remember seeing it in the wild. Some great ideas and unique elements, will need to go look it up 😃
I only arrived here because the cabinet appeared in one of Champutee's videos and Doodle City surprised me. It's very ambitious for an '84 game.
I had one growing up at Skateland in Racine, Wisconsin, and I loved it, even though I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea it was so rare.
I actually really enjoyed I, Robot. I regularly held the top scores in my local arcade, probably because nobody else was playing it :)
For those wondering, the game is indeed on the Atari 50 collection released on modern consoles!
unforgettable at the time seeing it - so unique and i love polygons ever since
Great video kim ,just wish I had more time to watch ur lives on twitch ..kids and missus take up all my time at the moment lol ..I will drop In again when I find time ..love ur lives especially the amiga ones
I came across it in Mame with someone me confusion what the hell it was. I have no memory of it being in arcades as I was 7 when it came out. Itty bitty but would have remembered it. The first couple of tries, it was confusing. But weirdly kept coming back to it. It’s definitely addictive once you figure it out. I do like that it tells you what you did wrong when you die.
Seeing this game makes me wonder what an Amiga or Atari ST port would have been like. Both computer platforms did have solid polygon shooters like Captain Blood, Skyfox, etc.
I've never heard of this before. But it would be very interesting to see a modern remake of it.
This game really should've been ported to other systems like the 32X or Jaguar, it really could've used the more powerful hardware to make the game better
I'd really like to know if Amiga 500 could have handled this game. I do doubt, but if yes, then certainly only when made in pure assembler.
@@cyberyogicowindler2448 well there were 3D Amiga games and I think it could have had a decent but slow attempt on the machine
I love your intro theme, I dunno why but it kinda invokes the old 80s intros
I play this on MAME a lot and really, really like it. The word "underrated" gets used and abused on the internet a lot these days, but this game really is. I can completely understand why it flopped though.
Very cool video. Not too long ago I booted this up in MAME and couldn't get the hang of it. Will give it another go.
But if you see the gameplay of the arcade game BLASTER from Williams electronics.
Who lead developer Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar. The guys behind ROBOTRON and DEFENDER.
You can see where Atari could have borrow some ideas from the game BLASTER.
For IROBOT.
2 of my favorite games of this Era were this and Reactor. Both ahead of their time, and both largely forgotten.
I've loved this game since I first saw it. Every time I saw it I piled a few 10ps. in. After about a year those I knew of all failed due to the cheap ASICs (though I didn't know this at the time). There was a stand-alone emulator for Windows before it got into MAME and that stand-alone has a more up to date version available for Windows that uses the Mathbox so can use the computer's native resolution.
Waking up to a Kim Justice video on I, Robot...doesn't get much better than that
Our favorite local arcade a couple of hours from Chicago (in a town delightfully called "Normal" at that) was, unbeknownst to us, a kind of testing ground for companies like Bally-Midway, as occasionally games were put there that were no more than prototypes (it took me literally decades to figure out one game I played there as a kid: the Galaxy Express 999 Laserdisc game, "Freedom Fighter"). I, Robot was there too at one point, and it took me weeks to work up the courage to play it. I finally did, and was so scared of the talking/eye/face that I seem to recall walking away from the game in the middle of my play session. Needless to say, I wish I had stuck it out a bit more, haha.
It did not talk but only had speech bubbles. Or was there a prototype version with actual speech synthesis?
Wow, never heard of this one. Only heard of a movie called I Robot. This game looks way ahead of it's time. Was a physical game created for console? If not, this needs to be put on a arcade classics collection.
The original concept for the game might be the earliest example of an attempt at a 3D platformer. After all, it did say in the design document that it'd play similar to a "3D Donkey Kong". The final product does bare some similarities to the genre at least...even if there was no dedicated jump button.
I think it is more like an advanced successor of Q*Bert, and certainly also has similarities with Crystal Castles (which may be what became of the princes fantasy game they mentioned in the text).
The text bubbles are completely modern, it could be a 2021 indie game and nobody would bat an eyelid.
In the age of brainfryers in every pocket, this could have been easily a touchscreen app, using the tilt sensor to change camera perspective.
As a kid I remember seeing an I-robot machine in action, but I do not recall where.
I remember playing this at an arcade in Leicester Square as a little lad. Commodore 64 in 1984 had a game with games within a game- Lazy Jones.
I’ll say this game is forgotten! As someone who lived in the arcades back when, I don’t EVER remember seeing this game… not even once! And the arcade I would peruse would always import coin-ups from Japan and other regions, so the selection there was always exciting and varied, so it’s not like this arcade was small or limited to regional releases only. 🤷
Awesome video, Kim! Never seen this game before but found it a fascinating video.
Back in 1984 When i was going to Belfairs and my mate Gavs parents owned the local sweet shop on the corner of Londonrd and Herschell rd, they had I robot in the shop for 6 months!!
Interesting to hear about the hall effect joystick. Atari was definitely ahead of its time on that one, but I guess their implementation wasn't the most reliable. Today, you'll see some aftermarket game controllers use hall effect sticks as a selling point and claim to be more reliable than the standard potentiometer stick design.
my favourite using this tech was the later S.T.U.N. Runner although it came much later, around 1990 i think
It was my gangs favorite at the time. Seemed to us it was too difficult to be popular. We could afford to keep putting quarters in and get to the upper levels. If you were on an arcade budget, it was pretty expensive to get good at it.
Despite its notorious unreliability, the cab on Brighton's Palace Pier remained on the floor for many years, possibly into the early 90s if memory serves.
Yknow who should do a port job of this to modern systems? M2
If you know your shmups and sega ages stuff, you'll know they'd by far be the best team for the job!
What a brilliant dive into this trippy quirky gem
Great video. Thanks for sharing I’m gonna have a go in name later. Can’t help thinking this would be awesome as a Llamasoft reboot
Hey Kim, smashing video as always 🙌🏻 I’ve started following you when you were playing bass in your videos, do you still play? I’d love to see you playing again. Cheerio
One thing you didn't address is whether or not they licensed the "I, Robot" name from Isaac Asimov, or, if not, if he made any statements against them using his story's name.
I wondered why he didn't bring that up, or the movie!
even though capcom was legendary for it's arcade contribution, Atari was the king of arcades for being unique or downright revolutinary in the 80's till the end. this game is a reason why.
Sad thing is, I actually liked I, Robot. From the graphics and game play, to Atari's awesome cabinet (also used in classics such as Major Havok and Star Wars Return of the Jedi). I just think that the intended audience didn't yet have a grasp of playing 3D games in a 3D environment at the time. Kind of like how it was in the mid 90s, when the audience was finally ready, but a lot of the game publishers were not.
I only knew about it due to the Ahoy video on computer graphics. Never saw this one in the flesh, but then given Battlezone and Star Wars I guess it's no surprise this game exists.
They used to have this in the lobby of our local swimming pool back in the year something something. I think I played it a couple of times and thought it looked great but didn't know what was going on really.
Wonderful as always Kim. Well researched and compelling watching.
Great video and brilliant background as always with just one minor mistake....Dave Theurer's surname is not pronunced as everyone thinks it might be. It's German in origin and it's pronounced almost the same as Toyah as in Toyah Wilcox. Thanks to the Ted Dabney Experience podcast for that useless information! 😁
Starfox for the SNES had a similar "art program" on its continue screen.
Excellent and very interesting video! As pretty much always :)
I only became really aware of this game about a week ago - hadn't even gotten around to hoping for a Kim Justice video on it! Top quality stuff as always.
Ok, I admit it, I pumped coins into this machine on Eastbourne pier to play the "ungame" back in the day!
Thanks Kim! Fantastic as ever.
Atari 50 has this game now neat!
I remembered this differently as I thought is was a roller ball control like Centipede.
The did plan a VCS2600 version or "I Robot" but abandoned it?! May the unfinished prototype code have become the 2600 version of "Zaxxon"? The colours and perspective are quite similar.
I played that Zaxxon a lot in my youth and still find its 3D effects with shadows etc. quite unique, despite the jerky 3D scrolling, 2 step sprite zoom and simple motion of enemies has technically not much common with the actual Zaxxon arcade game or its homecomputer conversions. I wonder why nobody else used a similar 3D graphics engine on 2600. With more skill (Coleco games for 2600 were infamous for looking cheapish by omitted features and lack of memory) it certainly could have turned into something truely exciting. When as a kid on TV I saw a quick scene of I Robot, I had though this was the actual original of Zaxxon on VCS.
Another game inspired by I Robot may have been "Rainbow Walker".
Ive always been disappointed this game never made its way into any of the Atari collections for pc and console, especially considering its historical relevance.
Brava! Immensely entertaining as per usual Kim.
Very interesting and informative thanks Kim
I bloody LOVED this game!