Rise Of The Robots

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Rise takes you into a highly industrialized future world where technologies have developed and crashed together to create a supreme super-tech society. The servants of this society are robots. Metropolis 4, the city-state setting in Rise, is the home to ElectroCorp, the planet's major robot manufacturer. ElectroCorp produce a huge range of machines for all possible applications, ranging from crude industrial droids to highly sophisticated military models. But those droids and robots are now infected by a virus that corrupts their behavior programming and creates a vicious psychotic personality. Your mission is to control a Cyborg and seek out and destroy those infected droids and robots.
Rise of the Robots was very similar in style and gameplay to other popular fighting games of the time like Street Fighter II, yet the characters within Rise of the Robots are all robots and the plot is heavily based on the cyberpunk genre and more specifically on blockbuster movies like Blade Runner, Robocop and The Terminator.
There are only 7 characters to select from, which is rather limited. Apart from the limited roster of fighters, there are not many moves or combos available during gameplay but at least there are a few "secret" moves available, like i.e. becoming invisible and hit the opponent by surprise. A negative feature of the game is that the characters cannot turn around or dace in the opposite direction.
The gameplay is rather repetitive although you have the option to play the game either in single player or in two players versus mode.
Overall, Rise Of The Robots is certainly a cool looking tech demo, but in case you want a more playable Amiga fighting game, it does not cover up all the necessary sections.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Rise Of The Robots was considered years ahead of its time in terms of graphics, supporting up to 50 colors on-screen! The graphics are pretty nice on the Amiga ECS and all the characters are pre-rendered, while the backdrops, though static, look stunning. The limitation in colors though, makes the pre-rendered scenes and sprites look a bit "washed-out". Before each fighting scene, there is a nicely pre-rendered animated sequence showing your next opponent. The game opens with an eye popping intro, cinematic shots of all combatants and reasonably smooth animation. Surely the graphics are the game's strongest point but unfortunately this is not enough.
The sound consists of an introductory guitar tune composed by Brian May, but in-game there is no music except of just a few sampled sound effects.