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### Mechatron: 2154 [PC]

#### http://norrish.force9.co.uk/robotron/

#### Reviewed By M. Rawlings

Seems like I can't keep away from remakes of classic games originally created by Eugene Jarvis this issue, but that's not exactly a bad thing! Yes that's right, another remake to review, and this time it's 'Mechatron: 2154', based on the 1982 arcade game by the company Vid Kidz (Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar) for Williams Electronics titled 'Robotron: 2084'.

Robotron has been remade many times and can be found free to play on the internet without much effort, but Ray Norrish has promised some extra features to make his edition the one to play. Firstly, hats off for the name of his creation, changing the year slightly and replacing 'Robo' with 'Mecha', genius! (Do I detect sarcasm here Mike? - JM)

Ray Norrish himself says this about the arcade classic: "This was the game I always wanted to remake, as I still think that this is the definitive arcade shooter of all time." He follows to add why he feels other Robotron remakes fail to capture the essence of the original. This is what I prefer, people remaking a game simply because they want to bring it to other people's attention and pay homage to the original. They don't try to change the game in radical ways, or try to pass it off as their own game, simply 'inspired' by another game; they come right out and tell us it's a remake, which there's no harm in at all.

If you haven't played the original Robotron before (shame on you!), the basic idea of the game is to save the 'last human family' by controlling a humanoid mutant (who can shoot energy blasts) and destroy the robots (gaining some points) trying to kill the humans. Why are they trying to kill the humans? Good question! Think of the Terminator films. Humans create intelligent robots, and they decide to kill mankind. Neat.

In the arcade game you control the mutant with two joysticks. One joystick controls the movement of the player, whilst the other shoots an energy blast in one of 8 directions. That's already a difficult game mechanism in itself and surely promotes ambidexterity. Not only that, but there are several types of enemy, each annoying and difficult in their own way, from the slow moving Grunts to the fast moving and shooting Enforcer Robotrons produced by Spheroids (great names these). All of which makes the small play arena a prison from which there will eventually be no escape.

Mechatron doesn't change any of this, it only builds upon it. The controls still use both hands, by making use of 'WASD' to shoot in each direction, and arrow keys to move. Of course you can define your own keys (or use your dual arcade joystick if you're flash like that). This time the Grunts are initially slow moving, but their speed is progressive. They were arguably one of the easiest enemies before, but now they cause much more of a problem as it becomes increasingly difficult to merely walk around them collecting humans (which gives you a substantial amount of points) because they start to gain on you.

As I mentioned, the enemies are the same, however due to marvels in modern technology the previously 2D sprites are now represented in 3D. It's basic low-poly stuff from Leon Droog, and looks like it has been designed in something such as Spazz3D as apposed to 3DS Max or Maya, but it works very well. It keeps the arcade feel by not trying to create models which are overly detailed when there's no need, and as a result they look colourful, fun and capture the likeness of their 1982 counterparts very well.

Once you have destroyed every enemy on screen a new Wave will commence. As you can imagine each wave is harder than the last, and Mechatron boasts 256 levels, using the original ROM level data. Not only that, but the game comes with a level designer so you can create your own! Excellent, I can just fill it with humans and get the best score ever! Fortunately the edited level will not work with the online high-scores. I'll talk about the online scores more later on though.

The game-play in the original was frantic and pretty hardcore. Mechatron has captured this and stepped it up a notch. It can get your heart racing when you're trying to avoid several Enforcers shooting at you, collect humans, shoot in appropriate directions (with only milliseconds to decide where to unleash a volley of plasma) whilst avoiding various obstacles laid around the area. This will suit most retro gamers, as we aren't put off by difficult games, unlike some of the 'next-gen' kids. However, due to it being difficult it can be very frustrating too, especially if you die by simply touching a static object.

The game doesn't require much in the way of specs to run on your PC, however by the 5th wave, the game started to drop frames quite considerably on my PC (which admittedly is far from high spec) because the screen starts to fill with many enemies and humans. It even crashed a few times for me when it was loading between screens. On an average PC the game may run flawlessly and run fast on every wave (I don't know), but be warned if you have a slow computer in desperate need of an upgrade.

The frustration from dying, and in my case from playing on a bad PC, doesn't put you off playing. Mechatron is highly addictive when considering you can beat scores set by others which are apparently updated in real-time. Or are they? Well I said earlier that I'd come to online scores, so now is the time. Being able to try and beat the top scores of the day, or get onto the 'All-Time Superheroes' scoreboard is a big incentive to play the game (other than it simply being fun). It's also one of the unique features that Ray Norrish uses to explain why the game is better than some other remakes you can find. The only problem with the online scores is that they currently don't work...

What I mean by them not working, is that you can't set any new score on the scores server. It successfully connects and shows you the list of scores, but that's all. When you play the game and acheive a score worthy of going onto the 'Today's Top Scores' it will appear there and everything seems fine, however when you reload the game you'll notice it's returned back to the original set of scores, which it always shows...every single day. Also the top score, held by "Eujenes Lovechild" (he wishes) seems impossible to beat and reminds me of those flash games you find on the internet where all the top scores are 999999999 and set by the same person. I'm not saying it isn't genuine, but it simply puts you off playing the game for the online scores feature.

I'm not sure if the scores did once work and actually update, but there is no news about them being currently down anywhere on the site. I just hope Ray might read this, or notice it one day and fix it, because the game itself is pretty good. It's a pretty well polished piece of work with an arcade look and feel to it, great music from Stuart J Wallace and Rocko and has the potential to become a very popular retro remake so long as a few things are fixed - namely the online scores. Having said that, its still fun to play offline by yourself, or set scores on your PC and see if your friends and family can beat them!

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That's a review and a half - it's a very good review but it's long. So I'm willing to bet a lot of you came rushing down here, looked purely at the score and are now staring at it in a puzzled fashion since it's in that middle "should I bother" ground. Allow me to shorten this for you considerably. Robotron is good. Mechatron is a very good remake of Robotron. Ergo, Mechatron is good.

Dudley.

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Graphics: | 72%
Sound: | 68%
Game Concept: | 52%
Gameplay: | 79%
Lasting Appeal: | 77%

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