Previous Next

Bug Byte has released a few simple but fairly enjoyable games since its reappearance as a budget software label, though none of them have been in the same league as the best budget games such as Spellbound from Mastertronic.

Roboto continues that rather average track record, being a 51-screen dodge 'n zap game in which you control a group of robots and must attempt to repair a power plant and save the human race from destruction. The game is set in the year 2086, when the sun has become a weak, dying star unable to sustain life on the earth's surface. The human population has dwindled to a small settlement which relies on the power station for heat and energy.

The trouble is that the automatic components that maintain the plant have gone haywire and are on the rampage. As the only technician in the group it's up to you to take control of the last five droids and guide them through the plant, deactivating each room by destroying the 'power orbs' that you will find.

It's all standard stuff, with deadly sprites and objects out to make life difficult for you, not to mention a variety of traps that have to be avoided. Your droids are very small figures - about a single character square in size - and the graphics of the game as a whole are small and not very finely detailed, though the animation is smooth and the overall presentation is quite adequate.

Some of the obstacles that you have to get past are quite tricky, and some of the rooms are challenging enough to make you keep on trying to solve them and rampaging components are so deadly that they simply become irritating as you lose life after life without making any progress. Many of the gaps that you have to guide your droids through are so small that they require single pixel accuracy in your manoeuvres, but since the graphics are all so small this accuracy isn't really possible unless you've got great eyesight or are sitting right on top of your TV screen.

I suppose that 51 screens for £2.95 is reasonably good value, as long as you don't mind the game looking a bit dated, and are prepared to persevere with some of the really tough screens.