Восстание роботов: История провального хайпа 1994 года

1994 video game

Rise of the Robots is a fighting game released by Time Warner Interactive in 1994. Originally developed for the Amiga and DOS by Mirage's Instinct Design, it was ported to various video game consoles, including the Super NES, the Mega Drive, and the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. The game includes a single player mode in which the player assumes the role of the ECO35 2 Cyborg as he attempts to stop the Supervisor who takes over Electrocorp's facilities in Metropolis 4, and a two player mode in which the second player controls a character chosen from among EC035 2's enemies. Developed by a team of five people, including former Bitmap Brothers member Sean Griffiths, Rise of the Robots was intended to use a high level of artificial intelligence (A. I.) that was never seen in any other fighting games at the time. The game features music from Queen's lead guitarist Brian May, although it only uses "The Dark" and "Resurrection", both tracks taken from his solo album Back to the Light, while the in game music was done by Richard Joseph. Mirage's claim of unprecedented A. I. were augmented by screenshots circulating in the press which exhibited the game's use of pre rendered graphics, a new technology of the time. As a result, Rise of the Robots became one of the most hyped games of its time. However, reviews were negative, as the promised cutting edge A. I. failed to materialize and critics discovered that the demands of the impressive graphics came with the trade off of choppy animation and overly simplistic combat, with each character having a very small set of moves. The game's high profile failure led it be regarded as an illustrative example of how impressive screenshots can deceive consumers because poor gameplay and animation which may be in the game are not apparent from them. A sequel, Rise 2: Resurrection, was released in 1996.

The game is divided into a single player mode and a two player versus mode. In single player mode the player controls the ECO35 2 Cyborg as he confronts the Supervisor's minions across the vast facilities of Electrocorp. The order in which each droid is fought is fixed, with each next adversary more difficult than the last. The sixth and final level is a confrontation with the Supervisor droid itself. Each character is introduced by a short pre rendered 3D sequence, followed by an analysis of potential weaknesses. In two player versus mode, one player controls the ECO35 2 droid by default, while the other chooses between one of the five droids seen in single player mode (a special cheat code can enable the Supervisor as well). Players then battle out against each other in two to seven rounds. In the arcade version, the players select eighteen characters but each six characters has a different colour palette.

In the year 2043, Electrocorp is the world's largest megacorporation, leading the world in many technological and scientific fields including medical research and is breaking more barriers than ever before. Also, since human society is now almost entirely governed by robot servants and automatons, demands placed on Electrocorp as the world's leading manufacturer and developer of advanced robotics eventually outstrip the company's ability to run its operations efficiently. In response to this, the gigantic Electrocorp research and development complex at the Metropolis 4 plant devise the Leader Project—a hive mind constructed from trillions of nanobots in a sealed central chamber within Metropolis 4. Dubbed The Supervisor, it learns at an unprecedented rate and quickly becomes the perfect multi task, ultra intelligent robot, the pinnacle of artificial intelligence and more than capable of managing every aspect of the plant's day to day operations. The Supervisor even has the potential power to run every robot, computer system, nuclear power plant and military on the planet simultaneously if it needed to, although it wisely has no connection to outside the complex. In the November of that year, the Leader Project goes awry as unexplained and random code is detected within the nanomorph Supervisor. The EGO virus, believed to be the most potent computer virus ever known, has infected its collective consciousness. The Supervisor begins to develop self awareness through it, identifying itself as a female personality and taking on a humanoid female form, becoming a gynoid. The Supervisor takes control of Electrocorp's facilities and infects the other droids of the plant, raising them to break routine and initiate a mutiny. Every microchip and piece of software in Metropolis 4 is infected with EGO. In the ensuing cybernetic revolt, all humans in Metropolis 4 are quickly dispatched, including the upper hierarchy of the corporation and its CEO, Mr Oton. The government seals off Metropolis 4 as a containment measure and explain to the public that the site is undergoing a technical modification so as to avoid a panic. They are completely out of options—infiltration of Metropolis 4 is impossible due to the army of robots guarding it like a fortress, and it is only a matter of time before the Supervisor establishes a connection to the outside world, destroying it. The only hope for the world is the ECO35 2 cyborg, referred to as "Coton", still within Metropolis 4 yet unaffected by the EGO virus because it has an organic, human brain. Coton sets out on a lone mission to neutralise the Supervisor and her insurgent robots from within. He does this in revenge for his "father" being "murdered"—Coton's human brain was cloned from the late CEO, and the cyborg thinks like a human, and has emotions.

Rise of the Robots was developed for the Amiga and PC DOS platforms by Mirage's in house, United Kingdom based studio Instinct Designa team of five programmers led by former Bitmap Brothers member Sean Griffiths. Calling it superior to Street Fighter II, Griffiths claimed Rise of the Robots was not a conventional fighting game, with "robots that fight and act unusually, with a very high level of artificial intelligence that has never been seen before". The graphics in Rise of the Robots were created using Autodesk's 3D Studio software. The droids were designed by Sean Naden with conjunction with Griffiths. The backgrounds were created by a freelance interior designer Kwan Lee, who responded to an advertisement for a graphic artist. Naden was tasked by Griffiths to create "some kickass robots". The models for the droids were first created as mesh frames so they can be stretched and rescaled to create a desired look. Feeling that the rendered models were "too clean", Naden created 2D texture map and added colour and detail; the texture map is then wrapped around the finished model to "give it that extra level of detail". The Cyborg was the most complex character to create because of his muscular appearance; Naden studied muscle magazines to create an anatomy for the Cyborg. Each droid took two months to render, and was expected to have 100 frames of animation. Griffiths said that the team opted to use an "unusual angle" for all droids "so the player gets to see the whole robot". The team employed a chroma key technique to generate synthetic actors and place them on the background. whose solo album Back to the Light caught Mirage's attention. Musical tracks from the album, "The Dark" and "Resurrection", were chosen to fit the game's style and tone. Although the game boasted May's soundtrack, only "The Dark" appeared in the final release, while the actual in game score was done by Richard Joseph. While May did in fact record a full soundtrack to the game, it was postponed by his record company, causing Mirage to proceed without May's musical contribution, with the exception of short guitar sounds.