I, Robot (Llamasoft 2025)

[m.sniffles.esq]

Coming

Official Site

There's an intriguing part of this:

Where Minter mentions what he's currently working on, and the Atari PR guy immediately cuts him off stating "we really can't talk about that yet"

Seeing that it's for Atari, there's a more than excellent chance it's a 'nu' version of an existing game (seeing that's all they do nowadays), and one that's hasn't already received a 'nu' version.

I, Robot?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Considering that the arcade game division of Atari was based out of Sunnyvale, California, when the world's first polygonal-based (albeit a low-res one at that) arcade game known as "I, Robot" made it's initial grand debut back in 1984, it was truly groundbreaking and innovative at that particular point in time. You could play the game or mess around with the "Doodle City" app as well (it featured a countdown timer to let you know exactly how much time left to draw on-screen). How cool is that? It's perfectly playable within the Atari 50 game compendium indeed.

Sure, I'd see the awesome I, Robot cab at the annual California Extreme shows. I didn't know that the 1992 based Atari Games arcade game of Steel Talons ran on Atari's Hard Drivin' arcade hardware.

It's well-known that Jeff Minter likes to code in Assembler, a homebrew Vectrex game released by him would be legendary with some trippy vector wire-frame kaliedelscopic effects going on in real time.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Jeneki]

You just know a Llamasoft game when you see it.

[Necronom]

Looks promising!

It's well-known that Jeff Minter likes to code in Assembler, a homebrew Vectrex game released by him would be legendary with some trippy vector wire-frame kaliedelscopic effects going on in real time.

The amount of stuff Minter is moving on screen would be surely a bit too much for the good ol Vectrex

[MJR]

It's well-known that Jeff Minter likes to code in Assembler, a homebrew Vectrex game released by him would be legendary with some trippy vector wire-frame kaliedelscopic effects going on in real time.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

That wouldn’t be totally far fetched idea. When I met him we chatted, among other things, about how much cooler it would be to develop straight for old arcade hardware, if you wanted to make a retro arcade shooter.

I think I should ask him how about developing for Vectrex some day.. just as a fun hobby project

[PC Engine Fan X!]

What's interesting about the Atari Inc. produced "I, Robot" arcade game itself is, all the graphics on displayed on-screen in real time as it doesn't have on-board video-RAM (which is a shocking & surprising revelation to learn about nowadays) + the actual joystick is Halls-Effect type variant made especially for it + only 750-1,000 of the I, Robot cabs were made in their entirety making for an extremely limited low distribution in both the USA & UK at that point in time.

At the Tilt! arcade in Modesto, CA, they had gotten in a brand new cab of I, Robot in the 2nd quarter of 1984 -- I remember seeing it for the very time and was blown away by the newest "high-tech" concept of low-res flat-shaded raster-based polygons used in an arcade game title (something no other arcade game developer/manufacturer had attempted before).

Apparently, I, Robot was finished and completed in 1983 and had taken two years to develop (since it's inception back in 1981) but wasn't ultimately released until 1984 (it was the very last arcade game title to be released through the "old" Atari Inc. company's arcade game branch/division before it was sold to the Tramiels and the arcade game division renamed as Atari Games afterwards).

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The MSRP of a brand new I, Robot cab was a whopping $1,999.99 usd and was housed in the same type of arcade cab as that of the Atari Laserdisc arcade game of Firefox and Return of the Jedi arcade game came shipped in as well.
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PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[FunktionJCB]

The game is out now on various platforms.

I'm having a lot of fun with this one.

Between the "puzzle" main stages, there's some shmups sections that feel like classic Llamasoft.
So far, I'm enjoying it a lot more than Akka Arrh.

[m.sniffles.esq]

The game is out now on various platforms.

Whaa!?

Way to get the word out Atari...

[FunktionJCB]

The game is out now on various platforms.

Whaa!?

Way to get the word out Atari...

Yeah, unlike Akka Arrh, Atari seems to have forgotten about this one.
There's barely any press or advertising. Then again, that's basically what they did with other recent games, like Breakout Beyond.

It's too bad, I'm quite liking it.
Very accessible.

Here are the links to the various stores:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2932910/I_Robot/
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10012198/
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/produ ... ot-switch/
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/ ... hf27sh4qc4


On a side note, Jeff and Giles were on a stream earlier today, and it seems they met with Atari, and there will be 2 more "revivals" of older Atari IPs in the future.
The guys at Llamasoft looked at Atari's older catalogue, and suggested 2 IPs (they didn't say which), and Atari selected 2 IPs they thought would be a good fit for Llamasoft, and basically both parties selected the exact same 2 IPs, so from what I understood, these are a go.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Yeah, unlike Akka Arrh, Atari seems to have forgotten about this one.
There's barely any press or advertising.

Really, all they needed to do was re-release the press release I initially posted (which was just "coming soon" at that point) with date, price, etc. As there's a whole cottage industry dedicated to copy/pasting video game press releases. They just dropped the ball entirely

Anyway...

The game is GOOD
I really like how it stays true to the spirit of the original by initially feeling just completely odd and obtuse. And just as you start to feel like you're getting the hang of things, it keeps throwing monkey wrenches at you.

[Sengoku Strider]

Love that there's a PS4 version. I know they keep talking about winding it down but given the current global economic chaos that system might last for years yet.

[bcass]

Makes sense given that approx. half the Playstation userbase are still using PS4 consoles.