Worst Fighting Games of the 1990's part 1

This list begins with a bang, the kind of bang that comes out of an ass. I've yet to decide just how many games will appear on this list, but I am hoping to get to at least 5 or more. Considering what kind of shit came out in the 1990's, that won't be too hard. This was a time when video games were really trying to experiment with things, from full motion video, to polygon based graphics. It takes a considerable failure to make it here, a company has to make a game that doesn't just suck, it also has to waste things, like time, money, logic, and even sanity. Some failures start off with good ideas but then just end in horror and im starting off with that here.

I should also point out that this list isn't in any kind of order, the reasoning behind that is due to my inablilty to really name what sucks the most. These games all are equally shitty.

Ask anyone what would be a fun fight to watch, weather they be a man on the streets, a businessman in a suit, or an african tribesman with a large bone ring in his nose. Most of them would tell you that dinosaurs and giant apes would be fun. Thank God that Atari answered that prayer and gave us the hit game, Primal Rage. The second thing they would answer is large robots, metal machines of death armed with sharp blades, lazer guns, or SOMETHING that they would use to emaciate each other. One such game answered that prayer and gave us a shit game called Rise of the Robots.

Rise of the Robots

1994

Time Warner Interactive/Mirage

SNES,Genesis, and also the losers of the 90's like the 3do, CDi, Amiga and the like.

This game had it all going for it, or so it seemed on the outside of the box it came in. The graphics to ROTR were all computer generated in the style of games like Killer Instinct. This game was all about robots kicking each others metal asses and taking model names, all for the sake of finding out who was built better. The story to this game is kinda typical, following a plot of an evil company doing bad things involving robots and getting them to fight rather that just have an all out war. No one followed plots of video games back in these days, so who gave a damn WHY the robots were fighting, just throw them into a ring and watch them bash each other.

This game had 7 fighters, all of them ranging from robots with human forms, to machines that look like forklifts with legs, spider robots, hell even a gorilla robot. Before matches, each robot had a cool opening movie to introduce themselves, seeing this happen on a SNES was unbelieveable. The games opening title screen reminded me of Super Street Fighter 2's Ryu opener. The look of this game was not seen on the 16 bit systems and the aforementioned Killer Instinct was still a year away. Lets also not forget that this was a fighting game with ROBOTS, so what could go wrong,? You'd have to work really hard for a concept like that to fail.

The main fighter, the 'Ryu' protagonist of ROTR is a fighter called ECO35-2, or 'Coton' for short. Now if you think that name is fucking dumb then wait till you meet the rest of them. The other fighters are called:

Loader

Builder

Crusher

Military

Sentry

The Supervisor

If you want background information on this motley bunch of recycled tin-canned-ass-bags, then just read thier name, thats how imaginative the developers were willing to go. Now, one would hope that even a game like this could at least give you a good selection of these characters, right? Right?

Wrong, if you were player one, you were shit out of luck. You only got to play as 1 damn fighter:

ECO35-2 thats it. In two player made player two could pick them all, even the boss- The Supervisor was availiable if you entered the cheat. Meanwhile player one is stuck with the blue, generic, bland way-too-human to be a robot fighter: ECO35-2.

This game can be beaten in one sitting. Its way too simple. The AI genius of this game is hard however if you try to think that this game is even remotely complex. The controls are set up exactly like Street Fighter 2 in that you have 3 punches and 3 kicks, all of which look the same but are performed at different speeds and inflict less or more damage. The key to winning this isn't anything special or difficult, no combos needed and no special moves. The key to survival in ROTR is walking your clunky, blue, slow ass robot towards your enemy and hitting the punch button and then... repeat. I've never completed a game so easily, and frankly the games ending for just 1 character didn't make me feel good for finishing this piece of shit.

Graphics sell this game as I have mentioned, and sound gets a few points too. The package and ads for this game noted Queen Guitarist Brian May scoring the soundtrack but in fact his track called 'The Dark' is the only song that made it on the main intro screen. I guess the designers for ROTR tested this game while their Cd player at the office played hits like 'Bicycle' or 'Radio ga-ga' and thought it would rock. No insult to Brian May at all, he's a guitar legend, but this project was NOT for him. Queen is ok, but not for a fighting game. While fighting you'll hear energizing music and lots of samples of what resembles metal hitting metal sounds, which works for it. No voice samples are in this game, no announcer yelling FIGHT! Lame.

Thankfully this was a rental at a Blockbuster and I wasn't a sorry bastard that actually went out and bought this. Otherwise this game would have been tied to a brick and thrown through a window of a Walmart. The even scarier part is that this game had sequal that appered on the Sony PSone and the Saturn, which got the same reception as the first game. No one can learn sometimes.

There was a lot of innovative gaming systems comming out in the mid-90's and a lot of them tanked. This game wasn't bad enough to kill the Nintendo SNES or the Sega Genesis, but it probably had its hand in on killing the 3do, and CDi systems ever so slowly. So while your cruising Ebay don't be surprised if Rise of the Robots is a pack in game for someone trying to rid themselves of a CDi or 3do system, they're just trying to get rid of the financial hex put on them from that fateful day when they had spent 500 plus dollars into what was supposed to be the newest generation of gaming system and what could have been a original and creative fighting game if only the folks at Mirage gave more than a damn.