R.O.B. (and gyromite)

Alienblue · Postby **Alienblue** » May 21st, 2006, 5:52 pm

Hard to believe that the main selling point of the old NES was originally NOT Super Mario Bros., but this silly robot. "It plays games with you!"..yeah right, and it's about as good a game partner as a pet rock. ROB LOOKS cool! He has infra-red eyes, arms that move up n down, claws that open and close! But the thing takes FORVER to make one move. In GYROMITE you control a little proffersor who must destroy the "smicks", green monsters.
You can do this by opening and closing gates (blue and red gates) and leaving turnips to make them stop. In another varation the Prof is sleep-walking and you must get him through the maze.
The idea is that you play the proffesor while ROB puts "gyros" down on button to open doors.V-e-r-y slowwwly. zzzzz! In truth, the game is more fun if you just forget ROB and use your other hand to open the gates yourself. BUT I have to admit, ROB was a cool marketting ploy. Anyone here play STACKUP? Gyromite alone get a C+ from me but ROB gets a D-. A cool collectible, not fun to actually play with! SORRY, R2!!!!

Leo Ames · Postby **Leo Ames** » May 21st, 2006, 6:14 pm

The only purpose it served actually was to give the impression to retailers that it was a toy, that just happened to also play videogames. Once the system established itself and Nintendo had made retailers realize a market for home video games still existed, it quickly disappeared.

Alienblue · Postby **Alienblue** » May 22nd, 2006, 1:20 pm

..yes, but even as a "toy" ROB was flawed. Too slow to hold a kids interest. It actually COULD have worked, I think, if They had built-in game control circuts inside rob, so that he could move objects QUICKLY, instead of having to A) get code B) get
gyro C)make gyro spin D) pick up Gyro E) Put gyro down on button
'A"....ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz..... really by that time most kids would be asleep. Far better to work so that it just gave the IMPRESSION that Rob was "alive" rather then relying on that slow-motion
movement. Press "pause, Rob would blink his eyes, open and close claws...maybe even speak.and the gates would open. Of course, it would still make ROB Extrenuous, but kids would've gotten more "fun" out of it, I'd bet!