{"id":28580,"date":"2025-04-17T21:59:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T21:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/28580\/"},"modified":"2025-04-17T21:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T21:59:12","slug":"i-robot-review-switch-eshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/28580\/","title":{"rendered":"I, Robot Review (Switch eShop)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"I,<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n

If you looked at the title of Atari\u2019s latest release and thought, ‘The Will Smith movie?’, don\u2019t worry. I, Robot<\/a> has nothing to do with the 2004 sci-fi film<\/a>, nor the original Isaac Asimov short stories upon which it was based. Instead, this is a Llamasoft-developed remake of the 1984 arcade title I, Robot<\/strong> from Dave Theurer (Missile Command<\/strong>, Tempest<\/strong>), a game famous for its pioneering use of 3D polygonal visuals, yet one that also commercially failed upon launch, with fewer than 1000 units<\/a> manufactured.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the perfect game, then, for Llamasoft\u2019s Jeff Minter<\/a>, a developer who is often keen to give lesser-known titles a revival, modernising them for current platforms while still retaining their original spirit. Llamasoft\u2019s previous game, Akka Arrh<\/a>, was very much the same deal, with Minter and development partner Ivan \u201cGiles\u201d Zorzin revamping an \u201880s arcade game that never made it beyond the prototyping stage.<\/p>\n

\"I,<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n

Oddly enough, I, Robot probably shares more in common with George Orwell\u2019s 1984<\/strong> than it does with Asimov\u2019s short stories. The remake, like the original, sees you navigating your way across maze-like structures to remove the tiles from every inch of space. As you\u2019re doing this, the ever-watchful eye of Big Brother has its gaze constantly fixed upon you, periodically attacking by opening wide and turning red. When it does this, you need to keep your feet firmly on the ground, as jumping will result in instant death.<\/p>\n

Jumping, however, is vital to completing many of the 55 levels, and you do so by simply moving to the edge of a tile and pushing forwards. The game lets you know if this is possible by indicating a dotted line between the tiles, making the action much easier to parse against the wild, psychedelic background \u2013 but more on that later.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just Big Brother you\u2019ll have to contend with, though. Many of the levels contain a variety of obstacles and enemies that get in your way. Black orbs float around the stage, snakes slither across tiles, birds glide from the back of the stage to the front\u2026 It\u2019s a lot, and although you do have a projectile weapon for defence, simply avoiding the enemies is often preferable to maintain your score.<\/p>\n

\"I,<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, removing tiles adds a multiplier until you reach a maximum of 300 points per tile. Dying resets your multiplier, but the game also encourages you to keep moving where possible, chipping away at your multiplier slowly if you stay stationary for too long. When you\u2019re first getting to grips with things, your focus will be on simply staying alive, but as you become more adept, you\u2019ll start looking at ways in which to complete each level in the most efficient way, keeping your enemies at bay while building the maximum possible score.<\/p>\n

For example, when you reach that 300-point limit, you become invincible, and your character radiates a multicoloured aura. This means you’re essentially free to navigate the levels without worrying about the enemies that might be lurking or, indeed, Big Brother itself. Again, however, you’ll need to work to maintain this by directly running into enemies, Pac-Man<\/a>-style. Working out the right path to take, maintaining invincibility, and keeping that 300-point multiplier going until the end is the key to \u2014 as Minter puts it \u2014 “rinsing” the level.<\/p>\n

\"I,<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n

In between each stage, you\u2019ll enter a tunnel of sorts that transports you from one maze to the next, and it\u2019s about the closest we\u2019ll probably ever get to a new Tempest game. Here, you\u2019ll need to fire toward incoming \u2018tetras\u2019 while making sure that nothing hits you. It\u2019s a great way to keep momentum going and add to your score, as destroying all tetras automatically nets you 50,000 points. If you fail to do this, simply staying alive will add an extra life, so there’s good incentive to make sure you nail these sections as best you can.<\/p>\n

Finally, every four or five levels introduces an Arena stage. These are open spaces in which you have complete freedom to move around at will, but you\u2019ll have enemies coming at you from all directions. Shooting them is completely automatic, so all you need to worry about is moving and positioning yourself correctly to ensure you\u2019re targeting the right enemies (you can hold down ‘A’ to ‘hold your breath’, releasing to let out a wide-reaching wave of bullets). Defeating them results in small explosions that uncover the immediate surrounding tiles, so completing the level is a case of reaching a certain percentage of tiles uncovered. Think of it like a weird arcade take on Splatoon<\/a>, and you\u2019re on the right track.<\/p>\n

\"I,<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n

Truth be told, when we played through the first couple of levels, we couldn\u2019t help but think that I, Robot was perhaps a bit too weird, even for a Minter game. Yet there\u2019s something about the methodical removal of the tiles mixed with the more fast-paced, Tempest-inspired gameplay that kept us hopelessly hooked. When you get into a rhythm and start increasing your score exponentially, it\u2019s a remarkably engaging and rewarding experience; one that can stand proudly on Switch alongside Tempest 4000<\/a> and Akka Arrh.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t sign off without talking about the presentation, one of the most attractive aspects of Llamasoft\u2019s titles for many fans. In short, it\u2019s probably the most wildly psychedelic Minter release yet. You\u2019ve got pulsing, kaleidoscopic patterns in the background, seemingly random words popping up as you start nailing your score (bangin\u2019! rizz! proper!), and colourful effects that burst from the screen to signify the completion of a level.<\/p>\n

I, Robot uses procedural music, adding abstract tunes that increase in intensity alongside your score, along with auditory effects that will be instantly familiar if you\u2019ve played Tempest 4000 and Akka Arrh. These have become almost synonymous with the developer’s games at this point, and frankly, it would feel a bit odd if they weren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

\"I,<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n

That said, we understand that it might prove a bit too much for some players, and it seems Llamasoft is aware of this. You can remove the psychedelic background patterns in the main menu to something that resembles the far reaches of space, bringing the visuals a bit closer in line with the original.<\/p>\n

On the flip side, if you enjoy the wilder presentation, you can also head into the Ungame mode, another callback to the arcade original that lets you mess around with the parameters of the lightsynth patterns at will. It\u2019s a cool little extra, but not one we felt compelled to play around with for longer than a few minutes.<\/p>\n

One final note on performance: for the most part, it’s absolutely rock solid throughout, with barely a dip in the 60fps frame rate. However, if we put the Switch in sleep mode without closing the game down, reloading would occasionally cause it to slow down exponentially. Following a pre-launch patch, we’ve not been able to replicate it, though, so hopefully it’s totally eliminated in the launch version.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked) If you looked at the title of Atari\u2019s latest release and thought, ‘The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[60,3002,17182,15748,17183,123,6080,6082,3692,615,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-28580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-action-adventure","9":"tag-arcade","10":"tag-atari","11":"tag-i","12":"tag-llamasoft","13":"tag-nintendo-switch","14":"tag-review","15":"tag-reviews","16":"tag-robot","17":"tag-switch-eshop","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114355553389353358","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}