They Lied to Us | Nostalgia Nerd

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~ In 1993 screen shots of a game started appearing which promised to be the best fighting game ever made, if not, the greatest game ever made. The hype was insane.... That game was called Rise of the Robots, and although it was initially designed for the Amiga, it quickly spread to about every other platform in sight. We had Rise of the Robots Amiga, Rise of the Robots Sega Genesis, Rise of the Robots SNES, Rise of the Robots CDi, Rise of the Robots 3DO, Rise of the Robots on PC, even Rise of the Robots on the Game Gear... of all consoles. The problem was, it turned out to be an absolute turd. They lied to us through the power of marketing. In this video, I'll explore the story and just why Rise of the Robots was such utter baubles.
This video was written/produced by Octavius King: / octav1usking
⌚Timings⌚
00:00-00:45 Introduction
00:45-01:59 World of Tanks
01:59-36:45 Rise of the Robots
36:45-38:57 Wrapping Up
🔗Video Links🔗
• Arcade Longplay [370] ... STREET FIGHTER 2 ARCADE WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
• Arcade Longplay [049] ... STREET FIGHTER ARCADE WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
• ZX Spectrum Longplay [... STREET FIGHTER ZX SPECTRUM WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
• Sierra Online FMV Logo... SIERRA LOGO - NINTENCOMPLETE
www.mobygames.com/game/dos/ri... LTD EDITION PIC
• Amiga CD32 Longplay [0... DARKSEED WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
• Amiga Longplay The Hu... THE HUMANS WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
• Magic Pockets Amiga Ga... MAGIC POCKER - REDSEVENNINE
• Amiga Longplay Rise Of... RISE OF THE ROBOTS AMIGA - WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
• PC Longplay [248] Alon... ALONE IN THE DARK - WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
• PC Longplay [1085] The... 7TH GUEST - WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
• Rise of the Robots tra... RISE OF ROBOTS TRALER - RISE OF THE ROBOTS YT CHANNEL
• Rise of the Robots mul... RISE OF ROBOTS TRAILER - RISE OF ROBOTS YT CHANNEL
• SNES Longplay [192] Ri... SNES VERSION - WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
• Mega Drive Longplay [1... MD VERSION - WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
• The Brian May Band - S... THE BRIAN MAY BAND - BRIAN MAY OFFICIAL
• Brian May - Resurrecti... BRIAN MAY - RESSURECTION
• PC Longplay [578] Rise... PC LONGPLAY - WORLD OF LONGPLAYS
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... BRIAN MAY PHOTO (CC 2.0)
archive.org/details/arcade_rotr ARCADE GAME ROM
www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads... ARCADE GAME INFO SOURCE
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Errors and omissions excepted.
Some material in this video may be used under Fair Dealing / Fair Use. Where under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 (UK: Sections 29 and 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988), allowance is made for purposes including parody, quotation, criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, education and research. Fair Dealing / Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

[@Nostalgianerd]

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[@ErdrickHero]

Arnal Schwartze-WHAT?

[@screensavinggamer9724]

Sponsored by a sponsor of terrorism. Ukrainian blood is on your hands.

[@NeonEUC]

How on earth did you miss the fact that Amiga CD32 gamer awarded it a gamer gold with 90% in issue 6

[@jabrow7135]

You can pronounce English words however you like, like aluminum as (aloo-minium), but the French word mirage is pronounced (mr·aazh). www.google.com/search?q=mirage+pronunciation&client=safari&hl=en-us&sxsrf=ALiCzsb3659NurvLpYXWjvA9u_AlyxwLQA%3A1671775986254&ei=8kalY9PxDo3R5NoP3t6SyAQ&oq=mirage&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAEYATIKCAAQRxDWBBCwAzIKCAAQRxDWBBCwAzIKCAAQRxDWBBCwAzIKCAAQRxDWBBCwAzIKCAAQRxDWBBCwAzIKCAAQRxDWBBCwAzIKCAAQRxDWBBCwAzIKCAAQRxDWBBCwAzIHCAAQsAMQQzIHCAAQsAMQQzINCC4QxwEQrwEQsAMQQzISCC4QxwEQ0QMQyAMQsAMQQxgBMgwILhDIAxCwAxBDGAEyDAguEMgDELADEEMYATIMCC4QyAMQsAMQQxgBMgwILhDIAxCwAxBDGAEyDwguENQCEMgDELADEEMYAUoECEEYAFAAWABg7BVoAXAAeACAAQCIAQCSAQCYAQDIARHAAQHaAQQIARgI&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp

[@barrycaplin1394]

Shove it you piece of garbage youtuber. Oh and trying to hide your garbage sponsor by not even marking the video = scum!!!!

[@kenfagerdotcom]

My strongest memory of Rise of the Robots for SNES is crying because I spent my hard earned allowance on it.

[@PinguimFU]

i has happy... happpy my copy was only a rental - what a waste of a weekend rental tho...

[@mikec.8604]

@@PinguimFU damn, same for me, this is how i remember it too lol

[@marcinszmigiel9616]

I bought Sega Saturn just to play this game… silly 13 old me…

[@marcinszmigiel9616]

I bought Sega Saturn just to play this game… silly 13 old me…

[@TheInfiniteMiseryJumper]

I remember buying my SNES copy brand new from Virgin for £2...and still feeling like I'd been had 🤔

[@BongoBaggins]

I once met one of the programmers of Rise of the Robots, a pleasant young chap, in The Forester's Arms in Congleton. He was nice enough to apologise. I bought him a pint.

[@mustardtiger108]

The landlord's name was Keith.

[@BongoBaggins]

@@mustardtiger108 Dave. All landlords are called Dave or John.

[@SeeDaRipper...]

I used to see a girl from Congleton...she drank me under the table.

[@BongoBaggins]

@@SeeDaRipper... Now this I do not doubt. Was she called Ange? 😂

[@xILLxChronic]

sorta seems like he should have been the one buying you a pint

[@stoltobot]

We who lived through the hype train of RotR learned a lot about media, consumerism, and life in the process

[@stevenc2149]

cyberpunk of its time

[@chouseification]

meanwhile several years earlier, the absolutely funny and great to play combat game called "Tongue of the Fatman" had come out, and there was this character who reminded me of Wolverine - big claws to slash at your opponents. Not quite as great as the legendary "Mail Order Monsters", but hey nobody has come close to a great MoM variant (as far as I know anyways) although a few have tried.

[@YarugumaSou]

And yet society never learns

[@mayamanign]

I worked for VGA magazine back then and we knew how horrible this turd was. We couldn't actually believe it got released.

[@mayamanign]

​@@stevenc2149 not even close. 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@cgrosner]

When I was in middle school the local Toys R Us has a bin of these games for PC that came with a 6 CD holder. There was no price listed. I brought it to the self-scan price checker and couldn't believe my eyes. The game rang up for $0.01. I went home and got a quarter, came back, and bought the whole bin. I still use the CD cases today. One of the highlights of my childhood. The game definitely sucked though.

[@Abo999]

I matched four numbers on the first UK lottery. My Amiga mates and I had all bought into the ROTR hype so I spent my winnings on it, which had *just* come out. Magazine reviews werent out at that point it had all been previews. The game came on like 14 floppies! No problem, I had an A1200 with a 60MB(!) internal HD so I installed it (which took ages) and we eagerly fired it up. Well, my mates took the piss and I was angry at wasting that cash. I took it back to the shop the next day. I told them there was a problem with I think disk 11 and it wouldn't install. They weren't about to test that out so luckily I got a full refund.

[@mintydog06]

I've spent 16x longer watching this video than I ever have playing Rise of the Robots.

[@thewelder3538]

I was working at Mirage when RotR was being developed. Although I didn't work on that particular title, I worked on their later stuff on the PS1. The compression that was used for the video stuff on RotR was way ahead of its time.

[@PeteDabbs]

Who's that? What PS1 stuff did you do?

[@thewelder3538]

@@PeteDabbs there was Pool Shark and Cowpoke as it was called then. I think it was Gary L that decided that.

[@doingtime20]

I remember playing it as a kid, it did look amazing for the time though it was entertaining for about 15 minutes. Makes you appreciate more games like Street Fighter 2, the moves, the colors, each character with its own personality, the controls etc.

[@thundercid1533]

As someone who never played this game but saw the hype, I appreciate the research and callback to a nostalgic time in my life.

[@TheVanillatech]

Wasn't Mortal Kombat already out in the Arcades by then? Shit, after MK 1, no other fighting game was even on my radar until Killer Instinct.

[@thundercid1533]

@TheVanillatech ... So, looking at the release years 1991- Street Fighter 2 92- Mortal Kombat 94- Rise of the Robots and Killer Instinct. So, that being said, at the time, my awareness of the releases wasn't very good due to various factors. At the time, we didn't track the next big thing via the internet. It was gaming magazines that informed us of what was coming. Rise of the Robots was getting a lot of attention in most of the publications. Whereas games like MK and KI just appeared on arcade machines at the corner stores where I live, and blew my mind when I saw them for the first time. MK- was amazing due to its unprecedented levels of violence and realistic human 2d models. KI- took MKs formula to new levels. The characters, despite being 2d, actually looked 3d, I even think the animations had more frames, the game as a whole looked very fluid. The fact that Rise of the Robots and KI came out on the same year was quite surprising to me, and makes me consider the reason why I quickly forgot that Rise of the Robots was ever a thing.

[@Pentti_Hilkuri]

I played the game but newer saw the hype. It was good for the price I paid, zero.

[@DYNANiK.official]

I'm 38 now and I remember me drawing Coton in school art class. I was so fascinated of the game even as a Kid living in Germany. The magazines were, even here, full of the advertisements back then... but finally when the game released everybody knew it sucks :D

[@magnuskallas]

Same here! 38 and the cover design captured my eye in old magazines for years. I think they even had a box of it on sale at a PC shop, luckily I didn't buy it.

[@schibulski]

Same here: 39 and so hyped back in the day in Germany. Fortunately my parents didn't bought me the game for my A1200. Instead i had the CD32 version of "Roadkill". I think that was more fun 😀

[@raimee81]

Man I remember buying Rise and being underwhelmed. I have to say watching this and the name drop of all those old school games and gaming companies gives me warm and fuzzy feelings inside. A time in my life I do miss.

[@kanedaku]

Agreed. When 'Mirage' was first mentioned, I said to myself "Oh man, I remember those people! (game company)" Seeing that copy of Mean Machines Sega had the same response.

[@BusterBootlace]

I will always remember when my Amiga 500 was in a shop being repaired and the shop gave me a Mega Drive for the weekend, my Mother said I could rent one game, the game I chose (after seeing it in a magazine) was Rise of the Robots, and wow, that might have been my first ever ‘buyers remorse’ 😅

[@WegrennerX]

😂

[@joedent3323]

That's really more of a "rent-and-lament", or "Renters-Relief".

[@Asobitech]

I remember the hype around Rise of the Robots being immense, as noted the Edge cover and preview article definitely sold us all on it. The real casualty is a game called, One Must Fall: 2097, released one month before Rise. It may not look as flashy, but it has a solid fight engine, with combos and satisfying controls for a PC fighting game. I didn't find out about this game until much later.

[@Lembritt]

One Must Fall was a really fun game that I played a lot on my PC. You can upgrade the robots to get a really fast and satisfying gameplay. After that Street Fighter 2 felt really slow in comparising.

[@wich1]

Yes, OMF2097 was the proper robot fighting game!

[@janikarkkainen3904]

I don't even remember Rise of the Robots, but I do remember good memories about One Must Fall

[@AKATenn]

one must fall was a good game at the time, I really liked it, learned all the combos, I played the snot outta the shareware demo, then bought the full game, but going back and playing it today, it's not so great... I do miss the music in games like epic pinball and omf

[@qubex]

I remember Rise of the Robots being on the cover of EDGE (which I subscribed to because I was fascinated by the 3DO).

[@yellowblanka6058]

If you want a good robot-based fighting game I'd suggest "One Must Fall 2097" - and it's now freeware. It also feels good to play, uses pre-rendered graphics and didn't cost anywhere near a million to make (AFAIK)

[@net_news]

amazing game!! 🙌

[@yellowblanka6058]

@@net_news Yeah, it was clearly made by a team that were familiar with fighting games and had a passion for them.

[@delta7890]

Damn good game that one!

[@hicknopunk]

Metal and Lace

[@worldcomicsreview354]

I remember hearing about that game, but only the name of it. Then later I found a Commando comic called One Must Fall, and assumed they were connected. "Somewhat" incorrectly...

[@Locomamonk]

The demo for this game blew my socks off, I played it like 20 times, the robots design even frightened me back then

[@sargonsblackgrandfather2072]

I remember the hype for this. We were so pumped and then when we got a chance to play it we thought it must have been a joke.

[@LockFarm]

I was working one of the stands of the big UK games expo in 1991, and Magic Pockets gave me the best moment of the show (not a game the company I was working for was involved with in any way). A rather confused looking parent walked up to the stand and asked me "Excuse me, do you have Magic Pockets?".... "No Sir, I always walk this way"... Kept me amused for hours.

[@guyincognito959]

That sounds very Brittish, so it must be true!

[@dylanhoyal3150]

I love that line at the end...because I was thinking the whole time "this just sounds like Cyberpunk or No Man's Sky without being able to patch later"

[@davekennedy6315]

Cyberpunk luckily improved a LOT after that dodgy initial release. No Man's Sky is the perfect example of a complete reversal of fortunes. Hello Games have constantly improved NMS with regular free updates that have added an astonishing amount to the game. Today pretty much all that was promised prior to launch is ingame and a LOAD more besides! NMS is a fantastic game that is still very popular and still attracting new fans even on the next generation of consoles.

[@Narcan885]

@@davekennedy6315 Bruh. Hello Games literally didn't havy any other game to work on, nor any other chance of a future but to fix that mess. They took what, 5 years to make the game decent? And it still has no endgame and the procedural generation is crap. In short, they took 7 years to release one decent title, but you had to pay 4-5 years ago to get it. Heroes, lmao!

[@davekennedy6315]

@@Narcan885 Hello Games completely reversed NMS fortunes, with reviewers actually rereviewing the game due to how much had changed. NMS clearly isn't your kinda game but today it is a very well regarded game.

[@Narcan885]

@@davekennedy6315 This reads like a bot generated comment.

[@pelinoregeryon6593]

@@Narcan885 Still has no endgame? I rather think you've somewhat missed some of the point there, it was never meant to have an endgame, no more so than something like EVE online 🤗 but yeah, it seems it was a hot mess when it came out, also seems to have improved considerably, but five years is nothing at all in development terms for many games then or now so as they started with basically no game at all on release that's actually a reasonably impressive feat so I'm not really sure what your point is there at all 🤗

[@EvT91]

Rise 2 will always be one of my favorite games on the Saturn. every time I see someone talking about RotR I get real excited to see how they tell the tale! it gets a lot of shit, deservedly, but there's just something about the duology that I can't help but love

[@martincann5052]

As someone with a bizarre fascination with Daikatana, I can definitely relate.

[@ursinecanine9657]

As mere puny 90s child I actually loved this game and the booklet was brilliant imagination fuel.

[@cosmogang]

I was SO hyped up about this game. I recall the disappointment distinctly

[@Nostalgianerd]

It's a pain that we all share to this day...

[@VikingTeddy]

In northern europe, we didn't have any gaming advertisement apart from magazines and maybe a half hour tv spot once a week. So I had no idea about the hype. I played the a12000 version at a friends, fortunately pirated, and from a hd. Still felt ripped off.

[@purefoldnz3070]

yeah it was like back to Street Fighter then.

[@d_vibe-swe]

@@VikingTeddy I remember that the Swedish magazine Datormagazin hyped the graphics and wrote that developers promised advanced AI in the opponents. When they reviewed it some time later they were ripping it apart :)

[@rekordi]

Bought a CD ROM drive for this with My allowance. I still enjoyed The graphics, but game had no longevity. I do not recall Sega game Gear display being that Bad. My Lynx display was meh, but game Gear was better..

[@computer_toucher]

Minor detail: I absolutely love the "3D Ken Burns" effect of cutting out a foreground item and scaling it more than the background. Nice effect and this one on the portrait of the Bitmap Bros guy was excellent. Good job!

[@dsesuk]

It's funny, I clicked on this because I recognised the box art shown in the thumbnail but couldn't quite place where from. This brings back the memories of Amiga ownership and my subscription to Amiga Power from back then. I recall AP had a lot to say in later issues of how they never sung the praises of unreleased games after the likes of this and Epic burned some of their competitiors. Interesting to see it all laid out here.

[@RetroDawn]

At least Epic was actually a playable game which many folks seem to have affection for to this day.

[@suburbia2050]

Would love a video done on what happened behind the scenes during the development of Epic!

[@RetroDawn]

@@suburbia2050 Was it particularly controversial? I didn't follow along during development in the mags. I remember Corporation being thought to be a let down based on its potential.

[@paulpetroleum]

I admire the ambition of the Rise team. They shot for the stars. I think if it had been just an Amiga game, with all the extra time spent on that version. It may just have been amazing.

[@michaelturner2806]

A fighting game about robots on the computer reminded me of One Must Fall 2097, published by Apogee for DOS one month earlier in October 1994. Sure it didn't have cutscenes, but iirc it has really good gameplay, a variety of fighters in a pilot/mech combo, eventual networked multiplayer support, and a shareware version to try before you buy. It even featured a really in-depth campaign mode for probably weeks of replay value, where you could customize your mech, train your pilot, and with the right graphics software make a custom pilot portrait.

[@joshzwies3601]

To me it looks like Rise of the Robots lifted its "moves designed by a martial arts expert" straight out of One Must Fall. The animation looks suspiciously similar.

[@michaelturner2806]

@Lurch I found out about OMF through bulletin boards shareware, I don't think I ever saw (or bought) a boxed copy. One of the downsides of shareware was they released way too much of the base game for free, leaving a bad gamer like me to have months to years of playing through its content and never sending money to the developer.

[@frankyflowers]

stick fighter 2 was good

[@Zombiejesus133]

I played the hell out of the shareware version at a friends house, didn't get to play the full version until like 2008 on dosbox. It was still worth the wait.

[@incumbentvinyl9291]

It did have cutscenes, they weren't full motion cutscenes though. They're actually very well made and when you win a tournament it makes it feel even more epic. I distinctly recall always watching them in jubilation and not just pressing Esc. Agreed, however I'd say months of replay value with a few different game modes, so many different difficulty levels (including being able to change the speed), and the economy system with the upgrades and repairs, where you had to grind, in a fun way through the rank system, to hone your skills and make your robot fare better. If you had done all that, then you could do the same thing with any other robots too. I personally loved the Jaguar, got a bit too used to it to be very effective with other robots. I did get the hang of that robot Ibrahim used, Thorne(?) or something along those lines. The different moves are epic in this game, with tons of variety. Some rarer robots can do some very interesting tricks. I still play this every now and then. This could possibly reach something like a top 30 game all time for me, and I can tell you that I've played a lot of games the past 35 years...

[@RobM42]

So i have a little fun fact to add to this. Back in 1996 when i was 15 in my 10th year at secondary school i did work experience for 1 week working at Data Design and i noticed that they worked on RotR so i asked them about it. They said to me, they had the game running way better than the released version of the game but because they were only the devs asked to do the ports of the game they had to stick to the design documents and where asked to change the game back to it's original version.

[@mukiex4413]

Man, could you imagine if an alpha with the better-running code got released? XD

[@minamur]

sounds like something someone involved with a famously bad product would say

[@incumbentvinyl9291]

*its Also, I don't personally buy that excuse. Not saying it didn't happen that they told you that, but I think it was a cop out. They knew what they created for a million pounds in 1994 no less, was a product that should never ever have been released to the public.

[@kanedaku]

Same school year bro!

[@MrFunsocks]

I recall being so excited for this game. I also remember my mum arguing with the poor person on the phone from whichever gaming catalogue ordering place I got it for my 12th birthday, as she relayed my abject crestfallen disappointment over the phone and confirmed we would definitely be sending the thing back. Think I swapped it for Zool in the end.

[@siralexander3359]

What a good mom

[@stickiedmin6508]

Zool! Bad News For Hedgehogs!

[@earlybirdanimations]

I love these deep dives into our gaming history. Keep them coming 👍 I've watched your Amiga history videos multiple times along with the Amstrad CPC history and your history on Acorn.. love them all

[@retrojoe85]

The best video about Rise of the Robots ever published on KZbin! Huge compliments for your work, Mister.

[@SteveBrandon]

Hey, that robot in the development build at 7:17 is clearly an AV-98 Ingram mecha from the sci-fi police action/workplace comedy anime franchise Mobile Police PATLABOR. I'm sure the Ingram wasn't in the final Rise of the Robots game for obvious licensing reasons but it's still awesome to see that at least one of the developers was an anime fan years before it was cool. **EDIT:** @MechaDeka and then @Belgurdo beat me to mentioning it (those posts weren't yet up when I started watching the video).

[@mutekichojin]

It actually explains A LOT about the Sentry's head design.

[@chungwong1010]

Come on, even if we can;t have Ingram... can;t we have a Saturn, Economy ingram or a Griffin.

[@SteveBrandon]

@@chungwong1010 That would be like making a Gundam game where you don't actually play as a Gundam... oh, wait, I have that Dreamcast Gundam game that's exactly like that. A Patlabor game that included obscure mecha like the Ghamborgini would be cool.

[@chungwong1010]

@@SteveBrandon And the super robot war og

[@KioAMVs]

I really should read the comments before I post. Just posted the same.

[@chrisalexthomas]

Aw man, I'm old enough to remember this first hand, it was absolutely horrific. I really appreciate you doing this review though, brought back some good, but awful memories. Merry Christmas mate!

[@tyrereviews]

So glad I got around to watching this, excellent edit, very well told story.

[@TekMerc]

I did work experience for two weeks with Richard Joseph when I was a teenager. I didn't even realise he did the music for RotR. It makes me happy to hear that his music was the best thing about it.

[@chunkybeats79]

Wow how lucky you go to meet an all time legend! Love that man and his work just an amazing musician who never got a lot of credit. I wonder what he would be thinking about with the industry now.... We all miss him 🥺

[@incumbentvinyl9291]

@@chunkybeats79 That's rather gay.

[@jaspal666]

This level of early 90’s pre-rendering sends me back! I was in a 3D design animation class in grad school when Rise was being reported in all the mags. I’d flat forgotten it! 😂😂

[@RetroDawn]

At least is wasn't flat-shaded... Sorry...

[@jaspal666]

@@RetroDawn Nice!!

[@RetroDawn]

@@jaspal666 LOL! Glad you appreciated my dad groaner. ;)

[@jaspal666]

@@RetroDawn coulda been Ray traced but it’ll still be rendering.

[@dimarg00]

Very well made and informative video. I remember this game promotion, it was on every magazine advertised back then. And one lesson I learned is that I don't have to be the first who buys a game

[@davidennis9623]

I remember this being one of the first computer games we got for our PC, my aunt and uncle bought it for us as a gift. My brother and I sat there for a few hours trying to figure it out and being completely underwhelmed. After a couple days we gave up on it entirely and just went back to our NES.

[@miremare9052]

I was working as assistant manager at Future Zone (uk) during the early 1990's, I remember all the hype surrounding the launch of this game and as an avid gamer (along with other fellow workers) I new it was overhyped and going to be crap. It was truly embarrassing as we where "encouraged" to big it up onto un suspecting customers and "discouraged" handing out refunds upon its inevitable return. If I remember rightly the SNES version had an original RRP of £64.99 that's about £125 in today's money! Would be interesting to know if despite the amount spent on this Turkey did they actually make any money on it.

[@worldcomicsreview354]

In 1999 or so my mate was still clinging onto Amigas when everybody else was getting PC's. In desperation he tried "Amiga has Rise of the Robots!" as a selling point. In 1999.

[@rwentfordable]

@@worldcomicsreview354 Wow, now that's hanging on.

[@taartaanspartaann6876]

Future Zone! Massive, massive thank you from the bottom of my heart for the incredible nostalgia hit you just gave me.

[@NeonEUC]

How on earth did you miss the fact that Amiga CD32 gamer awarded it a gamer gold with 90% in issue 6

[@DW-indeed]

I remember extracting the ROTR music on the Amiga and adding a dance drum loop to it... Did that a lot back then ;) Still in the loft too I'll wager.

[@SebastianSkadisson]

Luckily we had Killer Instinct afterwards, showing how you can combine great graphics with great gameplay. Great video and compilation, it's spot on. 👏

[@vmbo]

There was also One Must Fall around the same time as Rise of the Robots. That one was actually good.

[@GeorgeZimmermen]

My favorite fighting game of all time

[@zerpblerd5966]

2nd greatest fighting game ever! after One Must Fall: 2097

[@philtkaswahl2124]

It's things like this that should have taught gamers that grew up then to be wary of massive hype and lofty promises, and yet many still fall for them again and again all the way to this day.

[@wizardmanaia4664]

@Lurch somewhere out in a rapidly declining forest or jungle there is a tree that reached a point to produce more oxygen than it needs and I now think you owe this tree an apology.

[@upsidedownfuji]

Excellent documentary. I remember this one being all over magazines and then it came out lol.

[@afoolnamedhuggy]

Wooooowww, this brought back some memories, when I was lil, my best friends uncle worked at mirage and was hyping this from day one and my excitement began, I remember all the hype surrounding it, even weaving its way into pop culture, finally that fatefully day in 94, slept around my friends house the night before, waiting for the postman to arrive with it, and then boom 15 mins later we were done, the disappointment was unreal, so disappointed and because of this I've never jumped on a hype train since, only positive, at least the copy of the game we got was free lol

[@JamesTaylor-je6es]

Your documentaries are so well produced. Better than anything on TV!

[@puggawompy]

I was sucked into this game, the marketing, the magazines, the preliminary reviews... picked it up on the first day of release, but then once I started playing it I was sort of in shock how "Rockem-Sockem" the game was, I began wondering "Am I missing something? Why doesn't it thrill me? Surely it gets better the more you play?... etc, etc", tried to play it a few more times, but it ended up on the shelf to this day being a dust concentrator. Thanks for the answers to my younger me questions at the time.

[@aphoxema]

Man this just reminded me about One Must Fall 2097, that's a game that could use a comeback for sure

[@mk2k685]

Well, OMF2097 is actually good :)

[@aphoxema]

The music was the best part of that one too lol

[@JomasterTheSecond]

This is the perfect candidate for a remake. Full CD audio filled with songs from Brian May's discography, the cut robot concepts from the arcade version, gameplay that doesn't suck...

[@CptJistuce]

You had me until "gameplay that doesn't suck" I hate remakes that don't have anything to do with the original.

[@JomasterTheSecond]

@@lurch1539 At least Brian May made a full song for the sequel, so... y'know. Swings and roundabouts.

[@arostwocents]

Rise 2 was meant to be the version that didn't suck. It turned out as well as you'd expect 😂

[@davenirtam7965]

Thank you for this brilliant Video !!! A friend of mine with his brother pooled (and wasted) their allowance on the AMIGA-version. We were all very hyped, tryed it at my house, and after less than an hour, never played it again. They were so davasted that they left the game behind and told me to do whatever with it... I kept it, still have it, and if there was a little nostalgic feeling, to try it again, this Video cured me for the next 30 Years - The box is a nice 90`s piece of art though ;-)

[@RetroDawn]

Great story. I feel bad for them. Why did they play it first at your place?

[@davenirtam7965]

@@RetroDawn We played a lot at my house because I had the computer in my own room, and my parents didn’t monitor what games we played. Their mom could as well have been in the PMRC ;-)

[@RetroDawn]

@@davenirtam7965 LOL! Ah!

[@viinikellari]

Thank God there was OMF 2097. Excellent music and graphics. The tournament mode is quite fun but ends up being totally ridiculous. Good game.

[@gork42]

Came to the comments for this. One Must Fall finally gave us what we wanted!

[@wich1]

@@gork42what do you mean finally? OMF was released a month before Rise

[@fuzzyface4515]

@@wich1 After two seconds of googling this is what came up. Rise of the Robots/Initial release date June 1, 1994 One Must Fall: 2097/Initial release date October 10, 1994 I miiiight be crazy but I think October is like... four months after June??

[@M4R14NO94]

Great video as usual! Rise is a game I admittedly still have a bit of fondness toward, as I used to play the DOS version with one of my bros quite a bit ages ago, and while it wasn't the best it was still kinda fun. A few interesting addendums: -"Resurrection" actually did end up getting featured in the game too, sorta; the 3DO, CD-i and arcade versions featured an extra intro vid (which is just a montage of various cutscenes) set to the song (albeit an instrumental), and portions are used for the various cutscenes as well. Said versions are also the very few that have the full version of "The Dark" too (the SNES and MD ports have a full recreation of the song too, but obviously they're not exactly the same) -Bad Influence's thrashing of the game is even funnier because there was a much later episode they did with a "worst games ever" feature and Rise was one of the games present on there, which ends with them tossing a copy into a nearby bin. What makes it even funnier is that they were still using the Rise assets, even after being so much later (this was from a late 1995/early 1996 episode IIRC)

[@PIXELPORTABLE]

I remember being blown away by the graphics on my mates AMIGA CD32, loved it!

[@JoeStuffzAlt]

The graphics team for the Genesis version did a great job. I like the comment about graphics being prioritized over gameplay. It's happening often today.

[@Clay3613]

Eh, more like hand-wringing from PC purists over frame rates and RT. The games themselves play fine.

[@Fractal_blip]

@@Clay3613 the games released since 2014 aren't really up to snuff compared to what we got on the 360/ps3 era. Graphics are most certainly being prioritized over content quality. But then again, Im not a fortnite player either.

[@zphreaky]

This video is like a Christmas gift. Cheers!

[@wesleyjohnson1983]

I remember this game, I played it back in the early 90s. Thanks for the memory jog :)

[@Dorelaxen]

I ran a tournament of this game on the SNES some years ago at a local convention. The prize was a VHS copy of Super Mario Bros. and an Atari 2600 cartridge with no label. Yes, I'm evil.

[@retrorocketuk]

So much info - really kept me hooked! The amount of research this must have took to put this together is astounding. Thanks Octavius! 🐀

[@MrCaerbannog]

I remember about a year after the game was released Bad Influence did a special on all the worst games released on each of the major platforms until that point - and they concluded it by blowing up a copy of the SNES port of Rise of the Robots, along with the Mega Drive version of Shaq Fu.

[@Whigu]

This was so popular game that I had already forget it and thought that you were talking about One Must Fall at first :-D

[@thesteelrodent1796]

I remember seeing the Rise of Robots ads all over the place, but don't know anyone who's ever played it. We were all into Street Fighter and Soul Caliber and there really wasn't any room for another franchise. But if I'm not mistaken, the Mirage that made Rise is not the same studio as the Mirage Game Studios which we have today

[@saintuk70]

I remember this well, Rise was "the next big thing" - looked impressive in the "trailers", but once you got your hands on it....well... it was more interesting to look at the ageing Amiga Workbench and the flashing DOS 6 cursor.

[@anactualmotherbear]

The thing I most vividly remember about this game is that the Rise 2 magazine ad features a FEMALE ROBOT'S NIPPLE. And this ad was featured in all-ages magazines too.

[@RAMCARTGAMER]

AVGN and Nostalgia Nerd uploads in the same day. It must be Christmas.

[@TSX2002]

Your production quality just keeps getting better and better! Wonderful work!

[@dylan.t180]

Great retrospective thank you for your video

[@matthewrobinson3058]

Excellent video sir. Thank you for this.

[@FastTquick]

Man, the story of Rise of the Robots really reminds me of a bunch of other high-profile flops that have been hyped to no end just because of their visuals or the people behind them. Games such as LAIR, Phantasmagoria, and Daikatana come to mind.

[@KarldorisLambley]

I remeber the hype for bandersnatch and psyclapse

[@RetroDawn]

@@KarldorisLambley Which became Brataccas, which blew my mind when I got my ST in Jan 87. Such an amazing game for the time, with a real-feeling mini-world.

[@surrealbrain4227]

Mighty No. 9 springs to mind as a personal example. Almost a decade later, I still want the $5 I backed into that game. It could at least be used to buy a few things at Dollar Tree.

[@gswanson]

When this game was being marketed I was starting to get into computer graphics (Lightwave and 3D Studio) so I had at least some understanding of the technology. I remember reading an article (I want to say it was in Gamefan) that was boasting that each robot in the game had more polygons than the T-rex from Jurassic Park. I found this funny, because first of all, the T-rex was created in Alias which was a NURBS based software, which isn't easily comparable when it comes to polygon counts. Also, using more polygons is not really a bragging point when your characters don't look anywhere close to as good as the Jurassic Park dinosaurs. In fact using an excess of polygons is generally a bad thing that makes rendering and animating characters more time consuming and puts more stress on your system. Even for pre-rendered sprites, a good 3D modeler uses only as many polygons that are necessary. But even without the technical stuff, it is clear to anyone with eyes that the T-rex from Jurassic Park is a better looking 3D model than anything in the entirety of Rise Of The Robots.

[@gswanson]

@Lurch you're welcome, Admiral Passive Aggressive Sarcasm.

[@PrettyBlueThings]

Amazing video, thoroughly enjoyed it 😁

[@doctoronishispsychosislab1474]

i remember Magic pockets being playable over the phone on a saturday morning tv show

[@Daz555Daz]

The marketing was insane for this and I remember it well. Great video as always sir! Oh and your Game Gear needs a new screen and maybe a recap!

[@jsr734]

No, that is exactly how i remember the Game Gear´s screen looked like.

[@Daz555Daz]

@@jsr734 Game Gear had a shitty screen by today's standards but the one in this video is absolutely knackered.

[@anthonyharding4380]

Thank you for this video. I bought the Amiga version when it was released. I was 10 years old. I retired the game after attempting a move and was told to insert disk 7… or was it disk 12 😂

[@AngryCalvin]

I wonder how people survived without a good hard disk on their Amiga. But I didn't have a hard disk on my first PC and only had a CGA monitor.

[@AnonyMorshu]

Fantastic video, especially for presenting new info early on leading up to Mirage's formation. There are, however, a couple omitted details I feel are worth mentioning: The DOS version has the highest resolution sprites of all the versions: the DOS version was CD-ROM based and thus, according to Julia Coombs, was a "conversion 'upwards', meaning additions could be made". Also at 29:13: Resurrection _was_ used in the cutscenes of the near-identical CD-i and 3DO versions (which differ in FMV quality/framerate, load times, and the former having a toggle between fights having music or SFX). Additionally, the 3DO version has a music toggle for Brian May's songs or a techno soundtrack produced by Fuzzy+Logic/Clown Factory, which is uniquely available in English _and_ Japanese.

[@magicknight8412]

I was at uni when this came out, my friend had an Amiga 1200 and we convinced him to buy it due to all the hype (ignoring his reluctance). I remember we all gathered around as he loaded it from all the discs, went through the cool intro sequence, the brian may "song" and then we played it. Oh dear. We looked at the manual, surely we were playing it wrong as the special moves were impossible to do and the enemy AI seemed to not be there. So flying kick worked on every enemy and it was finished in a very short period of time. We left glad we hadn't bought it :) Our friend however ...

[@Red_Sutter]

7:15 Patlabor lol

[@TheVanillatech]

Thing is, this was VERY rare back in the day, and certainly through the 90's and early 2000's. There are a handful that I can think of - Rise of the Robots, Prey (which never showed up), Battlecruiser 3000AD, and perhaps Black & White (didn't quite live up to the hype). But THATS IT! Back then we had independent PC gaming magazines, not owned by the same conglomerates that owned the publishers. So you got honest reviews. And as most people, even into the 2000's, relied on those magazine's review scores, developers knew that a shit release or over-hype would devastatingly impact sales (and rightly so). What else? DEMOS! The cover floppy / cd / dvd had demos of all the latest games on - to try out before you buy. Much like shareware beforehand. The first thing the giant media conglomerates did after buying the publishers and developers and distributors in the gaming industry, was to put an end to the demo. How can you over hype, falsely advertise, take pre-order money - if the truth is out the bag before release? NOW this shit happens every single month. Witcher III downgrade, Cyberpunk, No Mans Sky, Uncharted, Bloodborne, and don't get me started on Star Citizen and countless other kickstarter scams. These days, the biggest games spend upwards of $100m on the marketing out of the development budget, only to release a mediocre game that doesn't come close to living up to the hype. And it works. Cos the sickening fact is, these days, so many numptys pre-order like their life depended on it, instead of waiting for the release and the honest reviews (those that remain), or STEAMs rather lacklustre (but commendable) try it first thing.

[@ChrisBeard]

Black and white was good! You take that back 😂

[@0ptera]

Overreacting much? Having played Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man's Sky just this year. They all where perfectly playable games with working mechanics. Not to the point of the hype, but still way more than what Rise ever offered.

[@TheVanillatech]

@@0ptera You didn't understand my comment?

[@suburbia2050]

Remember EPIC on the Amiga? That was really hyped up for months in the mags before it's rushed underwhelming Christmas release

[@waynetemplar2183]

Demo disks on the front of magazines were a great way for PC gamers to find out just how sh!t in reality some games were. I always felt for the cartridge based console owners who didn’t have that opportunity to filter out the crappy, over-hyped games from their buy lists

[@ZiltoidDerOmniscient]

I never understood the need to port a fighting game to the Amiga or ST, when me and my friends were quite happy to break each others bones in IK+. That game was so much fun.

[@RetroDawn]

Yep! Best fighting game on ST/Amiga/C64/Atari XL/XE (recent port).

[@LoftBits]

A pleasure to watch - a masterclass in how writing a piece of investigative journalism on game coding can be delightfully captivating!

[@TheDarthJDG]

Growin up in Hungary, I very much remember the hype around the game. My friend bought it an I played it once, never again. However I was so intrigued that a video game got a novelization, that I bought the Hungarian translated paperback. It was boring as hell and the ending was the worst part of it, and that's all that I can recall from the whole experience. Some months later I even spotted the book on my sci-fi nerd granddad's bookshelf, poor guy had no idea where that shit came from.

[@user-re5ck3mz4j]

I remember seeing it covered on Bad Influence, but completely missed the backlash on release. I ended up buying it when my parents got a PC after Windows 95 was released, and wondered why a game that had so much hype was being sold at 75% off. It might have been even a tiny bit fun if they had only allowed you to chain moves into combos.

[@JetsetDruid]

You hit the nail on the head with you comment about chaining moves. The combat was the problem, it was way too simplistic, as shown in gameplay footage you can just keep doing a flying kick to defeat the enemies, zero strategy or skill required. It was so bad me and a school buddy nick named the game "one move does it all".

[@nadirjofas3140]

@Lurch no

[@jamespalmer5679]

Hey my friend, I just found your page. And your contents are pretty neat. You just earned yourself a new subscriber 👊

[@PaulKinlan]

Amazing video. I'd love to have created a documentary like this. I still remember the hype for the game and not being able to work out how to jump over the player... Such a frustrating game.

[@thewiirocks]

I remember buying the game out of the bargain bin, getting it home, and being really confused about the absolute _pile_ of floppies in the box. Pretty much any other DOS game of that size was shipping on a CD by that point. I think I assumed that I got it so cheap because it was the floppy version, not realizing that a CD version didn’t exist.

[@BrasilGT]

Octavius really knows how to tell a story.

[@RetroDawn]

I was looking through many comments to see if anyone else noticed she wrote and produced this. So glad to see they're still collaborating!

[@JackBealeGuitar]

"Baubles" gave it away. Thankfully nostalgia nerd didn't don a catsuit

[@RetroDawn]

@@JackBealeGuitar I think said, "hench", as well. Prolly in ref to one of the robots, ofc.

[@MichaelMarucci]

One of my strongest pieces of visual game nostalgia is the copy of "GAME PLAYERS" magazine with Rise on the cover. I remember being in awe of the games visuals, but never ended up playing it.

[@Rockythefishman]

Great work, very enjoyed this :)

[@growingup15]

I wonder if any one can do a modern recreation of this game but actually make it good. also Its a shame 30+ years later and the Gaming Market still haven't learned this lesson. if anything it feels like we've went backwards in some way.

[@exodous02]

8:30 Wow, that is a great photo of the team. Was this their studio being built or did the photographer take them to a construction site? Such an odd choice if it was the latter. I love weird photos of development teams, Sierra seems to really like to do them.

[@PeteDabbs]

Studio being built. It was under constant construction for years as they kept expanding into next door buildings.

[@ColinHoad]

Great video, somehow all the hype surrounding Rise must have passed me by, as it wasn't a game I ever played back in the day. After seeing your video I don't think I'll be seeking it out, either! More long-form videos like these, please 😀

[@flamshiz]

omg cool spot just chilling in the background

[@tweakpc]

I remember well the marketing of the game and then the disastrous reviews. The hype of the 90s about 3D rendering was unbelievable, from today's point of view no longer comprehensible. But in one point the game was a prophecy for games as well as later for Hollywood, products where visuals stood above content have been repeated several times until today.

[@005AGIMA]

I can't wait for this game to come out. It looks amazing......oh ...wait.....

[@chr1998is]

I remember the poster when I was a kid. My first video game ever was Starfox on the SNES. Along with Street Fighter 2 and Super Mario World. Never managed to play RISE.

[@muzz2108]

7:24 I love that the early dev art is Alphonse from Patlabor.

[@HalfBlindGamer]

With such hype for a game that can even play on CD-i, you know you've got a true banger coming! The amounts of 8's and 9's the game received upon release was shocking. Luckily we have left these kinds of dealings long behind us and have reached a higher standard of pure journalistic integrity! I do believe I have a double of the CD-i version, if you for some reason wanted to add it to the collection.

[@HalfBlindGamer]

@@bobanmilisavljevic7857 Hah, I suppose I'm one of the lucky few who can kind of say no to that one? Regardless, even from taking it all in from the sidelines, it has made sarcasm one of my default settings. Which I agree, I could have made a bit more obvious.

[@RetroDawn]

@@HalfBlindGamer I knew you were being sarcastic. Good to see you commenting here. I remember watching your CD-i vids on more than one occasion, starting over a decade ago. Are you sure there were reviews that gave it an 8 or 9 upon release, and not just pre-release hype? The video (Octavius's script) makes it seem like the reviews all panned it.

[@HalfBlindGamer]

@@RetroDawn I remember highlighting a ridiculous review we go here in the most popular gaming magazine of the Benelux at the time (Power Unlimited), where they gave the SNES version an 8. In the same month they gave Super Punch out a 5 or something. Just did a quick look up on Moby Games and yeah, seems to be quite a few publications that gave the game quite high grades initially. The versions that got shafted by pretty much all publications that covered them, were the 3DO and Game Gear ones. To be fair though, the bigger US/international magazines did seem to hate the game. Just some more local magazines, as our PU, didn't, they only hated the CD-i version. Also, for home computers the list of decent fighting games at the time was quite short, so higher grades on the DOS and Amiga versions aren't too strange either I guess.

[@RetroDawn]

@@HalfBlindGamer Thanks for the info! Was the CD-i worse than the Amiga/PC/3DO versions? I'd be surprised if the 3DO version was worse than the Amiga/PC versions. It would take a borked port to make that happen.

[@MD-fu6ly]

@@bobanmilisavljevic7857 get a life

[@mechadeka]

7:14 Development "art"? That's literally an Ingram from Patlabor.

[@Nostalgianerd]

Indeed. It's also pulled from the first CD special edition as "development art"

[@stephaneauger1036]

very professionel video ad well done ! 10/10 thank you ! great work !

[@ChadeGB]

I remember being sucked in by all the hype and buying this for my A1200 back in the day. I was an Amiga Power reader so I knew what to expect, but had to try it anyway. I quickly went back to Body Blows. You know what though, I'd like to see someone try and reboot this, with the hype and massive fail it generated and still does today, it would at least garner a lot of interest.

[@Magifa]

AMAZING video! This whole episode is like a fever dream from my tween years… BTW, does anyone have a link to the book mentioned @ 5:47? Google is coming up short…

[@fallingwater]

In Italy we were missed by most of the advertising and marketing mumbo-jumbo, and I also think we got the game a few years late, but I do remember it appearing in every demo CD that existed. I used to buy several magazines at the time and had, like, five copies of the demo in different discs. This was pro-level demo coverage. I tried it, decided it sucked, ascribed the odd coverage to a weird coincidence and removed it from my mind for the next thirty years. Only today I learned that this game was a big deal that went bust.