Weeklies

Game: "Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters"
System: Arcade
Genre: Action
Published by: Atari

Reviewer: -RoG-
Posted: 4/28/2009

Review: I recently played Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters for the first time at a classic arcade games party. The lengthy title alone was more than enough to catch my attention, and then when I saw that it was a 2-player co-op game drawn in isometric style, I had to play it.

So the story is that Planet X has been invaded by an evil alien race called the "Reptilons" and they're forcing all of the humans into slave labor so that they'll build a robot army to take over Earth. You and a buddy get to play as Jake and Duke, two heroes out to save the world from those evil Reptilons.

Armed with ray guns and mini-nukes (which magically explode around you without killing you), you take on the hordes of robots while freeing humans along the way. From what I played, there are two kinds of humans to save: Bikini Clad girls in shackles and guys who look like Jesus that are being forced to type on computers (presumably programming the robot army). What's great is that if you destroy the computers they're typing on, they'll still sit there and keep typing on the broken consoles until you go up and rescue them. That's just how brainwashed they've been by those damned Reptilons.

There's plenty of shooting action in the game, but there are a few ridiculous aspects to it as well. Sure, it's got the whole cheesy sci-fi movie thing going for it, but you can fall off ledges. Not completely fall off, but just hang there for a bit. It's basically an annoying cinematic that you have to wait through any time you accidentally walk too close to a ledge.

Then there's the escalators. Wait, did I say escalators? Pardon me! What I meant to say was, THE ELECTRO-STAIRS! Yes, in the future, escalators are called "Electro-Stairs" and you have to activate them via some remote switch to walk up to the next area on each level. My question is simple: why do the escalators electro-stairs have to be activated for you to move up to the next level? Our these two pseudo-heroes so fucking lazy that they can't even walk up a set of stairs?

I honestly couldn't stop laughing at that absurd notion any time my friend and I encountered the electro-stairs. So yeah... it's a decent game and worth checking out, and even has some fun bonus areas where you go flying around in a spaceship against a timer. Still, you'll be hard-pressed to find a set of lazier superheroes than Jake and Duke.

Overall rating: WholeWholeWhole
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)

Reader Comments

The Magnificent Bastard
Apr 30th, 2009, 02:47 AM
Best title this side of "Attack Of The Mutant Penguins" on the Jaguar.

I love isometric graphics (though alot of people hate them for some reason). I'll have to track this one down (I wonder if there's a console port).
Esq.
Apr 30th, 2009, 07:34 PM
This looks fun as hell. My eyeballs almost shot out of my eyes and humped my monitor when they saw the explosion of color, what do the cabinets look like?
Fanboy
May 2nd, 2009, 02:27 AM
Back in the day, the C64 version of this was so buggy, you'd think it had been programmed by HAL. Kinda put me off, although I do play it on my MAME once in a while.
Last of the Time Lords
May 2nd, 2009, 06:39 AM
Looks like fun. To the emulator!
Member
May 2nd, 2009, 09:43 AM
Electro-Stairs never were so awesome before.
pickled
May 2nd, 2009, 04:10 PM
This was a pretty neat game back in the day.
the axe and the smasher
May 2nd, 2009, 07:43 PM
I used to love this game and play it at the local arcade! I was actually trying to remember the name of it, thanks Rog!
Member
May 3rd, 2009, 03:40 AM
Just think, if the Reptilons had just installed regular stairs, the heroes would never even get past the first floor.
Member
May 3rd, 2009, 02:48 PM
This reminds me of a Mitch Hedburg joke:

"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience."