By Todd Russell
We have score chased my favorite arcade game of all time Robotron: 2084 multiple ties. We’ve also spotlighted the game, see: Robotron: 2084 and Crazy Climber – Replay Game Spotlight (RGS #10) Twin Stick Arcade Glory.
Despite playing on and off since the game entered arcades in 1982, I’m still not an expert player at the game, I can’t get to a million or more yet, usually falling in/around the quarter million to 300k mark. That’s plenty good enough for #1 on most machines these days, but it’s not expert level play.
I’ve improved a little bit over the years, pushing through various walls by following four techniques in gameplay. I’ll also share what I’ve learned by watching expert Robotron players, but watching others is the small part, it’s being able to do what these players do that is challenging.
Watch LordBBH score 10 million points and roll over the wave counter:
His gameplay makes a lot of this look easy, as is the case with all expert players. The way they tend to talk about the game, too, makes it seem like, “Yeah, I can do that, too” and then you learn just how challenging that is to pull off.
The problem I usually have when playing is that I can’t consistently do the four techniques listed below. Sometime, maybe too often, I get lazy or weak in my gameplay and don’t execute. The best Robotron players, the ones that scores tens of millions (like the player in the vid above), those that seemingly can play forever (well, until you get tired, of course, not really forever) simply make fewer mistakes.
The game will give you plenty of extra lives (although you can’t get more than 255, the really good players, because it resets to 0, so there is a Tie-Die ROM of Robotron that shows the number of lives as a number instead of the lives to avoid that trap as we as adding the 10 million digit), which is why the game can theoretically be played forever, if you’re a good enough player executing on the following techniques. This is much, much easier said than done. So, here is what I shared in our Discord to other PGM members, almost verbatim:
- the angle technique on the levels with the Tanks (the enemies that produce more Tanks by produce diagonal firepower). This level kicked my butt for years …then I learned to travel around the extreme edge of the screen firing in an alternating diagonal pattern, sometimes firing horizontal and vertical, but mostly diagonal.
- go toward the Enforcers — the red pulsing enemy that spawns UFOs that fire faster the further they are from you. The strategy here is to always go toward them … the closer you are to them, the slower they move and fire. I also try to eliminate these enemies first in waves … because they often produce the most danger in/around me.
- a third strategy which I’m still not as good at, but works well: move around the static Electrodes (mines), letting the enemy grunt hordes suicide on them. The more of these you navigate near and/or around, the more cover you have from the hordes. If you shoot Electrodes and get rid of them, you actually make it easier for the grunts to swarm you.
- Move in larger areas, do not be stationary too long. This is the reason I die most of the time in Robotron .. you have to keep moving and in unpredictable paths toward enemies … because the game is programmed to fire in 10 pixel radius around your current position .. if you move all the time in larger than 10 pixel radius, enemy fire will go in/around where you were not where you currently are.
The best players I’ve seen at Robotron are masters of #4. I’ve not been able to master this, yet …maybe someday, if I do, then Robotron will no longer master me and I’ll be able to play into millions. Someday.
Are you an expert Robotron player? Can you score into the millions? Share some of your best tips on the game in the comments.