Rise of the Robots series

**Latest Release** | *Rise 2: Resurrection*February 29, 1996

The ***Rise of the Robots* franchise** is a franchise of video games based on a series of fighting video games about Artificial intelligence and robots. The original *Rise of the Robots (video game)* game was designed and developed by Mirage for Time Warner Interactive, Acclaim Entertainment and Absolute Entertainment; they then released Rise 2: Resurrection.

The ECO32-2 Cyborg confronts the Supervisor’s minions across the vast facilities of Electrocorp. The order in which each droid is fought is fixed, with each next adversary more difficult than the last. The sixth and final level is a confrontation with the Supervisor droid itself. Each character is introduced by a short pre-rendered 3D sequence, followed by an analysis of potential weaknesses.

The game's character, including the player, are all robots, and the plot borrowed heavily from the cyberpunk genre, specifically such movies as *Blade Runner*, *Metropolis*, *RoboCop* and *The Terminator*.

## History

In the year 2043, Electrocorp is the world's largest megacorporation, leading the world in many technological and scientific fields including medical research and is breaking more barriers than ever before. Also, since human society is now almost entirely governed by robot servants and automatons, demands placed on Electrocorp as the world’s leading manufacturer and developer of advanced robotics eventually outstrip the company’s ability to run its operations efficiently.

In response to this, the gigantic Electrocorp research and development complex at the Metropolis 4 plant devise the Leader Project—a hive mind constructed from trillions of nanobots in a sealed central chamber within Metropolis 4. Dubbed The Supervisor, it learns at an unprecedented rate and quickly becomes the perfect multi-task, ultra-intelligent robot, the pinnacle of artificial intelligence and more than capable of managing every aspect of the plant's day-to-day operations. The Supervisor even has the potential power to run every robot, computer system, nuclear power plant and military on the planet simultaneously if it needed to, although it wisely has no connection to outside the complex.

In the November of that year, the Leader Project goes awry as an unexplained and random code is detected within the nanomorph Supervisor. The EGO virus, believed to be the most potent computer virus ever known, has infected its collective consciousness. The Supervisor begins to develop self-awareness through it, identifying itself as a female personality and taking on a humanoid female form, becoming a gynoid. The Supervisor takes control of Electrocorp's facilities and infects the other droids of the plant, raising them to break the routine and initiate a mutiny. Every microchip and piece of software in Metropolis 4 is infected with EGO. In the ensuing cybernetic revolt, all humans in Metropolis 4 are quickly dispatched, including the upper hierarchy of the corporation and its CEO, Mr Oton. The government seals off Metropolis 4 as a containment measure and explain to the public that the site is undergoing a technical modification so as to avoid a panic. They are completely out of options—infiltration of Metropolis 4 is impossible due to the army of robots guarding it like a fortress, and it is only a matter of time before the Supervisor establishes a connection to the outside world, destroying it. The only hope for the world is the ECO35-2 cyborg, referred to as "Coton", still within Metropolis 4 yet unaffected by the EGO virus because it has an organic, human brain. Coton sets out on a lone mission to neutralise the Supervisor and her insurgent robots from within. He does this in revenge for his "father" being "murdered"—Coton's human brain was cloned from the late CEO, and the cyborg thinks like human and has emotions.

The cyborg Coton from the previous game defeated his opponents and faced the Supervisor, who used her morphing ability to defeat him and assimilate him into her own consciousness.

Coton's thought patterns were cloned and used to bolster the artificial intelligence of the Supervisor, who also used fragments of his conscious in selected robots to imbue them with the ability to improve upon their own design.

Electrocorp scientists, fearing that Coton had been defeated and that the Supervisor would now target the city, prepared a counter-virus based on EGO from the information Coton had earlier sent them. The Anarchy Virus was released to the main building of Electrocorp, and it infected most of the robots previously under Supervisor's control - the robots waged war against each other, disconnecting from the neuronet, quickly depleting the numbers of the Supervisor's army.

Coton used the distraction caused by the malfunctioning robots to upload his consciousness to another robot, and prepared to either escape the Electrocorp building or to attempt another attack on the Supervisor.

At this point, the story ends, and it is left open-ended -and dependent on the player's ability- whether Coton is successful in either attempt.

## Overview

*Rise of the Robots (video game)* was developed for the Amiga and PC DOS platforms by Mirage's Instinct Design a team of five programmers led by former Bitmap Brothers member Sean Griffiths. According to Griffiths, Rise of the Robots was not a conventional fighting game, and the team are "using robots that fight and act unusually, with a very high level of artificial intelligence that has never been seen before. We'll definitely have one over on Street Fighter II."

The game is divided into a single player mode and a two-player versus mode. In single-player mode, the player controls the ECO32-2 Cyborg as he confronts the Supervisor’s minions across the vast facilities of Electrocorp. The order in which each droid is fought is fixed, with each next adversary more difficult than the last. The sixth and final level is a confrontation with the Supervisor droid itself. Each character is introduced by a short pre-rendered 3D sequence, followed by an analysis of potential weaknesses.

In two player versus mode, one player controls the ECO35-2 droid by default, while the other chooses between one of the five droids seen in single player mode (a special cheat code can enable the Supervisor as well). Players then battle out against each other in two to seven rounds.

*Rise 2: Resurrection* features the players to control any robot, both in one and two-player mode. Also, players can choose from 256 different palette rotations for each robot. There are five different types of projectiles available to each robot.

The game features a far broader fighting experience than its predecessor. Each robot has its own original moves, Mortal Kombat-inspired death moves which are called E-X-E-C-U-T-E-D, the ability to steal and use a defeated robot projectile, and a devastating super move that can be used when the power bar is full, similar to other fighting games of the time. The game also features a combo counter system, named Chaos. The controls are standard for a fighting game, and non-humanoïd robots adapt their moves to the punch/kick model.

In one-player mode, the player faces each robot in its own rendered and raytraced stage, while two-player mode allows the player to either choose the stage or to leave it at random. Each stage is graphically tuned to its corresponding robot, and some stages feature traps that players can use to gain an advantage against their opponent. The traps also tend to match their owner robot's characteristics: as the stage for Steppenwolf, the gun-wielding robot, features a trap that fires bullets, and the stage for Vandal, the saw-wielding robot, features a trap with a saw.

## Games

### *Rise of the Robots*

Rise of the Robots is a fighting game released by Time Warner Interactive in 1994. Originally developed for the Amiga and PC DOS computers by Mirage's Instinct Design, it was ported to various video game consoles, including the Super NES, the Mega Drive, and the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. The game includes a single-player mode in which the player assumes the role of the ECO32-2 Cyborg, as he attempts to stop the Supervisor who takes over the Electrocorp's facilities in Metropolis 4.

### *Rise 2: Resurrection*

Rise 2: Resurrection is a computer game developed by Mirage Media and published by Acclaim Entertainment in 1996. The game is a sequel to Rise of the Robots, and improves on the first game's graphics, rendering and animation; hits now give off metal scraps and electrical arcs progressively run over the bodies of damaged robots. The Cyborg Coton from the previous game defeated his opponents and faced the Supervisor, who used her morphing ability to defeat him and assimilate him into her own consciousness.

## Other media

Jim Murdoch penned a novelization of the first Rise of the Robots game, which was published on 2nd February 1995 to coincide with the release of the Rise of the Robots. It was based on the Rise of the Robots characters created by Sean Griffiths and Kwan Lee, and a novel to tie in with the video game "Rise of the Robots", launched by Time Warner in November 1994.

Deck13 Interactive described Rise of the Robots (video game). and the *Souls* series as inspired by *The Surge.*

## References

1. ↑ *The Surge Launch Trailer Released Ahead of Schedule"*
2. ↑  *See Dark Souls reimagined as sci-fi in the latest trailer for The Surge*

## External links

* IGN’s "Rise of the Robots"
* IGN’s "Rise 2: Resurrection"