This may very well be the hardest game ever to hit the arcades, harder even than Defender. At least in that game you could fly away from the battle whenever you needed to sneak a breath. Here, you're stuck on a single screen, surrounded by a swarm of robots, all of them bent on destroying you and/or the humans you're supposed to rescue. But like Defender before it, Robotron 2084 manages to be difficult without ever feeling unfair. Thanks to the game's dual joysticks, players have more control over their actions than in any earlier video game. And when the controls are mastered, the rewards are monumental. Ironically even the good-scoring games tend to end in a hurry, and yet a frenzied two minutes with Robotron can feel just as satisfying as six or seven minutes on any other game.
Of course it helps that Robotron 2084 also has excellent graphics and sound, typical of the Williams titles of the era. Bright and colorful, loud and bombastic, the audio and video suit the game's accelerated, unforgiving pace perfectly. The arcade's first use of two-dimensional "blitter" technology helps Robotron 2084 animate those dozens of on-screen enemies with movement as smooth as silk, further immersing players in the game's frantic battles.
The ideas that went into the game may not be completely original; there is a more than obvious nod to Berzerk here. Even so, like Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man, Robotron 2084 builds those existing ideas and turns them into something even better. In short, this game is awesome.