is a horizontally scrolling shooter released in arcades by UPL in 1988. In the US, the game was published by Nikom. The PC Engine version is an adaptation of the arcade original and published as ''Atomic Robo-Kid Special''.

Plot

In the 21st century, a blast of cosmic

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...

bombarded Terra-12, a deep-space outpost of Earth, hideously mutating all transplanted life. A fleet of savage beings followed the radiation wave and invaded the planet and began the systematic destruction of all remaining sentient life. Years of battling the alien 'governors' have gone by, and now only one hope survives to avenge the desperate terran colonists.

Gameplay

The player controls the titular character through six stages of increasing difficulty, facing an alien "governor" boss (which is so large as to be considered a level in and of themself, as some of the bosses take up several screens) at the end of each level, followed by a "duel" level against other Robo-Kid sized robots. Many levels branch into others, giving the player the choice over which zone to enter next, increasing replayability. Robo-Kid can collect four different weapons (whichever weapon is selected is lost when Robo-kid loses a life) in addition to his default gun, collect powerups for a shield that activates on enemy contact, plus rapid fire and speed powerups. The player can also encounter a friendly dinosaur-looking robot that sells weapons and shields to Robo-kid using extra lives as currency.

Ports

The game was ported to the PC Engine,

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

, and X68000. A demo was distributed of the ZX Spectrum version before it was cancelled.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Atomic Robo-Kid'' on their March 1, 1989 issue as being the eighth most-successful table arcade unit of the month.

Legacy

The game was released on the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

in the

Nintendo eShop The Nintendo eShop is a digital distribution service powered by the Nintendo Network for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, and by a dedicated online infrastructure for the Nintendo Switch. Launched in June 2011 on the Nintendo 3DS, the eShop was en ...

on 15 November 2018 by Hamster Corporation (its current rights owner) as part of their

Arcade Archives is a series of emulated arcade games from the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and Nintendo Switch, published by Hamster Corporation. A sub-series called is focused on rereleasing Neo Geo ...

series.

References

External links

*
''Atomic Robo-Kid''
at Arcade History

at Atari Mania *{{lemon64 game, id=169 1988 video games Amiga games Arcade video games Atari ST games Commodore 64 games Horizontally scrolling shooters Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 4 games Sega Genesis games X68000 games TurboGrafx-16 games Cancelled ZX Spectrum games UPL Co., Ltd games Video games developed in Japan Hamster Corporation games Multiplayer and single-player video games