Gyromite

ROB Game

October 1985 (Nintendo)

The final release title for the NES (and the game that came along with Duck Hunt in the Deluxe Set) is Gyromite.

This is a weird little title designed to work with a robot that Nintendo packaged with the system named R.O.B.¹ I wish I had one, but sadly I don’t. Happily for me though I don’t need one to get the game to work. Thanks to emulators are for. Specifically ones that will allow the second port to pretend to have a R.O.B. hooked up.

There are two types of play for this game. In the first you are a professor who for some reason has to go around collecting dynamite. You also have to move some red and blue pillars up and down. R.O.B. helps with this, you press the A and B buttons on the controller and R.O.B. presses them and the pillars move. Weird, but it works. You can’t jump, but you can climb ropes hanging down from the ceiling. You can’t kill the little green enemies by landing on their heads, but you can squish them with the pillars or place radishes in their path to make them stop to have a snack. When you get the last pack of dynamite you move onto the next level.

That method isn’t too bad. The B type though makes me want to fall asleep. In fact, it’s so boring that the professor dud is already asleep. You have to guide him as he sleepwalks across the screen. And by guide him I mean make those blue and red pillars go up and down so he can get behind the Japanese fake walls at the end of the level. You get points for how fas he goes, but it’s weird. At the end of the first level my score was 1101. Since you can’t make the professor walk you can’t go backwards at all. It makes Super Mario Bros. look really good because at least in that we could go back to a different part of what was still on the screen. I died on a few parts where the professor ran into a monster that I didn’t know was there.

The final verdict? A type can be a fun game, and if your emulator can handle having a R.O.B. or mapping two different controllers to the same buttons you’re good to go. Or, you know, you could actually have an NES and a R.O.B. and play it for real. Just stay away from the B type unless you lost a bet.