I, Robot – 10 Forgotten ’80s Video Games

Had Atari's I, Robot been a person in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, it would have been accused of witchcraft and burnt at the stake. That's a fairly obtuse way of saying that this game was so unlike anything else in arcades when it debuted in 1983 that it was ridiculously ahead of its time. (And that's not even taking into account the proto-dubsteb sound scheme of the game.)

First off, I, Robot employed early 3-D graphics that were light years away from the suddenly antiqued visuals that Mr. Do was spewing on the other side of arcade. Then there was the so-called Doodle City mode that let players screw around with the on-screen images instead of playing the game. You see, I, Robot was desperate to let its freak flag fly. It wasn't merely content with being just another sci-fi game, it yearned to be an experience. (It's unreasonable to imagine Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat spending a sleepy New York City day hunched over this thing.) Because this electronic Pinocchio was never mass-produced like other Atari games of the era, I, Robot is pretty much unknown except amongst hardcore arcade buffs and lovers of esoteric kitsch.