Day 24: Transbot

You know what Transbot reminds me of? No, not those episodes of the Maury Povich show where audience members try to guess which of the guests are women and which guests are dudes. It reminds me of pretty much every video game I played between 1986 and 1990. See if you can pick it out of the four screenshots below.



















It's the game on the bottom left. Just another side-scrolling space shoot-em-up from a time plagued with side-scrolling space shoot-em-ups.

The plot is pretty standard. Sometime in the future some aliens have invaded earth (or some earth colony or wherever) and it's up to the intrepid pilot of the Transbot to single-handedly repel the invasion.


Power-ups from passing supply trucks arm Transbot with different weapons and transform in into either plane or robot mode, whichever is appropriate. I recommend power-up "C" which fires a shot half the height of the screen.

The aliens invaders never really progress beyond the "space bacteria" stage. Shooting colorful blobs over varying terrain without an end in sight gets old fast. There aren't really levels or bosses in Transbot, just one big loop. That's not even old school. That's just dull.

Transbot is a nice enough looking game. The graphics are clean and colorful. The endless nature makes it a great choice for a 1983-style marathon session, if it can hold your interest that long.