Gyromite



Gyromite is the more common of only two titles that were developed to be used in conjunction with the Nintendo R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) accessory. The other is Stack-Up. R.O.B. was essentially a marketing trojan horse that convinced retailers to stock the NES in the United States where video games were seen as a passing fad. Without the toy connection, stores would not consider purchasing another video game system that they believed was doomed to failure.

In game A of Gyromite, the player helps Professor Hector (along with second player Professor Vector) collect six stick of dynamite scattered throughout the many levels of the Professors' lab. In his way, however, are blue and red pipes, which are supposed to be raised and lowered through the aid of R.O.B., as he uses the Gyros to keep buttons pressed on the second control pad. The player must pause the game and issue each instruction to R.O.B. one at a time. In game B, the Professors are sleepwalking, and you must constantly issue commands to R.O.B. in order to allow the Professors to reach the other end of the stage safely.

A complete Gyromite comes packaged with two claw hands for R.O.B., two gyros, a gyro spinner (requires its own D battery), a 2-gyro holder, and a contraption that you place second (original) NES controller in that pushes the A and B buttons through the weight of the Gyros. Because of the speed at which R.O.B. operates (rather slowly), and the frequent misplacement of R.O.B. which resulted in many people possessing only the cartridge, a second player would often take R.O.B.'s place. The Gyromite cartridge also contains one of the highly sought after Famicom-to-NES converters since early versions of the ROM were not converted to the NES cartridge format.