consumer culture is “robotron without the guns” - in the game, this is a metaphor for how living in a consumer culture is to be under constant and relentless assault from images and advertisements. setting this within the frame of an arcade game is smart: arcade games, especially unending williams and atari titles of the robotron era, are a kind of flashing billboard, continuously advertising the experience of themselves to the player and onlookers.

i also happen to like kevin oke’s earlier sky kid-channeled shooter, the last ace (available off the same site). the game’s scoring mechanic - the closer you fly to the ground, the more points you earn - means that there’s usually an up and a down path through each area, and whether you choose the more difficult one affects how highly the game rates your piloting skills.