Product Details

• Format: NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Eastman Kodak Company
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 6301122992
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,363 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Party Game, November 29, 2008

By 

Joe Max (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Isaac Asimov's Robots VCR Mystery Game [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I bought this video tape because I was always an Isaac Asimov fan. I figured it would be a bit of disposable fluff, a collector's item maybe, but it was much better than I expected.

It's a party game, where the players pause the tape at critical junctures in the plot and make choices based on a predetermined "outcome" chosen by random draw at the start of the game. Essentially, it's a video version of a "Clue" game, but based on Asimov's Elijah Bailey "plainclothesman" detective character from his series of "I, Robot" stories.

The story is based on Asimov's first Bailey novel, "Caves of Steel", and surprisingly adheres to the plot line of the book faithfully -- except that where Asimov created ambiguity in the story about the motives and opportunities of the suspect characters to be guilty of the crime of murder (like any good detective novel should) but leads to only one perpetrator in the end, the game allows any of the prime suspects from the novel to be the guilty party, depending on the draw at the start of the play.

The acting is surprisingly good, the production values are fairly high considering the budget was probably pretty limited (it even looks like it was shot on film, not video), and it's a lot more faithful to Asimov's vision than the "I, Robot" blockbuster starring Will Smith (which bore little resemblance to anything Asimov ever wrote.) Asimov's Elijah Bailey novels were not only good science fiction, but good detective stories as well. I wish that the "I, Robot" film had been more like this video game than what it turned out to be.

I'd say to keep an eye out for Debra Jo Rupp, who starred as Kitty Foreman in the series "That 70s Show", but you won't recognize her under the clunky robot costume she's wearing (although if you know her voice, you can tell it's her.)