"Yo dawgs. I just finished a new one, and it's an introspective take on a personal life experience I once had that I think leaves me emotionally vulnerable, while encouraging the player to think about their own feelings and how they're percieved by the people around them. It's called Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar."
— Author's dino-description on Kongregate
Need to recapture the feeling of being a kid pretending you're in a Saturday Morning Cartoon for a few minutes? Tired of games with ambiguous titles? Just played Today I Die and need to restore your emotional equilibrium?
Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar is an Adobe Flash game about cybernetic prehistoric reptiles which fire lasers whenever they growl. A scrolling shooter with a hilariously ridiculous premise, it was originally released in 2009 on Kongregate.
Activating Dino-Tropes:
- Alien Invasion: The two good cyborg dinosaur aliens must save Earth from evil aliens.
- Aliens Speaking English: Both Dinomite and Tyrannosaurus X speak English.
- Asteroids Monster: One of the planes splits into two when hit.
- Boring, but Practical: The power of your beams quickly diminishes with sustained use, but recharges quickly, so firing in tiny bursts as fast as you can press and release the mouse button is a useful strategy, but it means cutting your MIGHTY ROOOAAAAAR short.
- Charged Attack: Inverted, holding down the button weakens your attacks.
- Destructive Saviour: The dinosaurs eat people and blow up helicopters, but thanks to them the Earth is safe for another ten jillion years, so it's all cool!
- Energy Ball: What Wall Turrets fire.
- Energy Weapon: Robot dinosaurs and the boss fire these.
- Everything's Better with Spinning: The boss likes to spin for some reason.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar is a game about robot dinosaurs that shoot beams when they roar!
- Excuse Plot: The Robot Dinosaurs are running low on Dino-Force, so they take to the skies to battle robots and somehow save the Earth for another ten jillion years.
- Flash of Pain: Stronger enemies and the boss blink in a different color when hit.
- Funbag Airbag: The intro sequence.
- Funny Background Event: That poor boy...
- Homage: The gameplay, enemy design, and boss are strongly enough reminiscent of Stargunner that it's unlikely to be coincidence.
- Jetpack: Dinosaurs have these on their backs.
- King of the Dinosaurs: The leader of the Robot Dinosaurs appears to be Tyrannosaurus X. He's like a Tyrannosaurus rex, except he's a robot with a jetpack who shoots beams when he roars.
- Large Ham: Nick Sumbles obviously had an incredibly fun time doing those roars. (Wait till after the credits, it just gets hammier and hammier.)
- Let's Play: With Raocow.
- Marshmallow Hell: The teenager in the opening sequence does a truly impressive faceplant into his girlfriend's boobs when the meteor carrying the titular robot dinosaurs who etc. etc. lands.
- Mighty Roar: That shoots beams!
- Mook Maker: Those dark vortexes.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Cybernetic alien dinosaurs.
- Rule of Cool: The game's dino-d'être
- Sentry Gun: Ball with a stick-variety on surfaces.
- Stylistic Suck: Just about the entire game is made to be as stupid as humanly possible. The premise is ridiculous, the story is nonexistent even for an Excuse Plot, and the roars are obviously an amateur voice actor shouting "ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!" into the mic.
- So Once Again, the Day Is Saved: "...for another ten jillion years!"
- Terror at Make-Out Point: Parodied mercilessly. Something about the protagonists causing the Death by Sex usually included with the trope helps make sure that this
Crosses the Line Twice. - Wave-Motion Gun: The power-up gives you a bigger one.
