Out of all the weird things we’ve seen in video games, from crazy magic spells to bizarre creatures, there is one in particular that everyone should know, and I’m here to talk about it.

If you don’t know what a “robot” is, then I’m frankly disappointed. After all, they have actual real life transformers! Sort of…

The word “robot” can refer to both physical robots and virtual software agents, but the latter are usually referred to as “bots”. But today, we’re going to talk about physical robots. You see, there’s no one definition of “robot” that satisfies everyone, and many people have their own. My personal definition is: any artificial being with metal that can move and think for itself. This includes automated robots that follow a series of commands or instructions, as well as semi-automated robots which are giant machines with slightly humanoid proportions that can be piloted or controlled by humans.

There are a lot of different types of robots because the term is ambiguous, so I’ll try to be specific with them.

Imitator Robots

These robots are designed to look like regular animals or objects, and their commands aren’t very different from the functions of the animals in which they were based. These robots aren’t usually armed, but their metallic armor makes them hard to kill, and because of their design, these robots can easily accomplish infiltration and tracking missions without looking suspicious.

Mobile and Flying Turrets

These are enemies with only two commands, move in a series of patterns, and shoot at anything that crosses their path. Their basic design is a cannon attached to metallic legs, wheels or turbines (in the case of the flying turrets), but you can change their appearance to look like something more casual (imitator robots).

The best example of a mobile turret would be Met from the classic Megaman franchise. I mean, he only moves and shoots, and uses his helmet to block your attacks. Clearly one of most annoying and well-known enemies of video games.

The Yellow Bastard!

For the flying turrets, I always had a preferences for the Bee Bladers from Megaman X. These guys simply show up, and the shooting starts.

Butler Bots

Butler Bots are robots that provide service in exchange for money, or just because they are programmed to do it. Their proffered services include food delivery, ammo recharge, weapon selling or any other similar service. The basic design of these robots can be quite varied, but in general, they always have arms and hands, while legs are optional. The internal oven is sold separately.

There are several examples of butler robots. You can totally count C-3PO from Star Wars or Rosie from the Jetsons, but I think that Godfrey from Fallout fits perfectly in the category for video game butler bots also.

Zords and Transformers

These robots can look like animals, cars, jets or boats, but they can easily transform into giant robots or robotic parts in just a couple of seconds (seems like minutes, if you ask me), but besides this similarity, these 2 robots have their slight differences.

Zords are usually giant robots (they normally tower at 40 or 50 meters) that can transform and even combine with other zords to create a bigger one. These robots are usually piloted because they don’t have AI, or at least not a good enough one to handle all the combinations.

On the other hand, Transformers are robots with excellent AI, are able to learn as much as we can teach them, and their transformations are more detailed. Although their average size is not as big as the Zords (18 or 30 meters), and not all of them have the ability to combine with other robots.

These are the heavy hitters of any arsenal: giant and powerful robots that can easily beat an army, conquer a city or even take over the world. We have seen these kinds of robots since the 1970’s in cartoons, animes, comics and, of course, video games, in which they are mostly bosses, especially if your main villain is a crazy scientist.

Androids and Gynoids

These are robots with humanoid proportions. Androids are the robots that resemble male humans, while Gynoids resemble female humans. They can go from following the simplest instructions to thinking for themselves and having emotions as real as any human being.

Not to mention that scientists seem to be very concerned about the design details of their gynoids! Just saying…

These robots were mostly designed to facilitate the interaction between humans and machines, to the point that you don’t even realize you are talking to a machine. This is pretty convenient for infiltration missions, or to easily make a huge army of genocidal robots. I’m personally not a fan of these Gynoids because, well, they make them so damn sexy.

But this is the video game industry, and in the end, none of these characters exist (except for Crash Bandicoot, that was based on real history). Anyways, it’s just a matter of time for us to see robots walking across the street, and until then, we only can dream about having our personal robot butlers or maids (if you prefer it).