PSA: "Isaac Asimov's Robots VCR Mystery Game" exists.

That's right, everbody. There is such a thing as "Isaac Asimov's Robots VCR Mystery Game." This should finally put to rest all those questions that have kept you up at night, and the fears that have you bolting upright in bed soaked in sweat.

Don't worry. It's here. It's always been here. (Well, for the last twenty years or so.) You can even buy it if you need to immediately own your own copy, which, as an owner of a copy of the Atari 2600 "E.T. game," is a reaction I would understand and endorse.

I discovered this while searching for awesome things at a Goodwill in Less Local City. Obviously, I struck gold.

P.C. and I have played it once, of course, and in addition to the awesomeness you would expect to find in a campy, vintage-80's (if such a thing existed) VHS-tape-based game, it actually had some merit. I was surprised by some of the things that happened in the 40-minute video, though the fact that it never actually changes ensures that I wouldn't be surprised every time. Still, I can usually "call" the killer, motive and method at the beginning of most post-9/11 one-hour-detective/procedural dramas, and those are supposed to be the most sophisticated video-based crime-drama plots humans have produced so far (according to some criticism I read at some point) -- so good for Asimov's Robots.

The point of the game is to solve the mystery of who tried to assassinate a prominent "Spacer" scientist -- "Spacers" being the race of people who left earth for space long ago, and are as a result taller, healthier and generally more attractive than "Earthers," and also have significantly more developed technology, allowing them human-like robots and the ability to live exceedingly long lives (as long as they aren't exposed to "Earth" germs) -- and the answer to the question is different in every permutation of clue combinations.

Because the video never changes, the clues are written on double-sided cards separated into four decks (beginner to expert). You can use the clue on either side of each card, which changes the outcome; at six cards per deck, the combinations of six-clue games allow for "over 250" different results.

Of course, there aren't really 250 different characters in a 40 minute video, but part of the game is figuring out opportunity and motive, which may change with every difference in clue combination. P.C. and I found that even the beginner level cards we tried when we played required pretty sophisticated reasoning when we tried to determine why one of the robots had done it. (That time! Next time it could be a person! An Earther! Or a Spacer! Or a different robot!)

To answer your most burning questions about the details of the video, yes, the game does endorse the once firmly held theory that sophisticated people in the future would wear mute-toned spandex (for the men) and very large shoulderpads (for the women). Yes, it is full of no-name actors I haven't seen in anything else, and yes, the main character does look directly at you, the viewer, when "receiving" new clues. No, they do not use transporters.

But yes, Earth robots do look like people dressed in silver-painted cardboard with silver-painted fishbowls over their heads, as I think we all knew, deep down, that they would.

There's also a VCR mystery game, also by Kodak, of Clue. Without having seen it, I feel I can recommend it, though of course slightly less than the significantly more bizarre (and thus more awesome) "Isaac Asimov's Robots."