There have been a few Robocop games in gaming history, which is not surprising given the fact that the source material fits so well to a game. The most famous has to be the Robocop side-scrolling arcade game. Robocop: Rogue City, though, is the first game in a long time to tackle the half man-half machine and boy does it show its love for the franchise.
It may not be complicated in execution but Robocop has all the bases down; targeting looks exactly like you’d expect if you were inside of Robocop’s helmet. There’s an over-the-top enemy, cops that are just trying to do their job in a crime ridden city and a big company boss that has designs on a robot army of cops, even though we all know how that one ends every since time OCP get their army up and running.
Tongue in cheek comedy elements and some attempt to follow the first film’s social commentary are there, though mostly forgotten in favour of set pieces that see you blasting away at enemies and a ragdoll system that sees enemies losing limbs left right and centre, as well as some nifty throwing of objects scattered around the environment in addition to the many bullets you’ll be firing at, into and around the bad guys. In addition to weapons, a skill tree sees our metallic hero increase his abilities to take on enemies in more effective ways, including steamrolling a path through the room. It’s a nice touch that stops the action getting a little too repetitive.
The danger, though, is that basing a game on source material that also involves mostly disabling bad guys by relieving them of their limbs and lives means that sooner or later you’ll be doing the same thing over and over. The extra abilities do mix things up but the environments don’t really help, often being set in boring industrial complexes and while the developers have added gameplay set at the station, it takes the form of looking after customers and criminals filing paperwork or checking out the crime stats, hardly thrilling.
Despite this, the environments, action and comedy ARE spot on and any fan of the movies will still get a lot of joy from playing as Murphy, meeting some familiar faces and, yes, blasting away at an endless supply of goons, robots and even ED-209.
Robocop: Rogue City
Pros
- Very authentic action
- Skill tree provides new and interesting abilities
- Physics model is inventive and fun
Cons
- Can get samey
