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RoboCop: Rogue City might actually be too faithful to the source material

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RoboCop: Rogue City

9.6

GoreRobotsNoirSci-fiAction RPGFPSActionFirst-Person

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SHOULD I PLAY ROBOCOP: ROGUE CITY?

Play it if you have fond memories of the over-the-top ‘80s RoboCop films and their satirical take on the moral panic surrounding American cities at the time. However, you may want to steer clear of this game if you’re looking for high-speed combat and tactically challenging firefights—RoboCop: Rogue City is unrelentingly faithful to its source material, and that includes having the main character plod around like Peter Weller wearing an ungainly suit of cyberpunk cop armor. While there are some intense shooting galleries throughout, RoboCop: Rogue City is a surprisingly slow-paced and deliberate game, so shooter fans may find themselves getting bored as they sit through the many story and dialogue sequences.

TIME PLAYED

I played about four and a half hours of Robocop: Rogue City. In that time, I finished the first two major missions and reached a key checkpoint in the third. The story so far has seen RoboCop lead a rescue mission into a television station where the workers have been taken hostage by a gang of thugs who want to send a message to “The New Guy,” a powerful and mysterious gang figure who has recently appeared on the scene in Detroit.

I’ve also spent a lot of time at the precinct talking with RoboCop’s colleagues and helping with small tasks around the station, like tossing a smelly drunk in a holding cell and grabbing an officer’s towel so he could come out of the shower and sign a get well card for my injured partner. I also got to experience some of RoboCop’s latent memories as Officer Alex Murphy, the fallen cop whose body he’s built on.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT ROBOCOP: ROGUE CITY?

• It nails the RoboCop vibe of the ‘80s. RoboCop: Rogue City is a remarkably faithful adaptation of the original movies. The dystopian near-future Detroit, in which gangs of punks with mohawks and plaid trousers terrorize the filthy, rain-slick streets, looks perfect here. Like several other movies of the era, RoboCop was in part a caricature of popular paranoia about cities that was going around in the 1980s, and I found that it felt strangely relevant again now.

It also features Peter Weller, the actor who originally portrayed RoboCop in the movies, taking on the role once again—although this time, he just had to record the lines and didn’t have to wear the unwieldy suit, which I’m sure was a relief.

• A surprising mix of action and exploration. Sure, I spent a good deal of time in RoboCop: Rogue City head-shotting thugs as I clomped my way through warehouse hideouts and an abandoned quarry, but there was plenty more to do. Between missions, I’d mill around the police station, helping my coworkers out and trying to keep my boss from having me decommissioned into scrap. Out on patrol, I’d have a main objective, like tracking down a missing police officer or questioning the owner of an arcade, but I could also explore the large areas to look for other leads, recover stolen property, or even issue parking violations.

I also found several side missions just by wandering around. In one, I helped solve the murder of a sex worker found near the site of a film set, and in another, I tracked down a car stolen from the mayor’s daughter that had ended up in a sketchy chop shop. Each time I wandered off the beaten path, I ran into weird new characters and had the chance to either “uphold the law” by being a hardass or “serve the public trust” by letting someone off with a warning.

• Extensive upgrade systems. As I gained experience, I could upgrade RoboCop, unlocking new abilities that let me do more detailed scans of my environment and new combat moves. Boosting my engineering skill allowed me to open safes, and adding a few points to my vitality stat let me recover health by jacking into fuse boxes. There’s another system for upgrading the Auto-9 pistol—I had to slot processors I found in OCP crates into a motherboard schematic to try to find the most advantageous combination of bonuses and debuffs.

• I could throw dumpsters at guys. An important thing to know about RoboCop is that he’s really strong, and RoboCop: Rogue City let me take full advantage of this fact. Early on, I was picking up chairs and big old CRT computer monitors and hurling them at enemies, but I also could grab larger items like dumpsters and motorcycles and chuck those, too. RoboCop also has a mean right hook, and I could grab dudes by their necks and throw them into walls or at their buddies. RoboCop also likes to breach locked doors, and when that happens, whoever is on the other side of the door goes cartwheeling through the air in slow-motion. You may not be surprised to learn that this never gets old.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT ROBOCOP: ROGUE CITY?

• RoboCop is slow as hell. I get that this is part of RoboCop’s whole thematic identity, but man, I got pretty tired of waddling step by robotic step through some of RoboCop: Rogue City’s big maps. Even getting from one side of the precinct station to the other was a chore. RoboCop can run, sort of, but that just feels closer to normal movement in most first-person shooters. I don’t think I’d want this changed, because it is so key to how well the game captures the sense of being the RoboCop from the movies, but it’s definitely something to be aware of going in.

• Dated-looking character animations. By and large, RoboCop: Rogue City is a pretty good-looking game. The environments in particular are great: I loved the weathered pavement in Detroit, the dusty sunbeams at the quarry in Highland Park, and the lived-in feel of the precinct. Characters are a step down, however. Facial animations are wooden and lifeless, their clothes don’t seem to fit right, and hair looks like papier-mâché most of the time.

• Repetitive combat. The Highland Park area introduces some new enemy types: suicide bombers, snipers, grenadiers, and guys on motorcycles. I was disappointed that these didn’t change up the combat flow more. I’d use RoboCop’s Auto-9 and try to get headshots while using the scanning visor to highlight enemy outlines, taking cover if I came under any sustained fire. If things got really hairy, I’d look for an object to toss into a crowd to thin things out a bit. It’s fun, don’t get me wrong, but I do wish there was a bit more variety to it.

💬 Will you be protecting and serving the good citizens of Detroit in RoboCop: Rogue City, or will you be sticking with Cyberpunk 2077 for your dystopian future adventures? Let me know in the comments!