Robocop: Rogue City discounts the majority of Robocop media, instead serving as more of a direct sequel to Paul Verhoeven’s iconic original 1987 movie. This was a wise choice by Teyon, as it means that the game is able to adopt all of the coolest elements of the character without delving into the realm of completely cheesy silliness.
With that being said though, it is still a little overly cheesy at times and lacks the sharp edginess of the satire presented in the original film. It makes a few attempts at recapturing that same tone, but over the course of the game, they end up feeling shallow and secondary to the moment-to-moment action. Thankfully those action sequences are a lot of fun to play through.
Robocop: Rogue City is out on November 2nd for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles.
The biggest compliment that I can give to Robocop: Rogue City is a backhanded one; it feels cheap and unpolished in a way that mostly adds to the experience. As this game attempts to recreate the feeling of the first Robocop movie, it actually makes sense that this shouldn’t feel like a polished, AAA experience, given that the film wasn’t a high-budget, refined experience either. The feeling of crude grittiness is present in both.
Although, that nostalgic comparison will only get you so much of a pass before the cracks begin to show. A number of elements serve to remind the player that this is not a AAA experience in a bad way. These include poorly animated lip-syncing to dialogue and an egregious amount of asset and texture pop-in.
Looking Pretty Fly For A Dead Guy
Thankfully, when those assets and textures do eventually pop in, they look remarkably pleasing. The graphics here are better than one may expect from a budget title, with well-modeled characters, detailed gore effects, and some nice lighting. The environmental art direction is also on point, making this virtual version of retro-futuristic Detroit feel consistent with the one portrayed in Verhoeven’s movie.
Another thing that helps things feel consistent is the inclusion of Peter Weller as the face and voice of Robocop. He has not missed a beat in the past three decades and is still able to pull off that classic robotic line delivery. Although the rest of the voice acting cast does a decent enough job, it is a little jarring that Anne Lewis doesn’t sound like Nancy Allen when Alex Murphy sounds like Peter Weller.
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As mentioned already, the gunplay in Robocop: Rogue City is a lot of fun, despite not being the most complex or varied ever seen in an FPS. During the first three missions that were also included in the demo, mowing down hordes of irritating enemy punks is cathartic and satisfying. Being in Murphy’s robotic shoes allows players to feel powerful and live out some very cool childhood fantasies.
However, after those first three missions are out of the road, the realization of just how one-note the gameplay is begins to sink in and that sinking feeling ends up being pretty accurate. Despite the fact that the game introduces a number of different weapons, environments, and enemy types, the whole thing ends up feeling very repetitive pretty quickly.
Robocop: Rogue City Plays Like Wolfenstein on Xanax
The combat scenarios in RoboCop: Rogue City play like those of an old-school first-person shooter, lacking more modern features like mantling, or a cover system. Movement is slow. Even when sprinting, RoboCop moves like an extremely weighty sloth. His lack of agility does feel accurate even if it does sometimes get in the way, leading to tedious moments, such as having to backtrack through an area you’ve already cleared, with no option to easily jump over railings or take shortcuts.
Another major plus of Robocop: Rogue City that also doubles up as a flaw is the inclusion of the iconic Auto-9 pistol. The gun feels just as satisfying and powerful to fire as you would expect, however, due to this it feels overpowered. The player is given the weapon right from the beginning of the game, which immediately makes any other available firearm feel entirely redundant.
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The Auto-9 boasts a 50-round clip, infinite ammo, and a three-burst shot that can decapitate almost any enemy. Teyon attempts to offset this player advantage as the game progresses through the use of enemy grenades. Grenades do a lot more damage to the player than bullets do, which is fair enough. However, grenade spam quickly becomes an issue, especially once grenade launcher-wielding enemies are introduced.
Overall, I am just happy that we finally have a worthy sequel to that iconic 1987 movie that I fell in love with as a kid. For all of its faults, Robocop: Rogue City is fun to play and feels faithful to the source material it is adapting. As a lifelong Robocop fan, there isn’t really much more that I could ask for.
Robocop: Rogue City – 7/10
Robocop: Rogue City was reviewed on PS5 with a code supplied to FandomWire by Dead Good Media. Featured on OpenCritic.
