Review | Robocop: Rogue City - How Much Would You Buy That For?
Recently there has been this weird renaissance in older things. Things are being resurrected and pushed out to capture some semblance of nostalgia for “better times”. Call of Duty is rehashing a 10-year-old story and adding remastered maps from the Xbox 360-era, both Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre retconned countless sequels out of existence for soft reboots, and sometimes it can feel like 90% of the games that come out any given month are remasters or remakes of older games.
I recently sat down to play Robocop: Rogue City and have a few choice words for the game that I would like to share.
DROP IT!
Disclaimer
Since I last reviewed a game on the site, I have upgraded my PC to an Intel i9 10900k with an RTX 3080ti so I was well prepared for the game. However, I still played it on “Medium” as old habits die hard and at 1080p - monitors are expensive.
Backstory
In the event you have never seen the 1987 masterpiece that is Robocop… do it. Avoid the remake. The sequels are fun if you like examining a franchise losing what made it special as it tries to sell more toys. For the sake of speed though: Robocop was once a member of Detroit Police known as Alex Murphy. A man with a wife, a son and a promising future, but sadly, this is a dystopian story and he is our protagonist, so some unpleasant things are about to happen.
Pretty sure if the gif is low res enough we can show this amount of comic violence…
One fateful day, Murphy, and his partner Anne Lewis, are on the job only for Murphy to be gunned down - violently. Extremely violently in fact. The man is basically torn to ribbons. Anne calls it in and he is taken to a hospital where he is pronounced dead. The city-owning mega-conglomerate Amaz - I mean Omni Consumer Products (OCP) decides that it can “remake” him and put Murphy’s brain -and consciousness- into the android body of Robocop.
Now, Robocop is a lean mean justice serving machine, but he has a fatal flaw - he still has his memories, his memories of his life, and his humanity. These memories conflict with his soulless programming and Robocop soon starts causing problems for its creators. OCP does not like this and sees it as a simple malfunction. However, other people see his human side as a positive - the side that makes him superior to ED-209 - a fully automated Police mecha prone to malfunction.
This also forms a plot point in itself - Murphy was pronounced dead and only to be programmed into a supercop, but he has living memories and even a human face: Is he man and thus free? Or is he an android and thus OCP property? For a movie that can be often remember for its bombastic action and over-the-top violence, Robocop plays with some deep themes that only become more relevant as the years go by.
Satire
Another great -and actually now scary- part of the Robocop mythos is its scathing satire. A privately owned mega corporation that can build its own city and rule over its law enforcement might have once sounded like an impossible idea. However, in an era of Amazon factories and privatized prisons, it hits close to home. The corporations own everything and crime is allowed to rise to an all-time high, fueling the ever-growing dependence on the private police force. If the corporation does something wrong on Monday, it’s spun by the TV anchors OCP employs and forgotten by Tuesday Evening.
Damn, I wanted to put all my skill points into Charisma…
The levels of satire, and symbolism that the first movie created - at the time - were great. Small background details like the fact that humanity burnt away the ozone layer and now the best sunblock lotion causes skin cancer. Or how the police have stopped caring about blatant prostitution as it being unregulated fuels more crimes that they can then clamp down on.
The scary part? Back in the 1980s when Paul Verhoeven directed this movie, it was all satire - to the point that many people missed the overtly political and anti-capitalist message of the movie. It’s now pretty true to form. All of this is to say that it is incredibly hard to make a game in the modern day that echoes that first movie’s biting message. We’ve seen it all before, and now we’re not far off from living it ourselves. So just how have Teyon managed to make this game not just feel like a shallow retread of a classic?
Story
Robocop: Rogue City seems to have this place in the Robocop canon between the second and third movies in the franchise and centres around a violent street gang trying to take over the city. While it often references these later movies, the tone and style are firmly rooted in that of the first movie, keeping things more grounded and grimy for the most part.
Robocop - is called to a TV station where the “Torch Head” gang has taken the occupants of the building hostage. Robocop goes in to solve the situation and takes a bad shot to the head. This causes him to “glitch” and essentially hesitate as he sees his wife as the hostage. This gets the attention of an amateur reporter who records it and sells the story. OCP, not happy with the negative press, start to scrutinize Robocop as they believe it is time for a newer model anyway. This is all a follow-up to the second Robocop film’s storyline but the game does a good job filling you in if you have only seen the more popular first movie.
When “The New Guy”, a new gang leader in the city, starts to make waves, all the old gangs and police want to know who he is and how to stop him. For Robocop, this “New Guy” holds personal ties and soon everything starts to spill out of control.
Performance
Initially, I did have this odd issue where the game was running in single-digit frames per second. Strangely though, a few restarts later sorted that out and it never happened again. I have no idea what the culprit was either. For the most part after that, Rogue City is a technical showpiece, running well and consistently throughout, though I did also encounter a single game crash in my 16-hour playthrough.
Performance issues are perfectly normal for man your age Mr. Cop.
My frame rate held steady at about 90 until I got into some firefights. To be fair though, the game gives you unlimited ammo for a full-auto pistol and it doesn’t even need to reload. So yeah, when 30 enemies with light machine guns and you are all firing… framerate dips are to be expected. That being said it did not detract from the experience and never got so choppy it impeded gameplay. It would have been nice to play without these issues but given I am just over the recommended specifications - I’ll take it.
Gameplay
When I say “You feel like Robocop in this game”, you have to understand, that is a positive and a negative. When you get shot, you don’t flinch, you have no recoil with any gun, and when you hold the “Aim” button you can see through anything that isn't a wall - it is an absolute power trip. You are Robocop. Nothing can stop you…
Nothing can stop you, bar maybe an ever so small step or ledge. Yes - you can’t jump (obviously) and you walk at a snail's pace. Sometimes painfully slow, in fact. But again… that’s true to form, making it impossible to complain about. If you want to go on a Robocop power trip, you have to take the good and the bad.
I am just assuming this is what modern-day Detroit looks like..
Fan Service
I think one of the better parts of this game is how it tries to capture the actors from the films as best it can. Peter Weller reprises his role as the titular character and while Nancy Allen does not reprise her role as Anne Lewis, her likeness is still used and Kosha Engler does an excellent job of imitating her voice.
There should be an option to make ED-209 move at a way lower framerate than the rest of the game so it looks like stop-motion.
You also get the chance to go head to head with ED-209 to see who can take out the most criminals in a shooting gallery and it is ridiculous and beautiful. In this mode, you even go to the area of the inciting incident that led to the creation of Robocop. By this point, he is over it, but as a fan, it’s still pretty cool.
You also get to take part in not one but two massive riots. In a series known for extreme blood, gore and violence, you know you are in for a good fuckin time.
Actual Police Work
Sadly, Robocop: Rogue City has some padding. Missions are graded and there are a few smaller hub areas where you can do some actual police work. This gives more experience and thus more skill points to spend on Robocop’s upgrades, but most of it is a slog. Even if it’s intentionally mundane it is frustrating because it takes you away from what the game does best.
Ok, this is the shit, I am getting to old for.
There are also some good side activities like the case of the dead prostitute that demand a bit of detective work. Or the case of who killed the political campaigner - which has some excellent moments. However, writing up parking violations, chasing a graffiti artist, and taking complaints at the station, are slow and laborious activities. What's more, it's a reminder that even if you are cybernetically enhanced, you’re still a cop.
Overall
It is hard to fault this game on many levels - but I can on one: its pacing. Parts of the game seem to involve massive time skips with story developments taking place in a previous scene you don’t get to see. This may have been a budget issue as even in the end, the game is broken up by long cutscenes that end in one location and pick up hours later at another.
It’s not a major detraction but it’s a noticeable distraction that takes you out of the immersion.
There is something funny about seeing Robocop using any gun that isn’t his pistol.
I could fault Rogue City for many other things: the slow walking speed, the lack of reactions to being shot, and how dull the protagonist is to listen to. But to fault things like this is to take away from the immersion and what Teyon is trying to recreate with this game. As a result, I can only really fault it on the story’s time skips and one other tiny issue.
The game overstays it’s welcome. Not by much, but there is a clear point where ending it would have been perfect, then there is just one more mission that leaves the game ending on a low point
Conclusion
Do I think you should get this game? Yes - in my 16 hours I got 25 out of 27 Achievements. It is a fantastic game and an even better reason to watch the original trilogy. By no means is this “Bargain Bucket” material though. Other games might give it a run for its money in terms of content and even story depth, this game does immersion right, and what other game lets you become Robocop like this one?.
Whilst I feel that the full RRP of £44.99 is a bit steep for this one-note game, if you love the series then it is a no brainer. I recommend that any Robocop fan - or 80’s action movie fan - pick this game up. There are many games out there I wouldn't touch even if they were free, but Robocop: Rogue City?
I’d buy that for a dollar!
