RoboCop: Rogue City is a treat for fans
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If you grew up in the late '80s and early '90s and enjoyed Paul Verhoeven's action classic about a part-man, part-machine law enforcement officer, then there's no doubt you’ll have fun with RoboCop: Rogue City.
The new first-person shooter game takes the greatest elements of the first film and puts them in a brand-new story that is set between RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, and the best part is that original RoboCop actor Peter Weller is back to voice Alex Murphy and the titular cyborg.
The whole game just brought a smile to our RoboCop-loving hearts. The cheesy one-liners, the dystopian tongue-in-cheek satire, the over-the-top gore and its grimy neon-lit setting of Old Detroit was enough for us to look past its shortcomings.
It's an action game with light RPG elements that puts you in a decaying Motor City as RoboCop. You patrol the streets investigating crimes, dealing with social disturbances, issuing parking tickets and completing side quests as you investigate the main path.
The combat finds beauty in simplicity. Rogue City gives you RoboCop's iconic Auto-9 burst handgun and lets you blow criminals' heads off, turn limbs into red mist, and shoot them in the dick. Honestly, what more do you need?
Breaching doors and unloading bullets into criminal scum to the RoboCop theme music as a symphony of fire and blood surrounds you just doesn't get old. It's not reinventing the genre and it's not bringing anything new to the table, but it knows what it is and what fans want to see, and delivers it.
The game also provides a number of different weapons you can use as your sidearm to mix up combat, including shotguns, assault rifles, machine guns and rocket launchers. There is fun to be had with these but you'll probably always come back to your trusty pistol.
RoboCop can also pick up criminals with his steel hands and launch them at high velocity into walls, through windows or over railings. You can also do the same with explosive canisters, but there's nothing quite as satisfying as hurling a punk into the abyss of the Detroit River.
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The main story is definitely worth experiencing and is solid enough to stand out as the best use of RoboCop since the first movie. With the return of Weller, and the likeness of Sergeant Reed and Murphy's partner Lewis included, developers Teyon have really made this tribute as authentic as possible to please fans.
The loop of exploring Old Detroit, heading back to the police station and going to other locations to investigate gang activity and push the story forward keeps things fresh and progresses the game at a nice pace.
The side quests are also worth doing and are largely great opportunities to discover characters and explore new locations. These definitely add flavour to the '90s setting and lead to memorable moments like solving high-profile murders and shooting up a VHS store.
Investigating crimes and talking to characters in the world is what brings the light RPG elements. While the game doesn't go full immersive sim like a Deus Ex would, your responses can influence how you're perceived, what actions you take, and ultimately outcomes for characters in the game's multiple endings.
Rogue City does include a progression system where you can upgrade RoboCop's skills. Honestly, these aren't game-changers but are nice quality-of-life upgrades like higher damage, the ability to hack turrets and break into locked safes without the code.
There are a few perks that definitely affect gameplay that can be useful and are worth investing in, like a dash ability, bullet-time-style slow-down, a temporary shield and a shockwave blast that can stun and kill enemies.
Another upgrade system is motherboards for RoboCop's trademark Auto-9 handgun. These allow you to customize the stats with a deceptively engaging but simple modchip placement menu, which can result in bonus features to your pistol, such as auto-fire, auto-reload, explosive rounds and even more gore on bullet impact, because we can never have too much of that.
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The mechanics of the game take a jack of all trades, master of none approach. Rogue City is at its best when its story and character interactions are at the forefront, and if you think hard enough, there's definitely aspects of its fundamentals that could have been implemented in a more creative way.
One of the highlights is the destructive environments, which combust into pieces and react to explosions and gunfire. Seeing an office building turn into confetti as Nuke-induced criminals lay to waste is incredibly gratifying.
At one point we manually punched our way through a chain of walls to go from one room to the next which felt very rewarding, but sadly, was rather pointless and didn't lead to anything. Giving this a purpose is just one example of how they could have expanded on certain areas in a cool way and been more innovative.
Is RoboCop: Rogue City worth playing if you've never seen the films or aren't into RoboCop? It would be a tough sell as fans will definitely get the most out of this. The appeal lies in its story, characters and giving long-time fans a chance to play as RoboCop in a more-than-worthy sequel to the first two movies. While the gameplay loop is serviceable and by no means bad, it doesn’t really bring anything new to the genre to stand on its own merits.
The big selling point of Rogue City is you become RoboCop, and for better or worse that's exactly what you do. You move as slow as you'd expect RoboCop to, which can be occasionally annoying when you want to get from one side of the Detroit hub to the other. But honestly? It's hard to care. Because we're playing as RoboCop, and RoboCop walks slowly, and much like the majority of the game's quirks, you overlook it because it's charming enough that it works.
The joy of hearing Peter Weller deliver a great performance for a new 20-hour RoboCop story can’t be overstated, as it really elevates the game in a meaningful way. He didn’t phone it in and we found ourselves chuckling at the dead-pan dialogue all the way through, with movie references and dumb jokes that film buffs can appreciate.
RoboCop: Rogue City is a blast to play for long-time fans of the franchise and goes above and beyond to respect its source material. It won't win any awards for being ground-breaking, but Peter Weller offering his voice to a story that's arguably the best use of the RoboCop name since the original film makes this a worthwhile treat for those who want to be transported back to their childhood.
Platform reviewed on: PlayStation 5
RoboCop: Rogue City is out on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on November 2.
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