RoboCop: Rogue City and the overhype madness?

Love the atmosphere but the gameplay is weak.

As a long standing fan of the RoboCop franchise I understand when fans get excited about video games that are based on beloved properties. People soon realize that the games rarely live up to their promise.

I do remember the 1988 arcade game being a high point and you even fight ED-209 at the end of the first level. The Nintendo port while having many problems was memorable for me. The 2003 version on the PS2/Xbox was a real low point from what I can remember.

The fact remains that most RoboCop games on a home console shared the same fate as any popular movie license. They were often a letdown and were best to avoid. This is what intrigued me about RoboCop: Rogue City.

The trailers looked interesting and Peter Weller was reprising the voice of the protagonist so that was enough for me.

I’m coming to this years after the original game was released so I’m not caught up in the hype at all. According to Steam this game is rated very positive. I am playing the pc version so I figured I’d take a quick look at the reviews there. The reviews do paint a positive light on the whole affair and I’m surprised in general. The negative reviews are spot on if you delve into it.

This feels like gameplay plucked from a few generations ago.

The biggest hurdle is dealing with the bugs and glitches. The voice sync is way off by being either to fast or too slow. I encountered a weird bug where certain polygons were not being filled in the mouth area of speaking characters looking like they are missing teeth. I’ve had spots where I couldn’t progress and needed to load a save point.

You also cannot quick save! I couldn’t believe it in this day and age. Quitting out of one session had me losing 30 minutes of gameplay progress.

The developers, Teyon, can reconstruct the world of RoboCop and Old Detroit perfectly. They clearly care about the original material which is honestly half the battle in these film adaptations to videogames. The budget is also lower as can be shown in the writing and other aspects of this production.

The game itself is a weird hybrid of a first person shooter and a role playing game. You interact in the precinct and then go off to do different missions in the city. Interesting questions about what it’s like to be a human and if RoboCop can be considered one is touched upon. In general, the world building is a strong point here.

The gameplay simply feels off for me.

The enemy variation is minimal and you end up fighting a lot of the same characters over and over. You feel like a walking tank and that’s faithful to the films. In reality, movement can become a chore because of this so the developers added a light jog function to Robo but even then it can take a good amount of time to walk around these areas.

The weapons while faithful to the film are generally worse than the standard Auto-9 that everyone remembers from the film so I generally stuck to the original pistol. There’s a weird upgrade mechanic to the gun that reminds me of the Pipe Dream game that you need to play with to get better stats. Honestly, I never used it as it was annoying.

In the end it was a real slog to get through. I was always baffled when people were complaining about the short length of the game while I thought it was taking way too long.

The strangest thing overall is the positivity towards the game. I truly believe that if the RoboCop license was not attached to the game people would be more objective. While it is a decent game in the RoboCop universe that is not saying much. The fans love it and that’s part of the issue; give it to someone without any attachment to the ip and you’ll certainly have a different story.

The atrocious load times are only the beginning…

For a lark I tried out another game from Teyon, Terminator: Resistance, that many people seem to be raving about. I played this for about two hours and it’s even worse than RoboCop. What is up with the 60+ seconds for loading levels and even after a death on the PS4 version?! I’m getting flashbacks of the loading times of San Francisco Rush on the PS1.

I think there’s something to say about the fans, objectivity and their beloved film franchises.

Word to the wise, never use the word rogue in your title as nobody seems to be able to spell it properly.