RoboCop: Rogue City

This game is fun right from the start. Playing as Murphy feels like walking around in power armor in Fallout 4. Both in being overpowered and in feeling a bit big and sluggish. The acting is good, the graphics are very nice. The Murphy pack isn't really worth it though. The shotgun is doody compared to the pistol. Two small dings though. 1: I don't like checkpoint save systems. Let me save wherever. I'm tired. 2: The laundromats are done well in machine design. They have "Speed Wagon" logos which is funny, a Speed Queen knock off but the machine colors and control layouts are Dexter. So a poke at both brands. However. They have 34 dryers to 8 washers in a laundromat...that's ridiculous. Even worse the washers are stacked on top of each other. You can't do that with commercial washers. Too much off-balance mass at high speed. They have to be bolted to the concrete or mounted to steel bases that are bolted to the concrete. You Can't stack them. Everyone knows this.

Oh, happy days! I'm so thankful that RoboCop: Rogue City made its way to GOG, saving me from having to buy it on Steam. If there's any character that I have the most nostogia for, it's RoboCop, so you could imagine my excitment at the announcement of a new game. And so far, it has lived up to my expectations! RoboCop: Rogue City does an amazing job of creating an 80's look and vibe to the game, and it's grahpically impressive. Going through the rooms of the buildings and seeing old 80's technology, like CRT monitors and 5 1/4" floppy disks, never gets old. Shooting and ticketing bad guys is very satisfying. The game has engaging storylines, good RPG elements, and plenty to see and do. I feel that the voice acting and original character likeness was mostly well done. If you're as huge of a fan as I am of the first two RoboCop movies, you're going to love this game, as it stays true to these movies in so many ways, including the brutal violence and gore. This game is just an overall excellent experience! With that said, the game isn't without its faults. There are some performance issues, like random framerate slowdowns and texture loading issues during some cutscenes, even on my more than capable PC. Also, if you're an ESDF player, like me, you'll notice a couple of conflicts with some of the hardcoded actions. The developers have fixed most of them, but for me, "E" is still a problem. I use "E" for moving forward, which also throws objects that I pick up. Luckily, you can quickly tweak the game's user settings file to correct this. These developers continue to make improvements to the game, and I have all the confidence in the world that these minor nuissances will get fixed.

As a game taken in isolation, it's good. Not bad, but nothing too special. But as a movie license, it is by the far best movie license game I've ever played. It manages to be a good game in its own right while also being super faithful to the source material. Most adaptations from movie to game or game to movie feel like hangers-on, just mediocrity borrowing an established IP to cash in. But this is at least as worthy of the Robocop name as some of the original media.

First things first: I didn't saw any of the Robocop movies before playing this game - and after finishing it, I went straight to watching them - and had great time realizing how many bigger and smaller things they manage to add to the game from the film(s). Also, when first starting the game, I had horrible lagging/stuttering even before reaching the Main Menu. After restarting the game, it never occured again! The game definitely has optimalization problems, especially with more lights (like fire) involved. The gameplay is pretty simple yet very enjoyable! You play as (suprisingly) Robocop. You are durable, but not indestructible - enemies get stronger as the game goes on. You may be slow, but you will compensate for it with superior firepower, accuracy and strenght. There are criminals in the city, who need a few lessons about the law, civilians who need help and the ability to trust the police! During the game, you will alternate between free-roaming - looking for side-quests and collectibles - and longer, more linear quests. The police station and the city feels very much alive, the important NPC-s are written alright, and most of the time are funny. While playing, you will level up, and earn points which you can use to improve your combat abilities (damage, armor, life) and skills affecting exploration, dialog options and the available options to do quests. You can do anything without maxing out any skill, it's really up to you if you either want more options or want to focus on the part(s) of the gameplay that you enjoy the most. The writing is solid, in my opinion, although pretty simple. The interactions are usually add something bigger or smaller to the story. The big revelations during the story are pretty obvious, nothing groundbreaking. While there are dialog options, those are pretty limited, basically they are there so those parts wouldn't feel like cutscenes. While I love RPG-s with good dialog options, I never felt the game lacking those. 4,5/5

I am imagining I am at the arcade while playing this, constantly wondering how great the graphics would look back in 1987. Scan-lines are there emulating the CRT visuals from Murphy's perspective just like from the movie (or I may be looking through nostalgia lenses and tricking my brain thinking it is there). And one other great reason to play is the original song written for the game "sung" by Soot and his band. I turned off the game and just listening to a bootleg version over and over and over. Worth every cent, captures essence and soul perfectly of the movies and perfects it.