After a number of publications about lovers of musical rust (Robots, Sharks), I want to draw your attention to the most stainless hero of our collective unconscious. About one-twentieth of the peremptory coolness of the American eighties in popular culture falls on this character alone. And since illogical anarchy reigns in our video game section, then let this canned fighting dead man restore order here.
As in the case of Mad Max, another previously mentioned action hero of the era of nasal translations and hypertrophied masculinity, the fate of the tin woodman in the video game field can hardly be called unambiguously successful. Yes, fellow millennials, we can all recall with warm nostalgia the strange eight-bit phenomena of M.S. Robocop on that very console with the gray elephant. And this is one of the clear examples of unreliability of memory. Objectively, these games are digital garbage. The only travel phenomenon of Robosor (something like that, I plan to call him periodically, as revenge for the denigration of the image of informals) occurred in his crossover with terminator on SMD /SNES. That game was great, with no discounts for years.
The first mission immediately sets you up for ultranationalism
The iron knight of justice visited the PC in my memory in 2003. He entered so stupidly that he immediately sank into the abyss of wretched little brats, almost indistinguishable from the first steps of puberty hackers in game design. In short, things have not been very good for the franchise so far: the decline is like in real Detroit. This was the case until 2023.
Robocop Rouge City finally gives you the opportunity to feel like you’re in a legendary canned food, to breathe in the analog eighties with a full iron chest, while preserving the original spirit of Paul Verhoeven’s creation, with his trademark satire and ultra-violence. You will also need to visit a therapist, collect wishes for a speedy recovery of an injured colleague, and even repair electrical wiring in your home area. Because under the cybernetic mask of the turbo fighter hides the second personality of the game: a cute police procedural, almost like “Streets of Broken Lanterns”.
And the guy is in style!
A walking castle on blood
The opening mission does not hint at a second identity. Here, a television center captured by ultrapunks must be freed from the cyborg’s face (or lower jaw). The game makes a stunning first impression when it comes to the audiovisual part: it looks and sounds great technically, especially considering the average budget and Eastern European origin. The fantastic attention to detail makes this game the best content in the universe, equitably comparable to the original films. At the same time, like the Unstable Maxim, this is not a fan service for the sake of fan service. It feels like the character’s world is isolated in space and time, and it’s as if more than three decades have passed since the real eighties. This is an incredible achievement, and more than one wagonload of cultural essays should be written on such occasions. Although there was something similar with the gamification of Ghostbusters. Let’s return to this issue in the fall, but for now let’s look at the gameplay.
The shooter component is the wagering of a walking fortress, which I personally have been missing for a very long time. I wrote about the inappropriate hyperactivity of the main character in an article about Bioshock. Here it would be doubly unnecessary, and fortunately it is not. Robosore is slow and indestructible. He can’t jump, he can’t run. Moving inexorably and unhurriedly, like an evil fate that doesn’t mind enemy bullets, he embodies dignity and cold coolness. Well, maybe sometimes you can go a little faster.
The decision with weapons is also encouraging. The canonical semi-automatic pistol of fuck-knows-what caliber (actually called Auto9) also occupies a worthy position for the first time. Instead of a starting scarecrow with endless rounds, he becomes… a ludomanistic scarecrow! Yes, you can’t get rid of this trunk in the whole game, but you can furiously sort through its characteristics, which is an interesting mini-game, in the spirit of hacking from the same Bioshock.
Not Laura Palmer, of course, but we'll find the killer!
The rest of the captured guns are also quite decent and authentic. The arsenal is represented by the heroes of the same era: uzi, kalashnikov rifles (and AK74) and other murderous instruments familiar to everyone from feature films are being captured in huge quantities. The “two barrels in one hand” system, so hated by all shooting game players of the first half of the tenth, is narratively grounded here and is simply very well done.
The level of bloodlust is also narratively justified, even more sparing when compared with the cinematic source. In general, the shooter part of the gameplay is reminiscent of the trendsetter of shooting mods, the Doom series. For example, a lot of all kinds of hotkey abilities remind you of Doom Eternal. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the regularity and heaviness of the main character of the new part of the Doom Dark Ages saga is inspired by this particular game. Such is the mutual exchange of artistic views on little dolls.
Police workdays
But Robocop Rouge City is not exactly a shooter. Immediately after the introductory mission, the player is immersed in a police routine. In the near-open world of camera locations, such as a police station or a couple of blocks of streets, real police work awaits us: examining crime scenes with our cyber eyes, issuing fines for parking and smoking in the wrong place. Even a kitten from a tree (from the basement, actually) can be saved! Or even cooler: to dance the “robot dance” to a Michael Jackson-like popsitch from a boombox for the amusement of the kids.
Why would a multimillion-dollar transhumanist’s nightmare do any nonsense? Well, the thing is, Robocop Rouge City is a simplified RPG mixed with a shooter, about like the fourth part of Fallout (review of the series), only much smaller and simpler. And it makes an indelible impression with its surprise, because it is absolutely impossible to expect a lot of dialogues with moral choices and all that from a game about Robocop.
The original characters are designed much more seriously than old acquaintances. For example, disgraced journalist Samantha…
The resurrected Alex Murphy becomes a character rather than an archetype for the first time in the history of the entire franchise. After all, he has more speech in this game than in all films, TV series, animated series, comics, etc. combined. The local Robocop is definitely a living person, with his own character: there is a lot of light irony in the remarks, but without slipping into a farce. This is a very characteristic metamodern move – returning to the roots without losing the memory of the future.
Plot-wise, we are somewhere between the first and second films, and, what makes the game even more similar to the Bethesda game design studio, the main plot cannot be called exciting. That is, after ten hours of playing, I find it difficult to say what it’s all about. Instead, the supporting characters and the overall techno-noir atmosphere are memorable. The first ones are carefully transferred from the films and are like a cast of themselves. Not the main characters in the story, but the NPCs who create life around them. Dear colleagues and neighbors, the tin woodman literally lives at work. Well, the newcomers, who do not have cinematic ancestors, did well here.
As a result, the game feels like a relaxed viewing of a crime drama season from the 80s. You get your own favorites, whose appearance in the frame causes a variety of emotions, and their convex characters give peace of mind.
Maintenance
Robocop Rouge City is an exemplary representative of the AA gaming segment, so there are plenty of rough edges here. The measured pace of the game very often opens up empty spaces and poor and awkward animations sometimes shine through because of the scenery. This is most noticeable in the dialogues, which are simply not interesting to look at. All these perfectly made faces in their animations, of course, do not evoke the ominous valley, but, again, they make you think of the Bethesda studio.
The aforementioned role-playing mechanics are presented in such small volumes that it is not very clear exactly how they work or whether they work at all. It is difficult to say whether the reputation system and the attitude of the characters have any effect on anything. I’ll probably come back to it in the comments section if it’s worth it.
Do you see the cat? But she is.
However, despite the fact that all the elements of the game, except perhaps the shooter, are weak individually, they work well together. As in the case of the semi-mythical genre of diving simulators, the whole is much more than the sum of the parts. This whole thing sounds and looks like a more balanced Max Payne, who is not at all on edge yet. The influence of the latter is hinted at not only by the slowing down of time in the shootings, but also by the arrangement of the theme from the main menu.
So don’t be stuffy, bags of flesh! It’s better to turn on your favorite syntwave (after watching the feature film “Drive” you have a favorite syntwave) and enjoy the atmosphere of rainy megacities mired in crime and the glare of electron beam kinescopes. After all, very soon, guys, the second episode is waiting for you under the title Unfinished Business. In the meantime, we protect law and order as best we can!
Advantages:
+ An ode to the action movies of the eighties
+ An exciting shooter part
+ Thick and intense atmosphere
Cons:
– Technical roughness
– Some monotony of locations
The pitfalls:
Beauty costs money! Drawdowns are possible on budget systems.
I think it’s worth mentioning in a separate line that Robocop, as in MK11, was voiced by Peter Frederick Weller himself, who is still alive and does not hesitate to take on the voice of the legendary character. Unlike Schwartz, for example, who never voiced the Term in MK11.