Game of the Week: ‘Robocop: Rogue City’

Hollywood is cowardly. In the past, studios would try to make bold new properties, in mid-budget films, knowing that most would not become huge successes, and some would flop, but that the hits among them would make up for it. It gave audiences variety — they never knew quite what to expect at the cinema that weekend — and it gave filmmakers the opportunity to take risks. Quentin Tarantino, and many other film buffs, view the 1980s as a particularly bleak decade, particularly in contrast to the bold, indie-movie craze of the 1970s; but compared with today, 1980s cinema was incredible.For comparison: the 1980s gave us Paul Verhoeven’s original “RoboCop”: a hysterically violent, gory, over-the-top satire of American culture and capitalism, set in a future Detroit, even more overrun with crime. It’s a classic; and though it wasn’t critically praised on release, it was profitable. By contrast, modern cinema gave us the 2014 PG-13 “RoboCop” remake. It was utterly soulless.This is the case with many new takes on old properties; they’re trying to profit on the name recognition of old intellectual property, because they’re too risk-averse to make anything new. But, because they’re so risk-averse, their new take on an old intellectual property is invariably watered down, and bad.This is why last year’s “RoboCop: Rogue City” — the first-person roaming action game from Teyon — is such a remarkable surprise. It’s not just that it’s a fun game on its own, but it’s a loving tribute to the original film, with as many call-backs and references as a megafan could want.The game has you playing as Alex Murphy, the titular RoboCop, and it’s essentially a power-fantasy, setting you on various missions as you hunt down a Hans Gruber inspired bad guy and, on the way, taking out an endless series of punks and goons with violent abandon. Every gun sounds fantastic and is great to use, and the gore is just as hilariously over the top as you’d imagine. Then you start blowing up paint pots, CRT TVs, and jerrycans, and using the slow motion ability, and you really feel like the main character of an action movie. The ability to grab and hurl enemies never gets old.The shooting is simple — with no crouching, dodging, or hiding for cover, really — but extremely fun, and my only real critique is that Robocop’s base, unlimited-ammunition hand-cannon is so good that you really don’t need any other gun. Nothing an enemy drops will ever match its power, particularly when you upgrade it to fully automatic.The game is split between small open-world environments, where you can wander around and explore, stumbling on details and side quests, and isolated rooms and buildings — which invariably turn into bloody shoot-outs — and every environment is just beautifully done. Whether it’s a city block, abandoned quarry, or local police station, there’s so much attention to detail, and it has some of the most stylish, atmospheric lighting I can remember in a modern video game.It’s also just a really fun place to spend your time, particularly as this very odd, funny character, once again voiced by Peter Weller. Those side-quests often have no violence at all, with you just trying to solve various issues for your city, and increase public trust, and though these are never that complex, and don’t give you meaningful choice in the outcome, the fun dialogue really makes it worth it. My favorite part of the game, matched with the shooting, was helping various citizens deal with their complaints at the police station. It sounds boring, but the writing is so funny — in the absurd, over-the-top style of the film — that I kept wanting more of it. Plus, they never forget the central tension of the RoboCop character — of his struggle over whether he’s man or machine — and there are glitching moments spotted throughout the campaign that add a surprising amount of pathos.Teyon is small studio and you can tell that. The environments can feel a bit small, even after about four hours or so; and I’ve had some glitches here and there. Also, the sound mixing is bizarre, with very loud guns, and occasionally very distant dialogue. It’s not too bad on headphones, but it’s very odd when playing on speakers. RoboCop is also just a heavy, slow-moving character, and though that’s fine, I wish that you could turn on the “run” speed by default, rather than holding down the shift constantly, as even then, he’s still moving at a fairly normal pace.All of these are just niggles though. It’s an incredibly fun game to play, regularly making me laugh out loud, and you can tell just how much the studio loves the original “RoboCop” film. If you do too, Rogue City is the game for you: and it’s available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series X, and Windows, where I played it. It’s also in the process of being ported to macOS.

Game of the Week: ‘Robocop: Rogue City’

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