Teyon’s Terminator: Resistance was, to put it mildly, far better than it had any right to be. Licensed games based on movie franchises don’t tend to be very good, but that one was very much the exception. With RoboCop: Rogue City, Teyon have not only proven that its last game was no mere fluke, but has improved on it multiple times over. Despite being based on a defunct film franchise starring a clunky cyborg with only one good movie, the game manages to be not only a great action game, but a well-rounded experience with more of the RPG-esque elements that were so interesting from its last game.
The villain from RoboCop 2 is dead, yet his nuke drug still floods the streets. RoboCop: Rogue City’s story kicks off with a power balance in Detroit that’s being exploited by a character that’s introduced initially as The New Guy in Town. It may come as no surprise that the story here is not the game’s strong suit. Much like Terminator: Resistance, the game’s character models are waxy and strange-looking, combined with a lot of amateurish voice acting and plenty of miscasting to go with the wonky lip-syncing. One voice actor with a high-pitched voice shows up every now and again to make various characters sound especially silly.
Barring that, however, RoboCop: Rogue City is uniformly excellent. You play as the titular character as he walks around his police station (often taking on menial tasks for his coworkers) before being sent out into several large levels where the bulk of the action takes place. These levels are fairly huge and have side quests and items to find littered about. You cannot revisit these locations, so anything left behind will be lost forever.
That being said, the game always makes sure you’re ready before you leave for good. Findables range from stolen items and drugs that can be picked up for XP, to readable documents, chips for your sidearm, and pickups that grant you a skill point. Objectives can require detective work too, such as scanning things and looking for clues.
“…RoboCop: Rogue City is a shockingly complete package with terrific gameplay and level design that offers room for player agency.”
The shooting is the star here, as you’ll almost constantly be violently blasting foes and seeing the game’s violent gib system in play. Headshots tend to make heads pop (with a special sound effect), leaving little of an enemy’s cranium intact. You can also blow off limbs and torsos. The shooting feels excellent, as it’s weighty and the gun sound effects are punchy. RoboCop’s sidearm can be customized through the use of boards you’ll find that can increase its parameters and give it special properties. It’s pretty great to fiddle with, plus you can change these out whenever you want.
You’ll get experience points for doing anything and everything, which will grant you a skill point for every 1,000 XP. There are multiple unlockable abilities, from the ability to slow down time, grant a strong shield, use a shockwave, and more. You can also pick up any dropped enemy weapons and pick up and throw both enemies and all sorts of objects. There’s a lot of variety to the enemies as well, ranging from regular goons to snipers, motorcycle riders, grenadiers, and more. All of this combines to make for a game with a lot more depth than I counted on, even if the enemies typically just stand out in the open (which works, considering the context.)
When looked at as a whole, RoboCop: Rogue City is a shockingly complete package with terrific gameplay and level design that offers room for player agency. Its presentation belies its budget in spots (although the actual levels and pieces of geometry are solid), but this is some of the most fun I’ve had gaming this year. Fans of first-person shooters or lite-RPGs along the likes of Fallout will likely have a blast cleaning up the streets of Detroit.
