RoboCop: Rogue City

Review

A lot is going on in downtown Detroit City! Crime has never been higher, and the mayoral election is just around the corner. The current mayor wants to keep Detroit City as it is and help its people. On the other hand, the new candidate supports Delta City's OCP project - destroy the old city and replace it with a brand new one attracting more respectable citizens. And then there is this new guy in town, stirring up criminal groups and using them to do his dirty work. Even Robocop seems to suffer from a malfunction each time he faces this new guy!  It’s time for you to sweep the streets in RoboCop: Rogue City.   

RoboCop: Rogue City is a first-person shooter based on the Movie franchise, developed by Teyon and published by Nacon on the 3^rd of November, 2023, on the Steam platform. The game is also available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

As I had loved the original RoboCop movie in my teenage years and have always been a big fan of FPS, RoboCop: Rogue City ticked all the right boxes. My first concern was that RoboCop, as far as I recalled from the movies, wasn’t a sprinter and I was a bit worried that the game could become boring if he was too slow. I also wondered if he could effectively dodge incoming projectiles. Well, as soon as I started playing the game, I was totally into it, and I thoroughly enjoyed my first 16-hour playthrough.

The game story is set between RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3. Alex Murphy (RoboCop) will be sent on several missions during the game. The missions will start and finish at the precinct. At the end of each mission, Alex will be evaluated and receive one or more skill points, which can be used to upgrade a current set of skills such as combat, armour, vitality, scanning and others. Each time he either finds new evidence, upholds the law (by issuing a parking ticket, for example) or kills enemies during a battle, he’ll be rewarded with experience points. With each 1,000 experience points, he’ll receive an extra skill point.

I really like the structure of the missions; the developers have found the right balance between the combat phases and talking to NPCs to learn more about your main and secondary objectives.  Also, the interface is so easy to use to upgrade Murphy’s skills and swap between objectives that I found myself trying to finish the secondary quests first to accumulate more skill points and then switching back to the main quest.  

Yes, it felt a bit slow while moving through the streets of Detroit, but as mentioned, there are plenty of pieces of evidence to be picked up by his scanner, as well as OCP steel cases to find within each mission. There is always something to do and to be fair, you can speed up RoboCop’s strides with the “shift” key. Still, he is no Carl Lewis!  But the main point is that I was kept entertained all the way.

When you open the OCP cases, you’ll usually gain one or two chipsets of different shapes, each with a percentage number. You’ll need these chipsets to build the motherboards that you’ll find throughout the game. The light puzzle elements are very important as they give RoboCop additional perks, such as dashing.

This brings me to the combat phases, which, as you would expect, are the most prominent in this game. I didn’t acquire the dashing perk straightaway, but I quickly realised that you must use the elements around you to take cover. You can stay in the middle of a corridor or a room, but be aware, the enemies' firepower will quickly make your steel armour look like a piece of Gruyere, especially if you haven’t upgraded your armour skill for a while (or not at all, as in my case). Thankfully, if you die, you can restart from the last checkpoint.  I like this game's combat system, especially when you get more perks. The dashing is good, but you can only dash forward. The focus ability slows down the action for a bit, while the boost armour will give you minimal damage when activated, and the super punch will send your enemy a good 10 meters away for an ultimate KO. The motion slowdown and armour boost will only last for several seconds, but all perks will take time to reload before you can re-use them. You can also pick up the weapons of fallen enemies, some of which are super cool and have devastating effects, such as the sniper rifle and, of course, the rocket launcher. The recoil felt quite realistic, as you must adjust while firing at enemies. And I think it’s cool that some elements, such as walls and beams, can sustain damage. In terms of enemies, you have a good variety, including some tense fights with other machines. Remember to shoot at objects like petrol canisters in combat areas; that will be a huge help.

As mentioned, the story is well-structured from start to finish; it kept surprising me over and over, even more so towards the conclusion, when I kept thinking, “Surely this must be the end”.  But to my excitement time and time again, it wasn’t. I like the heavy atmosphere; Detroit always looks and feels scary, and you have a constant sense of danger looming up ahead. I also like the touch of having Anne Lewis as RoboCop's partner, and of course, the voice acting from Peter Weller.

The graphics and soundtrack are stunning. However, I did experience several dropping frame rates throughout the game and some fuzziness in cutscenes, especially around the characters' mouths and eyes. It’s a bit of a shame because everything else was spot on.

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com

RoboCop: Rogue City Steam Store page