Robocop: Rogue City Is Ridiculously Good

it's more or less a scientific fact at this point that RoboCop is one of the greatest movies ever made despite a couple of questionable sequels in a TV series that was just downright embarrassing see you in hell RoboCop the 1987 science fiction classic remains one of the alltime greats come quietly or there will be trouble so it's funny to think that throughout the years we really haven't had that many RoboCop games there was the old arcade shooter that I think every '90s kid played the awesome Robocop versus Terminator for the sake of Genesis along with a really mediocre FPS in 2002 but it's a character which is seldom seen in gaming and a franchise that rarely gets the treatment it deserves well that's all about to change thanks to RoboCop Rogue City developed by ton the guys responsible for the awful Rambo game but also the incredibly fun Terminator resistance and thankfully this one is more Terminator resistance than Rambo being not only one of the best Shooters I've played in 2023 but also just one of the best Shooters in general than I'd buy that for a dollar ton have applied the same approach to RoboCop here as they did to the Terminator series creating what's more or less a love letter to that original film and to some extent the sequels really creating the ultimate cyborg power fantasy Shut Up And Take My Money it perfectly captures the feeling of playing as what's more or less a shiny walking tank with a semi-automatic hand Cannon stomping around dystopic Detroit and shooting countless criminals but also having the good sense to include convenient FPS gameplay tropes to really help up the action and if you've ever wondered what it would be like if you ever crossed RoboCop with the Doom Slayer well then Wonder no more but more than that though it also captures the heart and soul of the character as well a halfman half machine corporate Frankenstein's monster trying to struggle with its identity and hold on to some shred of humanity the idea of granting you human rights is a very important issue and it's really all they ever wanted in a Robocop game to go around dishing out Justice to brain fried junkies but then also to get gut punched when it comes to the fields is he going to arrest me no it's your first offense so he'll let you off with a warning right right and I'm just genuinely so impressed at what ton have managed to pull off here I mean yeah look it's not Flawless and I've had the odd glitch here and there but a lot of this stuff is totally manageable considering it's not made by some super big developer like Rockstar Ubisoft or Electronic Arts so look I mean I'm happy to save you 20 minutes and tell you to go buy this thing right now if that's all you want to hear by all means [ __ ] leave [ __ ] leave but if you want to stick around then let me tell you about why Rogue city is as good as it is you better go Miss Ortiz it seems there will be trouble right so story-wise Rogue City takes place in between the events of RoboCop 2 and 3 which means that RoboCop's more or less well established by this point and you'll also find nuke vs littering streets following on from all the events in the second film with Kane it's also great too because it means that even Rogue city is trying to forget that RoboCop 3 ever existed yeah if only I could do the [Music] same the whole thing kicks off with RoboCop trying to diffuse a hostage situation and a Siege at the downtown news station where a new gang calling themselves the torch heads are claiming dominance over the City Drug deing good oldfashioned murder we do it all this whole prologue sequence is really just meant to be something of a tutorial helping you to get used to the controls whilst also throwing some basic enemies at you plus also setting up the whole personality dilemma that RoboCop still has haunted by the memories of his past life as Alex Murphy it's actually handled pretty well too with these surreal hallucinations that occur randomly throughout the campaign and during this whole intro sequence RoboCop glitches out during the middle of a negotiation going full Mitch McConnell mode and almost causing an innocent woman to get shot one last chance weirdo I love you so much I'm having trouble this whole thing is then filmed by a reporter named Samantha Ortiz who then releases the footage causing the general public to start wondering if RoboCop's really to be trusted as a result of this ocp's been called in to keep tabs on him and make sure he's not slipping and throughout the game you're given multiple ways to interact with all these characters which is going to affect how the public perceives you lesson for the future to save yourself the trouble clean up on the double go [ __ ] a refrigerator peckerneck either choosing to uphold the image of this stoic metallic tank with a police badge or retain some more of a humanity and you know be less of a dork your behavior disrupts public order I must issue a ticket in fact the big component of the gameplay is dealing with random citizens who are often doing things they're not supposed to be doing and you can either uphold the law or choose to serve the public trust for going the rule book and taking a more subjective approach to the situation you are free to go but no one step into the same Fountain twice overall it handles the character really well giving him the respect he deserves and about the only thing that didn't work for me was the side plot of this young kid being assigned to watch Robocop on ocp's behalf he's a new character named ulyses that shows up early on in the campaign and basically he's just rting out RoboCop to ocp but it's like this guy got lost dur a bring your kid to workday and somehow managed to fool everyone into thinking he actually has a job there wrong much like a lot of these other side characters you can choose to either support the the guy or completely ignore him but because I'm an absolute Boy Scout who just can't say no even to fictional people I still help this guy throughout the entire story good you have your body armor on well done anyway aside from that the new bad guy in town is also introduced a guy named Wendell antonowsky who's apparently the brother of Emil from the first movie Emil was one of the guys who used Murphy's torso a shotgun target practice and then also the guy who got turned into the Toxic Avenger at the end of the film help me before then getting turned into liquid after getting hit by car [ __ ] and part of Wendell's motivation is Revenge for his brother's death even though RoboCop wasn't even really responsible for that got to say though I think this guy's got his wise crossed and in fact I think he's probably related to Hans grber from die hard because tell me if I'm wrong to be thinking that this dude ain't the spitting image of late 80s Alan Rickman nice suit either way though that's actually again a big part of what makes Rogue City so much fun and that's the constant care and respect that it seems to have to its source material much like Terminator resistance did again proving that taon they just get it for instance the sheer amount of detail they' put into the fully model Detroit police station from the bullpen the lockers RoboCop's holding cell to being able to head to the firing range and show off that incredible aim this guy is really good he's not a guy he's a machine you've even got Murphy's partner SLB best friend Lewis making a return as well and having a big part in the overall plot it's good to do some real Street work from time to time you know early on in the game you'll move through the same industrial area from the finale of the first movie even seeing a very similar looking truck to the one that Clarence drove and come across the original site when Murphy was first killed which at this point is as much an iconic murder scene as the Monarch Theater is in Gotham City and Rogue City just treats all of this stuff like a giddy fanboy which is exactly what was needed it's just this sense of constant fan service like getting into a shooting competition with an ed 209 literally seeing who can kill the most bad guys yes to stop in a bank heist with ocp officers through the wrapping up gunfights with RoboCop's trademark guns [Music] spin it all just feels like an extension of the movies and the plot could have even served as the basis for a new film I mean I'm sure it would have been a lot better than the way they handled that reboot that's for damn sure shoot someone in the dick as well and you'll get exactly the kind of Animation you'd expect and if you don't understand that reference well then maybe someone in the comments section can fill you in oh even just the way they suddenly recreate that shot a Robocop driving out of the garage scraping the bottom of his car as he heads up the ramp simple things [Music] it's also a really good looking game as well at least when it comes to environments with it having some really gorgeous looking area some downright impressive lighting Rogue City runs on the Unreal Engine 5 and whoever worked on the locations in this game clearly knows their [ __ ] you can shoot apart almost every single prop and piece of furniture even often shooting walls to Pieces which has some really nice tobr physics the character modeling for some of the NPCs can be a bit up and down and the facial animation is often awful and quite often out of syn as well but RoboCop himself looks awesome like he hasn't aged a day since 1987 that's all that matters oh God it must be those thugs we're dead no one is going to save us if they are criminals then they are the ones who need saving hearing Peter Weller coming back to do the voice work yet again even if it is almost 40 years later it just makes the whole thing seem that much more official and all the new onliners they've written in for the gu just come across so effortlessly and are actually really fun to listen to you'd have to break down this hardened door if you want to get in that will not be a problem one thing I absolutely was not ready for in this game though was how deep it was going to be when it came to all the character development would have been so easy for them to just make this a Mindless shooter where you go from location to location walking around slowly shooting junkies and low lives before calling it a day and you know what like I probably would have played the [ __ ] out of that game too but what ton have done here is really make this like a full-on narrative experience with all these different characters and plot points to give it some actual depth hey you you can't go in yet we need to wait for the reinforcements reinforcements have arriv and there's just so many great little moments here that completely caught me off guard like the way that RoboCop completely changes his tone dependent on the kind of person is's interacting with it's unfair and unethical not to mention you're legal what the [ __ ] I think people often forget that while RoboCop was an action movie on the surface deep down it was also trying to delve into much deeper themes especially for Murphy in particular with the whole question there being whether or not the guy still had a soul despite being a killing machine created by this corrupt corporation and here in the game you really get to decide whether or not you're going to be perceived as a man a machine or even a combination of both many people might not be aware of that and look if you're going to complain about this kind of stuff being in Rogue City well then I'm sorry to tell you but I think you missed the whole [ __ ] point of what that entire movie was going for what the hell having said that though don't worry because you're still going to be making the streets of Detroit safe again the oldfashioned way cool there's actually like a pretty complex skill system here with lots of different perks and Buffs that you might not even get to fully appreciate if you don't invest time in all the side content because after every 1,000 points of XP you earn you get a new skill point to spend and this either comes from completing missions or collecting all the various bits of evidence and notes you find around the game world like finding straight vials of nuke stolen purses incriminating documents or animate body pillows then once you've got those points you can spend them on one of eight different categories all of which have vastly different benefits and can open up all these different approaches during gameplay do not engage yet take your time advantageous location like being able to analyze evidence for instance so you can figure out the combinations to lock safes or even new benefits during dialogue helping you choose the best possible response for an ideal outcome regulations state that riots relieve inmates from their duties find safety I mean it's really just like a Robocop RPG and you even get those very Fallout esque notifications when you've interacted with a character in a specific way letting the player know that the game's taking note of your decisions you helped plenty H still a long way to go now when it comes to the game play Rogue City's broken down into either small lock cord and off levels along with also having these far more opened up expensive ones and this is where you've got multiple missions and side tasks to complete which is really where you're going to spend the bulk of your time you usually start off with the police station before each mission where you go to get your next briefing but even the station is r with activity which you can either choose to engage with or completely ignore my damn Locker won't open can you try then after that when you're in the mission area itself you've got that one primary objective however there's always going to be like half a dozen or so other activities that you can also check out the first area in the game and the one that they showed off back in that public demo is downtown Detroit at nighttime and your primary goal here is just to head to a nearby arcade to investigate The Disappearance of a fellow officer isn't this a school day but you can also intervene with a shop owner and help him get rid of some Rowdy thugs that are trying to intimidate him you canack TR down a local nuke dealer by trying to pass RoboCop off as a potential buyer which has one of the funniest interactions in the entire game could you advise me how a person who would like to try nuke should go about it there's another side mission here involving a murder with the crime scene investigation mechanic that's straight out of the Arkham games followed by interrogating an actor at a nearby commercial shoot for sunblock 5, yeah remember that stuff nice try one H side mission involves trying to find a stolen car which yeah is obviously a 6,000 sux and even this is going to take you like 15 to 20 minutes to play through give me the precise location and then aside from that you can just walk around and see what all these random civilians are getting up to and oh look they found a way to add your mom into the game nice shiny armor officer want to be my night 5 minutes later that are alive you are coming you can go around and find hidden drug stashes you can reclaim those stolen items or just issue people tickets for littering drinking and illegally parking one parking ticket is all it takes to improve mindfulness almost kind of reminded me of that dread versus death game how in that game you had like a designated button just to give people random finds on the spot I'm giving you 3 months I'm innocent and I find it hilarious how you can't just bash down any door or go wherever you want due to RoboCop's programming preventing him from breaking the law which is a nice attention to detail we cannot go this way we would need a warrant the way interact with all these people also FS how the public perceives you over time well that's a whole point for instance you can catch some kid spray painting a war during that first night and you can either give him a ticket or let him off with a warning it is my duty to warn you not to commit that and if you let the guy off with a warning when you go back to that same area the next day you'll see that he created some new graffiti in your honor which is kind of hard to not appreciate it also kind of reminds me a bit of the day sex games had they'd send you to like a certain area with one main objective but then you'd spend hours exploring and seeing everything else the place had on offer which is actually a bit of a funny comparison to make considering the whole premise of what happens to Adam Jensen in human revolution is more or less the same as what happened to Alex Murphy I never asked for this and just like the deos X Games 2 Rogue City never forces your hand you can stay here and explore for as long as you like in fact it's actually encouraged because finding all of the Hidden evidence and completing all of those side missions Nets you a better rank at the end of the mission which then also earns you more XP they do however downright recycle this downtown area multiple times it's just instead of walking around it at night time you're now walking around it at different times of the day but given the size of ton as a studio though I think it's fair to overlook and either way like in this starting area alone you could easily spend a couple of hours exploring and checking everything out without even really touching that main story once you do go off though into those main areas and focus on the plot itself is When Things become a lot more linear and also a lot more action-packed yeah like you almost forget when you're walking around the street handing out parking infringements how incredibly violent this Camp can be because when the gloves are off Robocop is all business and Dead or Alive these guys are coming with you probably dead though and when you get to killing things is where this game truly shines because it's without a doubt got some of the most satisfying shooting I've experienced in recent memory holy moly as an FPS Rogue City just seems to get what makes shooting feel fun the gun playay is loud and violent with incredibly over the-top blood and gore effects which are exactly what they need to be for something based off a poor the Hoven film in fact if you shoot someone when they're near a wall you can even see their blood spatter running down the wall slowly in real time that'll teach him a lesson RoboCop's iconic Auto 9 is the primary weapon of choice it's incredibly accurate and really good at taking down criminals in a matter of hits especially if you're aiming for the head where it has this really satisfying effect of turning a bad guy's head into a godamn champagne cork this might also unironically be the best aim trainer released in 2023 so if you want to brush up on your headshot skills for Counter Strike or war zone there's worst ways to do it TR scanning the environment with your helmet also helps to highlight enemies with that very Faithfully adapted Vision mode showing the outlines of nearby bad guys and the sound design across the board here is absolutely on point even if someone gets in Clos you can punch them with so much force it's like the ragd doll physics have completely glitched out sending them flying backwards even then though it is kind of accurate to the movies considering that RoboCop was able to launch someone through a godamn wind window with his right hook alone props can also be picked up and hurled around too with some serious Force almost all the which explode in some manner when they hit something like explosive gas tanks and barrels classic but then even things like wooden chairs and trash dumpsters in fact I hit someone so hard with a trash dumpster that it was like they basically got sent into the Multiverse well how about throwing computer monitors and I'm talking old School CRT monitors back from the 1990s which explode on impact in a burst of electricity which is actually quite true to life as well because let me tell you man monitors back then were built different you can even just pick up enemies and throw them around too like you're suddenly wearing the Nano suit in crisis P them into other people throw them into walls or Windows or even over the top of buildings Y in fact that's really one of the funniest features in the entire game and the velocity with which RoboCop can launch these hapless criminals into the stratosphere never gets old there's great environmental interactivity too with the way you can shoot things apart from books and tables through to taking chunks out of entire walls one ability even lets you Ricochet bullets off the walls to hit enemies hiding in cover which never stops being awesome them you and you can even upgrade RoboCop's armor to the point that it deflects bullets back at enemies I will admit I was a little bit concerned when I first played that public demo because as awesome as the whole thing was I did start to wonder whether or not it might get repetitive if you were doing the same thing for 8 or 9 hours and I got to say I was absolutely wrong it doesn't get old and the big reason for that too is all the other abilities you unlock the further you get into the game [Music] these are all locked away inside the skills menu but thankfully you don't need to put that many points into any of these to unlock the basic ones and once you do you get a whole roster of abilities on cool down which really gives you a bunch of options during combat for instance you can bring up a temporary Shield which reduces damage by up to 80% for a short period of Time mega handy when you're in a large open room surrounded by creeps there's a dash move which propels you forward handy for getting to cover quickly or also just bowling over enemies stunning them and leaving them wide open to follow up attacks aside from that you've got a stun effect kind of like a portable flashbang that blinds nearby bad guys which is handy when you're surrounded by more men than your mother sees in a public restroom if you feel lonely you know where to find me officer then finally what's probably the coolest of all which is more or less a bullet time ability able to use robo's machine likee reflexes and slow the game speed down making precise shots much easier this is without a doubt my favorite ability and I find it kind of funny how much this thing seemed to be downplayed in the sense that I don't recall it really being shown off all that much in previews or even in that demo and it's like ton have pretty much dropped one of the most effortless bullet time modes probably without even realizing how good it is not to mention it just really highlights how great all those Gore effects are and let you appreciate them just that little bit longer okay you ever get forward of using the auto 9 there's a whole bunch of other weapons too like an Uzi 9 mm assault rifles like an AK and a styg as well as a 50 cal machine gun and some really satisfying shotguns holy moly honestly I feel like most people are going to gloss over these two entirely but don't these are some of the all-time best boom sticks I've ever seen in a shooter and as soon as you see one of these things in game pick it up and thank me later for me though most of the time here I just ended up using the auto 9 simply because I never really needed to use anything else more so too because it has infinite ammo so you don't even need to worry about it running dry either and that's really the only downside to having such an awesome weapon in your game is that everything else kind of plays second fiddle now that's not meant as an insult to those other guns because like I said the shot guns are really fun to use and every now and then you'll get a grenade launcher which is really just more or less free kills [Music] grenade but it's just the auto 9 is such an iconic hand Cannon it's without a doubt one of the all-time greatest fictional weapons especially when it comes to science fiction I mean it's up there with the pulse rifle in Aliens deckards gun in Blade Runner and the light sabers in Star Wars and playing a Robocop game and not using this weapon will be like playing a Star Wars game not using the lightsaber do you need assistance early on in the game you get the option to modify the auto 9 by switching in different circuit boards and collecting chips from various ocp chests found in all the levels which is again kind of similar to that upgrade mechanic in terminat resistance it's actually a fun little mini game as well where you drop down these different components with percentage values to improve things like weapon damage reload times and stability some circuits even allow for specific Buffs as well like there's one that makes the gore sound effect much louder than it needs to be for some reason but even better than that though is the option for the auto 9 to have an infinite magazine size and even Fire full auto and this is by far the best upgrade because when this thing is firing in full auto mode it is absolutely [ __ ] disgusting just how much fun it is and it epitomizes too just how much it renders almost every other gun in the game obsolete I mean even against the final boss bosses you know some of which are pretty tough I was absolutely shredding through them with the auto 9 while discarded rocket launchers and machine guns lay around the area just begging to be put to use that kind of brings me on to the difficulty or the lack thereof now if the game was true to the films then that I mean RoboCop wouldn't take damage from most weapons which wouldn't be a very fun game to play if you were impervious to all attacks so you do take damage from gunfire here pretty quickly at least early on you start off with only three healing items to restore your health though this can eventually be upgraded to five in total and you can also unlock the ability to heal from Power boxes as well but combat is still pretty easy and you've usually got plenty of time to find cover and heal up if your health is dropping too low every now and then there'll be someone firing a 50cal machine gun and these things can mess you up pretty quickly but even still though it's not really a very challenging game even on hard mode but having said that though like it is supposed to be a power fantasy so I'm not even really sure if it's much of an issue I mean did you really want to play a Robocop game and spend half the time hiding in cover and avoiding enemies the only real challenge is late game when you start coming up against other cyborgs which I don't want to spoil as well as tougher armored enemies who are more or less like the juggernauts from Modern Warfare 2 but by that point I had so many upgrades that they were really just a minor Nuance as opposed to any real threat speaking of Modern Warfare Rogue City's also got what's more or less the Call of Duty breaching mechanic where you burst through like a locked door or a wall in slow motion and get precious few seconds to shoot everyone in the head so this just so many fun little ways you can change up the combat from area to area and despite it really being kind of simple on the surface it really never gets boring or stale they also do their best to introduce different enemy types so it's not just the same two or three looking bad guys with guns repeated at norum for every shootout this means you'll see suicidal [ __ ] running around with explosive tanks on their chests there's enemies that have got grenade launchers or snipers that hang back and hit you from a distance probably the weirdest one which is all these guys on motorbikes driving back and forth doing laps like they're getting paid for it I mean what is this Streets of Rage two though you can see some hilariously janky Des with these guys and grabbing them off the bike as they attempt to Sidle past you is always satisfying that's your ass sh of course because you can pick up every other damn item in this game and throw it around you can also pick up these motorbikes and launch them too you're going to be out even the premise of an enemy type that calls in for backup you'd think would be a bit of a concern and a bit of a focus during combat but I think if anything it actually improves the combat because it gives you more things to shoot at so yeah the more the merrier my only real complaint when it comes to the shooting is that there's no designated button to do Murphy's gun spin considering that that was not only one of the coolest aspects of his character in the movies but also a constant reminder of his Humanity as it's one of the few elements that tied him back to his life before he became RoboCop some people might complain that like 90% of the enemies are just the same old mindless gang members junkies or other scum but I got to say that I don't think I ever got sick of removing their heads from their shoulders it just didn't bother me at all Rogue city is really trying to do the best it can to seem like a triaa game despite really coming from doublea developers and this isn't a bad thing but it does mean you are going to have to kind of gloss over certain aspects for instance the voice acting and yes while Peter Weller does do a good job with it a lot of the other voice actors really do not and you'll hear random slide characters here and there putting in some questionable performances my dad's missing so he can't tell me nothing my mom said that he's out on an assignment but I know the truth we did 20 ticks and that was the best one also noticed that the sound mixing was really off at times with certain dialogue being pretty much impossible to hear in fact the audio mixing in general is a bit inconsistent too with it often seeming like it's lacking any background noise or even ambient audio RoboCop's introduction for instance in that prologue is just completely flat with him pulling up in a car without any real kind of pump or circumstance no music nothing just a medium shot of the guy hopping out of East Ford Taurus in fact too the lack of Music really is a bit of an issue overall I mean there's a new rendition of the movie theme that plays during the main menu and one that's closer to the version by basil polydoris playing during the prologue and then the final mission but that's really about it I really would have liked to see some actual vehicle sections too like some sort of car or bike Chase and considering those were some really memorable scenes in the movies as well I mean RoboCop's car is pretty iconic too so not being able to actually drive that thing in real time does seem like waste of potential but what I think the biggest waste is is not having a new game plus mode not letting you play through the entire story again with all your unlocked skills carrying over because once you finish the campaign and watch those end credits that's it it just throws you back to the main menu no new outfits or weapons unlocked no new game modes no cheats nothing I mean it took me about 12 hours to get through and I maxed out quite a lot of the skills by the end but I wasn't even close to having the whole thing finished and I would absolutely replay the entire game again just to go for that alone overall though they're not huge issues and I do think the riding and the combat really saves it you tell him robot man what a [ __ ] joke and you know what either way ton have absolutely knocked it out of the park here with Rogue City although the bar might be pretty low for RoboCop games they definitely set it pretty damn high from this point on so seeing as these guys have proven they know how to handle a movie license the way it should be handled got to say like I'd love to see them make a new John Carpenters The Thing game or maybe even give the aliens or Predator franchise the lover deserves for now though I'm more than happy with being able to turn countless nuke addicts into compost and dish out small fines to Petty criminals you'll have to spend a little bit more than a dollar to get your hands on this one but let me say man it's definitely worth it you are under arrest come quietly or this may be the last economics discussion you will ever have 12 seconds later I'd buy that for a dollar [Music] [Music]

Channel: GmanLives

Views: 1,134,775

Keywords: robocop rogue city review, robocop rogue city, robocop game, robocop rogue city gameplay, robocop rogue city demo, new robocop game, robocop game 2023, playstation 5, unreal engine 5, robocop gameplay, robocop rogue city game, robocop: rogue city, robocop rogue city ps5, robocop game ps5, robocop game boy, robocop rogue city review pc, robocop 2023 demo, robocop rogue city 2023, unreal engine 5 games, gmanlives, gggmanlives

Id: QV8Mm3xtlks

Length: 31min 50sec (1910 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 31 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/Urhoal_Mygole]

There's an actual animation like in the movie for shooting someone in the dick. Instant 10/10.

[u/KittySarah]

Games great, and they got it running smoothly which was my only issue before the demo got it's patch.

[u/The_Kurrgan_Shuffle]

Gmans review made me buy it.

Zero regrets, the game is a total power fantasy.

My only nitpick is not being able to see the great RoboCop model as often as I'd like since its in first person. Definitely makes the preorder skins a little useless

[u/Bailer86]

I enjoyed the demo a lot more than I thought I would.

[u/nefD]

Super excited about playing tomorrow.. also interested in what the devs are going to do next now that they've had two very solid titles in a row

[u/Quicksilver_Six]

You have to wait most of the game to get a Cobra Assault Cannon. But oh my god, when you get one you realize they made it as powerful as it was in the movie. Even on Extreme difficulty!