Licensed Games #5

Robocop (1988)
By: Data East Genre: Platform/Fighting/Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 56,800 (one credit)
Also Available For: NES, Game Boy, PC, Amiga, Atari ST, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Apple II, TRS-80

In my younger years when much of my gaming was done on my trusty Speccy, many of the biggest and most successful games, or at least most hyped games, were adapted from major movies of the time. A lot of these sucked donkey balls, naturally, and were rightly derided, but I always remember one of them being a monster smash hit that topped the Speccy sales charts for many, many months. It was a game based on one of the best movies of its time which starred Peter Weller as a slain cop who was given a new lease of life after being repaired/augmented by electronic devices and assorted mechanical doodads. This would, I believe, make him a cyborg rather than a robot, so technically the film should've been called Cybercop, but name inaccuracies aside, it was a bit of a stonker. The tie-in game was originally found in arcades which was a little unusual, and as good as the Speccy version was, it can't have been as good as the arcade version, surely? Sadly, I didn't find out as I never encountered it.

It's a pretty short game, even by arcade standards. Okay, we're not talking Marble Madness short, but most of the stages are only a few screens long and it would only take a learned player a mere couple of minutes to get through most of them. There are seven of them in total which, unlike the home micro versions of the game, are all in the side-scrolling platform shooter style. For the first few seconds of the first stage, Robo only has his fists available for offing the many punks and soldiers who rush his way, but once they start appearing in high-rise windows taking pot shots at him, he doesn't hesitate to whip out his impressive leg gun, and from that point on its use is unlimited, including its ammo. His bionic fists are still available for dispatching enemies who are close enough but his gun (the 'Auto 9', I believe it's called) is far more satisfying to use, especially with its authentic movie shooting sound! Aside from this, there are also three other guns that can be picked up from crates or just lying around.

These include a three-way shot, a more powerful double-barrelled shotgun of some sort (except it still looks like a pistol), and that mental Cobra Assault Cannon thing that the bad guys use near the end of the movie, and all of these do have limited ammo. There aren't many other pick-ups - just an energy refill, I think, and that is very rare. For yes, Robo has an energy meter here and once it's gone, it's game over. Luckily, being an arcade game, you can just keep continuing for as long as you have credits (i.e. press the '5' key), and that's the only way I was able to see all the way through the game because it is quite difficult. This is mainly down to the number of enemies, which can get rather high at times, and also because they appear from all sides. Well, okay, they don't come from beneath the ground, but they run onto the screen from the left and right and also appear in windows or on platforms above you, and their line of fire is the same as yours, so you'll quite often get shot while shooting them!

There are many different types too. The first two stages take place on the mean streets of Detroit, and by far the most common enemies here and through the whole game are identical shooty soldiers who, for some reason, remind me of Gul Dukat in Total Recall, but others include leapy blue soldiers, grenade throwers, chainsaw maniacs, and skinhead punks who usually have hostages (who you can accidentally kill). The third stage is a either a construction site (for Delta City?) or a scrapyard (see right) and here you'll encounter jetpack buffoons, while the fourth stage, which is meant to be that drug factory from the film, introduces trenchcoat-wearing guys who carry the Cobra Assault Cannon. Kill them and you can use their giant gun for a few shots - sweet! From the fifth stage onwards you're on OCP turf where you'll have to contend with security laser cannons, robot spider things that fire mortars at you (and which take a good few shots to destroy), and various other security measures.

Suffice to say, there are quite a few of what I assume are Clarence Boddicker's henchmen, and that's not even counting the bosses which unsurprisingly grace each stage. The first pits Robo against ED-209 (I had expected this to be the final stage boss but I guess they wanted players to actually see it!). We see this ghastly contraption at the end of other stages too, sometimes in modified form, but other 'bosses' are merely lots of soldiers (second stage) or henchmen using heavy machinery (third & fourth stages). Their difficulty varies but with most of the them the only real problem is the same as during the stages themselves - avoiding enemy bullets. Sounds obvious, I know, but if Murphy/Robo wasn't such a lumbering clanker and was instead a more sprightly, agile rozzer, it would make the going much easier. That would probably also make this game a run 'n' gunner, but Robo's purposeful, measured stomping make the game too slow for that in my book. It plays a bit more like Shinobi or Rolling Thunder, minus the ability to jump and down between tiers, and it's this that makes Robocop a harder game.

If you ask me, anyway. In the two other games, you could usually just jump up or down to the next tier to avoid enemy shots, but you've no such luxury here. That said, how many players at the time would've sacrificed a bit of agility to able to play through a game as effing Robocop? That is unsurprisingly the main draw of this game and it works well. The graphics are good for their time and still look decent enough now. Robo and ED-209 look excellent, as you would expect, as do most of the other sprites, and the stages look great too. Only a couple are reminiscent of scenes from the film but the rest work well here anyway, with the last three featuring multiple tiers accessed by stairs or lifts, and there's a 'target practice' bonus round too, which, aside from the rare energy pick-up, is the only way to replenish energy that I found. Tough or not though, it's a game with a great atmosphere, and the audio is a big part of the reason for that.

Well, I think it's the presentation in general. The attract mode sees Robo running through his directives and there are several quotes from the film as you play, even if they aren't always used at the right times ("You are under arrest" or "Thank you for your co-operation" right after shooting the crap out of someone, for example). The music isn't the best with the exception of the splendid movie theme which plays during some stages, and it's the same with the sound effects. Some, such as Robo's default gun, sound very cool and much like the movie, while others, such as the three-way shot, definitely do not have a movie shooting sound! Overall, though, it's a tough-but-fun, not to mention satisfying walk 'n' gun platformer which, unusually for a licensed game, never mind a movie adaptation, it bears at least a passing resemblance to the movie but is also a decent game in its own right. The conversions might've gotten more of the glory, but this arcade original is a better game if you ask me.

RKS Score: 8/10

Gameplay Video: here's a video of the whole game being played by one of the talented fellows at World of Longplays (check out their great channel here). Oh, and don't watch if you want to avoid spoilers!