I never normally hunt for the coveted platinum trophy in games. It's reserved purely for those titles I have a special affinity with, or those that are harder not to 100% than otherwise - looking at you, Telltale. But I did get the platinum in RoboCop: Rogue City, and cherished every second of it.
Paul Verhoeven's 1987 film is one of my all-time favourites, thanks to its melding of razor-sharp satire and good squib-laden action. I've always had an affinity for the franchise, but aside from the sorely underrated 2014 remake, I found it to struggle to ever make good on the quality of the original.
RoboCop: Rogue City changes that, though. It's a truly stellar shooter that's not only one of the best licensed games of all time, but undoubtedly one of the best games of the year.
Sandwiched between the second and third films, RoboCop: Rogue City is a surprisingly RPG-inflected shooter where you take on the mantle of Alex Murphy, unassuming cop turned weaponised cyborg by OCP. Given the original trilogy is three decades old now, Rogue City doesn't expect you to know your Clarence Boddicker from your Dick Jones, and drip-feeds the basics as and when required.
It's quite cutscene-heavy, with lots of dialogue between RoboCop and members of the Detroit police, from his long-serving sidekick Anne Lewis to the steely sergeant Warren Reed. There are light RPG elements as you decide how to tackle conversations, based on the three core tenets of RoboCop's programming. This can come back to bite you, depending on whether you stick firmly to OCP's company line, or let Alex Murphy's humanity seep through the cold metal exterior. It rewards replaying and trying different dialogue choices to experience some of the branching narrative moments, but there's no mission replay option to sample this, sadly.
Fortunately, when the shooting starts, RoboCop: Rogue City is one of the zippiest and most satisfying shooters I've ever played. Most of the time you'll solely use Murphy's trusty Auto 9, an automatic pistol with unlimited ammo that you can upgrade by applying new circuit boards and modules throughout the 15 hours or so it'll take you to beat the game. By the eight-hour mark you'll be able to craft a weapon that's truly unstoppable, making you feel as towering as RoboCop is in that first film. For variety's sake you can pick up felled enemies' weapons off the floor for the duration of a level, but it's never as fun as using the Auto 9 to turn a baddie into mush.
RoboCop: Rogue City toes the line between a semi-open world action game combined with a more linear shooter. Some hub areas of downtown Detroit are fairly expansive, where you can stomp around to find hidden side quests and even dish out tickets to illegally parked cars. Rather than avoiding these side missions I always found myself drawn to them - since Rogue City makes the RoboCop experience feel so immersive, I wanted to relish every single chance I got to solve crimes and clean the city up in those steely metal boots.
From a story front, it's probably the second-best narrative in the series behind the original film. Gone is the bombastic budget-scaling of the second film, instead acting as a semi-prequel to RoboCop 3, with the development of Delta City lurking in the background. This time around, RoboCop's got to hunt down the brother of a long-term foe, while also stopping OCP's continued efforts to turn Detroit's law enforcement into soulless robots. It's not ground-breaking at all, especially when consumed in conjunction with the second and third films, but there's enough here to satisfy the game's length. Some really tender scenes emerge, too: if you've seen RoboCop 2 you'll know about Murphy's emotional trip home, and scenes of that vein appear here too.
But of course, it all boils down to how well RoboCop: Rogue City plays as a shooter. Fortunately it's incredibly smooth, and while the game is never particularly challenging due to your inherent strength and near-invulnerability, I never got bored of shooting up alleys brimming with baddies. Gore mechanics are just as 80s-inflected as you'd hope for, and once you get the right upgrades to your gun you'll dive into every skirmish as headstrong as Alex Murphy himself.
That's the highest praise I can give RoboCop: Rogue City, a game I absolutely adore: it truly makes you feel like RoboCop himself, brimming with power and precision, but never letting his human side fade. I wasn't expecting a licensed game to impress me this much, but not only is it a fantastic entry in a franchise that's been sorely overlooked in recent decades, but also a bloody good shooter to boot.
For fans of the films, or just those tangentially familiar with the character, I'm certain you'll love RoboCop: Rogue City. It's as faithful to the source material as it gets in licensed fare, and proves that when handled with love and care, there's always scope to tell new stories in such a beloved franchise.
Reviewed on PlayStation 5. A code was provided by the publisher.