Some games suck like the Colorado Avalanche, who as I speak, are being ass-raped by my beloved Detroit Red Wings, lol. But every once in a while, a game everyone craps on isn't that bad and people are just stupid. It takes a little bit of time (and taking off that lovely pair of rose-tinted glasses) to see the beauty underneath. Consequently, there are other games that we once thought were awesome, but looking back, they weren't so great. And some games just suck no matter what.

Games based off movies tend to be horrible. Really, really bad. Sometimes, not even an awesome movie can save a game. Tonight, we take a look at one of my favorite movies growing up, and the game based off it, to see if it, too, falls prey to this trap.

And so, with my prime directives online, it's time for...



Basic Info

RoboCop
Developer - Ocean
Publisher - Data East
Console - NES
Year - 1988



The premise



If you've seen the movie, I need not explain a thing. If you haven't seen RoboCop... what the hell is wrong with you?

Anyways, here's the story for the uninformed. Crime has basically spiraled out of control in Detroit (oh, how original) and the city is turning the police department over to megacorporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP), which is basically an evil more version of Wal-Mart. Wrap your head around that one.

Officer Alex Murphy of the Detroit Police Department arrives on the scene of a reported incident and is murdered by a gang in Old Detroit. This is, of course, convenient for OCP, which has a plan to turn Murphy into the ultimate crime fighter, the future of law enforcement... RoboCop. Rebuilt as the prototype for what future cops will be like, the metal-clad cyborg (played by Peter Weller) is tasked to bring tough justice to the scum of the city while at the same time unknowingly advancing OCP's plan to destroy Old Detroit and replace it with Delta City. It's up to RoboCop to both uphold the law and stop OCP's sinister plan, which would basically fuck over everyone in Old Detroit.

It's one of the few movies to depict Detroit as the crime-ridden shithole I've come to know and love, though parts were also filmed in Dallas. Plus, the main villain was Red Fucking Forman from That 70's Show (otherwise known by his real name, Kurtwood Smith). And it was directed by Paul Verhoeven, the man who helmed Total Recall, Basic Instinct and Starship Troopers among other films. So you know it's good.

The game






RoboCop the game takes everything the movie was (awesome, bad ass, full of fun) and leaves it completely behind. RoboCop moves at the speed of a snail while his enemies apparently move at normal speed. Oh, and there's killer dogs. And guys trying to jump out of second-story windows to dropkick RoboCop. When the hell has that ever worked?!?!

Boss battles suffer from being way too easy at times. The first one can be beat simply by crouching and punching. That's it. Pretty pathetic, if you ask me.

Level designs are all vaguely similar - shoot or punch anything you see. There's a few platforms here and there to spice it up, but there's a severe lack of originality, especially when games like Bionic Commando were around. Also, try getting down stairs after you climbed up them. Just try. It's ridiculously hard to crouch in the right spot to actually get down the stairs.

The controls

Here's what you could do with RoboCop: you could go back and forth, shoot or hit stuff to kill/break it, use a few bonus power-ups, crouch... and that's about it. Sure, some of you could say that this was in the days of the NES, and things were limited, but RoboCop feels average at best in the controls department... and that's if I'm being generous. As I stated before, other games of the same genre were putting together more complex controls or letting the player do more.

The graphics and sound



As NES games go, this is pretty much traditional fare. Eight-bit graphics on top of a shitty MIDI version of the RoboCop theme is what you get. The game comes in shades of brown and blue with an occassional splash of fuschia. Animations aren't anything really good at all, and the game feels very, very sluggish in the visuals department. Just a mess all around, even for a NES game in 1988.

The conclusion

What else can I say? It falls right into the same category as so many other licensed games before and after it - really, really crappy and not at all awesome like the source material. I don't know if this or RoboCop 3 sucked more, and considering how bad RoboCop 3 was... that's an insult. This is the kind fo crap that made your NES throw up, or at least stop working right.

FINAL VERDICT: Heavy suckage. Lagged well behind all the othersimilar games for the NES at the time. Not very enjoyable.






























Bonus Round!!!!!!

Basic Info

RoboCop
Developer - Ocean
Publisher - Data East
Console - Arcade
Year - 1988





On the other hand, the arcade version of RoboCop, released around the same time, kicked ass seventeen different ways. Better sound, better more robust graphics and animations, better enemies and boss battles... better everything. Data East may have blown hard on the consoles, but they sure got the arcade version pretty right. Feels a lot like Final Fight, expcet with RoboCop and guns. And considering that I love Final Fight, that's a very good thing.

FINAL VERDICT: Does not suck. Feels dated, but still a solid side-scrolling shooter from the arcades.