This big guy is clunky, boxy, and has insane system requirements devoted to creating dazzling reflections.
However, stand it next to other RoboCop games (maybe even the movies?)
and it suddenly looks like a masterpiece in chrome.
“RoboCop goes to therapy” is, by itself, an excellent elevator pitch.
But the ensuing bedlam lacks that laser focus and quickly becomes messy.
It doesn’t end well.
I’m being transparent here, RoboFans, I never really “got” RoboCop.
Still, a shooter is a shooter, so is it good at that?
Well, again, how much do you like RoboCop?
The sense of movement and weight feels exactly right for the slow marching, sharp turning mega-Roomba.
Later, as skills unlock, glowing panels will let you ricochet bullets to auto-dome guys hiding behind cover.
And a dash manoeuvre gives you some much-needed speed.
It just feels like a playground with half the slides roped off.
That feeling alleviates after the first few hours, but it definitely sours the opening.
Can’t reach a perp to yeet?
Pick up a TV or computer monitor or garbage container and simply hurl that at scum instead.
I think that is what the designers want - endless forward momentum.
Enemies love to use grenades, and the best way to avoid those is to simply press on.
Hostages will find themselves under fire, incentivizing you to be quick and thorough.
The problems come in moments of friction.
Which, yes, is in keeping with the character you embody.
But risks annoying folks who are used to slicker, more mobility-focused shootybangs.
And what can I say?
And there’s another casualty of RoboCop’s shtompy shtick: the level design.
But, by design, none of that is in the RoboUserManual.
RoboCop does not jump, he does not vault or mount or even crouch.
RoboCop marches forward, inexorably, and he shoots his gun from the hip until no more slime remains.
But that means most levels become repetitive, boxy corridors, simply because nothing more is required.
Even the waist-high cover, provided solely for your enemies, feels redundant.
It’s not that the environments don’t look impressive - they do.
The game captures “untidy America” very well.
There are dank city streets full of laundromats, pawn shops, and busted-up shop fronts.
The lighting in particular is often stunning.
Bad guys are framed in gateways with bright cinematic beams around them.
Grungy back alleys come alive with neon puddles.
All this is what those ferocious system requirements are for, I’m guessing.
So it’s not the look of Old Detroit that’s off.
It’s the feel.
The layout of the streets, industrial estates, and hospitals feel either uncanny or uninteresting.
Again, the fidelity is sky high.
But strip it all back and Detroit is a box full of other boxes.
But more often than not, levels become samey corridor-room-corridor haunted house rides.
Partly my negativity is a reflection of who this game was made for, ie.
In many ways it is a story-driven, choice-making RoboGame more than it is a shooter.
And the goofiness with which it embraces that is sometimes admirable.
The game feels at a kind of stoner ease when it leans into dumbass action.
I’m thinking of the enemy dialogue that falls heavily to the comedy side of the bark matrix.
Trained guards shouting “hand compromised!”
when their entire arm has been blown off is undeniably comical.
But for me, the machine commits too many FPS crimes.
This review was based on a review build of the game provided by developers Nacon.
