RoboCop Cleans Up Detroit

RoboCop screenshot from vgmuseum.comRoboCop was a huge movie on release back in 1987. The unfortunate patrolman Alex Murphy was brutally gunned down by a gang of psychotic criminals. They filled him so full of lead that there wasn’t much left and his barely living remains were turned over to an evil corporation. Omni Consumer Products decided there was life in old Murphy yet and they pasted his remaining organs into a titanium skeleton, wiped his memory and sent him onto the streets to clean up the trash.

The arcade game was inevitable and sure enough it came along in 1988. Developed by Ocean Software and released by Data East this was a popular title in the arcades. It was a fairly typical side scrolling 2D beat ‘em up. You played as RoboCop and had to battle your way through the streets of Detroit wasting thugs, muggers and maniacs. Many of the enemies would take hostages and try to use them as human shields and the boss battles featured the inevitable showdown with the ED-209.

The game was released as a stand up cabinet with an eight way joystick and two buttons. It had a two player option but it was just turnabout because RoboCop works alone. You punched bad guys when you got up close and used your gun to fire from range. You could also duck and jump. There were lots of power ups dotted around and if you got killed by the waves of psychos coming at you, who would attack from all sides, then you’d be cast back to the start of the stage.

In between stages there was the bonus round which featured a first-person view on the shooting range. You had a crosshair and had to hit targets in a time limit. The game-play was pretty basic but it was fun and the authentic RoboCop styling definitely made it a more attractive prospect.

The art was decent quality. The mean streets of Detroit were brought to life with some nice texture work. The characters looked authentic and were well animated, especially RoboCop himself who looked and moved exactly right, even down to the leg encased gun. It looked enough like the movie to excite fans. The music was also great with an endlessly remixed version of the theme tune from the movie and some digitized voice acting from the film’s stars.

RoboCop was a typical side scrolling shooter. It was quite challenging because there were loads of enemies to kill and some of them would fire down at you from apartment building windows or creep up from behind. Compared to some of the licenses that get released nowadays it was a decent use of the franchise and it certainly drew enough players. Just like the film the game did well enough that Ocean went on to develop several sequels however they were targeted at home computers and consoles. RoboCop was also ported and it did really well on home computers like the ZX Spectrum where it remained in the top spot on the sales chart for over a year.