Back in My Day: Robocop
We already looked at both Deus Ex games. This week we're going further back and looking at one of the first robo-humans. This week it's Robocop.
Adam Jensen from Deus Ex: Human Revolution wasn't the first augmented warrior to enter the fray of a crumbling city on the brink of takeover. Nor was J.C Denton from the original Deus Ex. The mixture of machine and human dates farther back than I can really remember. What I do remember, though, was being blown away when I saw Robocop for the first time. He may not have been the first, but he was the first for me. He may have also been the first to actually do the whole augmented thing correctly. Some may give shout outs to The Terminator for being the first, but Arnie was more robot than human. After Robocop hit the big screen, we had a period of time where everything was Robocop related – even video games.
Robocop made its way to theaters in 1987. Nintendo was still in its baby form, but to really get maximum exposure, a successful movie just had to be on the Nintendo. Movies making their way to consoles were still a bit of a sticky situation if I had to guess. I'd say a lot of people were still a bit skeptical of playing movies on their home console due to the video game industry crashing in the early 80's. Robocop for the Nintendo Entertainment System falls somewhere in between being a good or bad game. It really depends on how big a fan you were of the whole Robocop Revolution.
Back in the day, side scrolling was pretty much all we had. The level was a carousel of repetitive backgrounds as we beat up thugs. But you know what? We had a blast with it! It's what Robocop used to keep us fans entertained. Furthermore, it actually used the musical theme from the movie, unlike a lot of other movie-to-game transitions. For those of us who watched the movie ten times a day, this game was just a bit heaven for a short while.
The game almost plays out exactly like the movie. You are Alex Murphy, better known as Robocop. All types of hell have broken out in the streets of your city, and you have some prime targets you need to take down to give the good guys a winning chance . You hit the street with steel fists and a gun that never seems to run out of ammo. You slug lackey minions right in their jaw and only use excessive force when certain situations arise. You are the new image for justice.
(Robocop will crush your tiny head! Because it is tiny!)
Released in 1988, Robocop uses the basic side scrolling, beat'em up style of play. The game takes from left to right with the occasional reversal, which a lot of games at the time didn't offer. I guess the trade off for that little trick involved removing jumping from the game. It seems like a fair trade because if memory serves correctly, Robocop didn't do a whole lot of jumping in the movies. The game takes on quite a slow pace if you're playing on the NES, but I can understand why it seems so slow. Robocop is technically a giant piece of metal, therefore he is bound to move a lot slower than your average vigilante. At times, the game likes to throw so many enemies at you it can be overwhelming. But again, you are a giant piece of metal. You suck it up and break some teeth in the process.
While the game does stay true to the movie most of the time, there are a few questionable moments within the game. The level designs are quite remarkable and mimic the movie quiet well for what the NES had to work with. The two biggest drawbacks that the game suffered from were its difficulty and stairs. You'd think Robocop's biggest fear would be going head to head with the ED-209, but it's actually stumbling upon a set of stairs. Given the NES had limited control combinations, stairs should never be that hard to get up or down. Castlevania has a slight problem, but not as much as Robocop. Players could spend a good three minutes trying to get up or down a flight of stairs, and that is quite costly as the game has a time limit that drops faster than the economy.
The difficulty on the other hand will force players to really put on their game faces if they wanted to see the end. Sadly, I was not was of those serious players back in the day. Robocop was way too much for a six year old to take on. In my later years, the game still bested me, and I really had to sit there and take what it threw at me if I wanted to beat it. As he beats the streets, Robocop will be facing jumping dogs, guys with flamethrowers, rooftop snipers, thugs with riot shields, and of course other robots. The poor guy certainly has his work cut out for him as he juggles all those things plus a draining time meter and nightmarish flights of stairs. Luckily he has a few tricks of his own to get him through it, if properly utilized.
(Oh..Oh no! STAIRS!)
The player's HUD is located at the bottom of the screen. There we find the time meter, Robocop's health, his weapon, and some special functions that flash from time to time. The radar is most frequently used as enemies are almost always popping out of nowhere. They will sometimes flash when you're not allowed to kill certain enemies or when you can punch through walls. The head will flash when a wall is available to be smashed through. As for the E, I never really figured that one out. It seems to emit beeps throughout levels, but I never found what it was beeping at. It could be beeping that I was getting low on time or health, or it could be beeping to warn me that stairs are ahead. Some things we may never know.
While the levels are intriguing enough and do manage to follow the movie quite well, you can't help but call them a bit repetitive. For six levels, Robocop is forced to wander about until he finds his prime target. The entire way, he is constantly being attacked by the same two character models from the beginning of the game. It would have been nice to have some other enemies along the way from the streets to the OCP building. There are a few different weapons through out the game, but they are few and far between. Players will spend most of their time punching out lights or shooting when the game allows them to shoot.
That is one aspect of the game that I never quite understood. At times, the game will allow me to go in with guns blazing, and at other times, I'm forced to punch my way through hordes of thugs. It always seems that they have these areas backwards. When I'm out roaming the streets, I can blast through everyone. When I'm in a courtroom that has been overrun by bad guys, I'm forced to go hand to hand. Looking back at Robocop's skills, it's important to note that the key mapping for the game is quite odd to say the least. As mentioned, there is no jump action which should free up one of the two keys. Robocop has the ability to block incoming attacks. Punching and shooting are his only two primary attacks. Blocking is set to use the “Select” key, while punching and shooting use A button. So what does the B button do? It punches and shoots as well. That's just bad key mapping to me.
("The controls!! They're so bad I can't take it! I'm going to end it all by jumping out this window! Farewell cruel world.")
While Alex Murphy is more robot than Adam Jensen or J.C, he is still human. Gaming heroes, both robot and human have come a long way. Gaming too has come a long way. No longer are we stuck with side scrolling beat'em ups. No longer must we live in fear of stairways and bad controls. We've come to a time where we can actually build a story that is like a movie in its own way. Robocop may have had a lot of pitfalls that kept it out of the gaming spotlight, but it was far from a bad game. The movie, on the other hand, is a legend that I will always remember. It was also one of the first rated R movies that I had the opportunity to see. In a way, it set a few stepping stones in my life, for both movies and gaming.
Jason "Ag3nT" M
I'm a huge gaming fanatic. I mostly do reviews for older games from the 70's, 80's, and 90's, but when something new is out - I'm all over it. See everyone around!
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22.05.2012
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