As I set out to play the 160 GB demo of RoboCop: Rogue City that I installed last night (it appears to have since shrunk to 30 GB, suggesting perhaps the entire game had been uploaded initially), Steam informed me that it first needed to add a quick 34 GB patch. At which point I kissed my uncapped internet contract on the lips. Although after playing this enormous demo for a couple of hours, Iām not entirely sure it was worth it.
Set between the events of RoboCop 2 and 3, RoboCop: Rogue City feels rather ignominious purely by its chosen setting. The original 1987 movie is an all-time classic piece of satire, its deadpan, ultra-violent depiction of police brutality woefully misunderstood for the last 35 years, including by its own sequels. So a first-person shooter-RPG is a concerning prospect, especially after suffering through similar gaming attempts adapting director Paul Verhoevenās other masterful satire, Starship Troopers
Yet, on playing this deeply peculiar game, Iām still not entirely sure which way itās leaning. Itās immediately visually impressive, with meticulously detailed grimy streets, reflective puddles, and a very shiny Robo-helmet. Itās then immediately contradicted by low-poly faces on other characters, and some absolutely dreadful lip-syncing, combined with the flattest acting Iāve seen in forever.
And yes, that includes from Peter Weller, who has improbably returned to voice the titular metal officer for this game. Now 76, the actor delivers his very many lines like a man reading a shopping list over the phone, giving the entire affair a very uncanny feeling. Itās the right voice, but itās not the right voice.
The demo is absolutely enormous, and Iāve had to stop playing in order to write this before I run out of daylight. Itās also not exactly…good. Itās not terrible, at all, and as a shooter you get to stomp about blowing off punksā heads with satisfying weapons. But thereās also not a single thing about it thatās impressive.
Enemies just stand still while you shoot them, occasionally throwing tiresome grenades at you, giving the whole thing the feeling of a particularly spiteful target range. RoboCop takes damage, unless itās a cutscene when the bullets just bounce off him, but you can press H any time to magically get better. And best of all, for reasons entirely unexplained, the baddies keep the specialist, bespoke recharging units unique to this robot lying around their drug dens, which is particularly generous.
The demo gives you an opening mission, then has you literally doing paperwork at Police HQ, before setting you out into its semi-open world. Here youāre given a main quest to follow, but a surprising number of side-quests pop up, one involving solving a murder by visiting various areas of the city, another recovering a stolen car, each with voiced characters and mini storylines. Itās an awful lot of game for a demo, to be sure.
The main plot is an unwieldy and meandering story about drug dealers and maybe a missing cop, all referencing a new kingpin-like character whoās moved into town. But in the end, all these quests boil down to walking to the next marker on the map, watching the conversations, and then shooting more baddies in their ā80s haircuts.
It suggests a game with a lot of scale, but not much scope. Itās very RoboCop, with all sorts of recognizable characters, in the familiar Detroit, but itās fairly incoherent on whether itās trying to say anything. It couldnāt be a timelier moment for an ACAB-themed re-examination of the franchise, and but so far the demo doesnāt suggest these themes: rather just driving down the worn-deep tracks of ā80s cop movie tropes.
But if your internet is limited, itās fairly safe to say donāt be wasting almost 150 gigabytes on this. You could always play developer Teyonās previous game, Terminator: Resistance, instead.
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