Just about two years ago, Teyon, the developers behind the underappreciated Terminator: Resistance, gave us one of the best Robocop games ever, with Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business. Now Teyon is bringing Robocop back with a bang and this time our titanium law enforcer is going full Dredd!
This time round, the shiny metal cyborg is locked behind enemy lines in the foreboding OmniTower, a massive structure put together to house the city’s poorer working class. A group of ruthless mercenaries have overtaken the building and it’s up to Robocop to clean house. From the bottom to the very top! Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business makes this mission feel intense and cinematic.
But there’s more to Robocop’s latest case than mere terrorism. There’s a deep-seated personal connection as well to his life before becoming a cyborg. To his time as Alex Murphy… and this story is central to Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business.
2012’s phenomenal Dredd adaptation, along with other siege action movies like The Raid, are clear inspirations behind Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business. One man—or a cyborg in this case—against an entrenched army across multiple levels with very little chance of success. OmniTower could easily fit at home in Mega-City One, with crime and neglect just as prominent as in the outside world.
Now if you played 2023’s Rogue City, then you’ll have a good idea of what to expect with Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business. Which is, to say, pretty much more of the same. Which is no bad thing when you consider how good Rogue City was. That said, Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business is more of the same with a significant “but” at the end. And that’s because Teyon have changed up the game design just enough to make it feel like a fresh experience while doing what the previous game did best.
Mostly gone are Rogue City’s slower moments that saw you exploring a somewhat evolving Detroit in favour of a more traditional, level-based first-person shooter experience. There are still bits and bobs of evidence to collect, mostly for experience, and some sidequests to attend to, but the bulk of Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business now feels like a more traditional, old-school FPS where gunplay is king and bad guys are just begging to be shot.
New enemies and a smattering of new weapons are yours to play around with across the industrial-like, brutalist building. Your trusty Auto 9 will always be with you, dispensing justice with an endless supply of bullets while other weapons can be picked up from killed enemies or the environment. In Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business, Robocop can only hold two guns at a time, with a limited amount of ammo for the second. Shotguns and automatic rifles fare better than scoped weapons in this more restrictive space, but most guns feel as though there’s a situation just for them.
The experience system and PCB modification boards return as well, allowing you to upgrade Robocop and the Auto 9. You can upgrade your armour and health along with the Auto 9’s damage, though the PCB boards have areas that give negative effects as well if you unlock a node with a specific chip. Experience feels a little on the skimpy side, so you have to scour each level for incriminating evidence and sidequests to complete. Enemies also give XP, and there isn’t a situation in which you’ll have to go looking for them as the level design ensures you hit every spawn point. This is true across Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business.
Playing as Murphy requires a slightly different play-style. Murphy doesn’t have Robocop’s abilities like slowing down time briefly, health regen packs, or Robo-strength. Instead you have to take cover to regen health. On the plus side, you can crouch, which is something Robocop can’t do and that really makes a world of difference in Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business.
Visually, I don’t think Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business looks as good as Rogue City, and that has more to do with the setting rather than technical or artistic flourish. OmniTower has less the feel of a living space and more like a concrete prison, like Alcatraz. The material work, coupled with a nicely dense setting of props, gets the job done.
That, though, is a smaller nitpick compared to Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business’s larger issues. And issues it does have, sadly.
A lot of the game’s writing is pretty bad for starters. As much as I love that Peter Weller has returned as Robocop, he’s just not given great material to work with. That poor writing is fine for the sidequests, which are mostly played for laughs, but it does hurt in the game’s more serious moments.
Game balance could be better. Robocop takes damage far too easily. While upgrading armour helps, it still makes his titanium shell feel less useful than expected. Death is easily possible in shootouts, especially against armored grunts. This is an issue in Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business.
The most notable issue is performance. Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business suffers from stutter across the game, especially in NPC and prop-heavy areas. Combat remains mostly smooth, but it highlights that the game could use more polish.
These issues aside, Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business is an absolute blast to play. Streamlining the game to feel like an old-school FPS has made it fun and chaotically addictive. Teyon have provided a substantial campaign that justifies its standalone status while delivering more of what fans loved about Rogue City.
Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business Trailer
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Game code was provided by the Publisher.
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