RoboCop: Rogue City might be one of the best modern translations of an ’80s movie into a videogame. That’s an odd niche to be in, sure, but it’s one of the best FPS games for its absolutely brutal action mixed with a faithful RoboCop experience that doesn’t pull any punches. At just over $1 / £1, it’s an absolute bargain, so now’s your time to play it.
Featuring an original storyline set between the events of RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3—technically making it based on the ’90s version, but don’t stop me now—you play as the titular RoboCop, who used to be Alex Murphy. During a mission, RoboCop starts seeing visions of his past life, including seeing a hostage as his old wife. He hesitates, and obviously, for the fellows at OCP, that’s not good.
With a fresh monitoring chip in his head to improve his performance, he’s then sent off to complete missions and stop crime in Detroit. Typical cop-turned-cyborg RoboCop stuff. Unsurprisingly, the plot isn’t just about ordinary policing, as a mystery surrounding capitalism and the push for better, more powerful robots begins to unfold in spite of humans.
At the risk of sounding stereotypical and doing the old “it really makes you feel like X” thing, the gameplay really makes you feel like RoboCop. As you stroll through Detroit, stopping crimes and handing out fines (mainly just the former), RoboCop is sluggish. The mechanical gears of each footstep feel heavy, but that just makes you feel like a tank, demolishing gangs with a handy little pistol while lifting up criminals and yeeting them with raw robotic power.
As someone who played it at launch, it’s well worth giving a try, and even those who haven’t watched the classic action movies will find it’s a solid starting point. You don’t need to know the series to have a good time. And, for as cheap as it is right now, I wouldn’t even risk passing up the opportunity to watch the movies first.
Right now, you can get RoboCop: Rogue City and four other Steam keys for just $5.99 / £5.99 at Fanatical with the Killer Bundle, making it just $1.20 / £1.20 per game. If you decide to get 10 games, it works out at just $1 / £1 per game, which gives you permission to make the “I bought that for a dollar” joke.
You can pick and choose whatever games in the listing you’d like to make your own little bundle, but my personal recommendation would be this:
RoboCop: Rogue City
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
Wall World 2
Nobody Wants to Die
Tavern Master
So, get your cyborg mode on and go give RoboCop: Rogue City a try. You won’t regret it.
Disclosure: GameSpot and Fanatical are both owned by Fandom. This story was created in collaboration with Fanatical’s deals team.
