RoboCop

The Good
It’s Robocop. Part man, part machine, all cop. What more could you ask for? I am a fan of the first movie and I played this game until I finished it, for that reason.
Ocean tried to fit in as many things as they could from the arcade and movie – the guys on motorcycles, the shoot the rapist holding the woman hostage scene (which is quite fun) and ED-209. There is also a variety of weapons – yep, the Manta gun is in there (the big one from the end of the movie) and 3-way bullets. What does make the game easier is that the enemies always appear in the same place every time. This allows you to ‘plan your attack’ through the levels knowing when and where to use the various weapons. Some levels don’t even allow you to use your weapons, Robocop holsters his weapon and you only have your fists.

The Bad
Does anyone remember seeing Robocop in the arcades for the first time and slipping in their first coin to play? Well don’t expect that from the PC version. The Amiga and Atari ST versions of Robocop were near perfect conversions of the arcade original. It appears that Ocean created a PC conversion merely to cash in on the money. It’s a pity it only came out in CGA, as the game would have at least looked a little more decent in EGA.
The controls are the old Q (Up), A (Down), O (Left), P (Right) combination. I have never been a fan of this as I prefer a game that allows you to assign your own default keys. So it’s an old game, but its annoying to have to think which keys you need to press to shoot the guy up in the window at a diagonal angle and then have to diagonally crouch to avoid his bullets zeroing in on you. I’d rather instinctively do it with the numerical pad. Or get a joystick. I didn’t have one back then.
You only have 3 lives in the game and I found that you could only lose them on certain levels (of which there are 9) in order to finish the game. They’re enough though.
I also found the boss level with ED-209 a little easy – he doesn’t move, just fires a set routine of bullets and you just need to know when to crouch and when to stand and punch him.

The Bottom Line
Lackluster graphics and finicky controls. A frustrating side-scrolling platform game which will only appeal to die-hard fans of Robocop. A weak attempt at copying the arcade original.