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Robocop: Rogue City better be good or there will be trouble

The developers of the underwhelming Terminator: Resistance are taking a crack at one of my favourite movies

My greatest achievement in life is knowing every single word that's spoken in Robocop. In the correct order, too. My mum doesn’t appreciate that talent, but then she also let me watch it when I was eight, so she has no-one to blame but herself. That means I’ve loved Robocop for 34 years. Any game announcement is going to grab me like Robo grabbed Clarence Boddiger at 1:07:04 in the director’s cut. And there was one last night during Nacon's Connect stream!

Robocop: Rogue City was announced by Nacon, from the developers of Terminator: Resistance, a game I did not enjoy.

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It won’t be out until 2023, and though it’ll be based on the first three movies in the series, it’ll also be a new story. Nacon said: “Nacon and Teyon will work with MGM to develop an authentic RoboCop game experience that is faithful to the franchise’s DNA, while immersing gamers in an original story that enables them to play as none other than RoboCop himself.”

Aside from the teaser, we have nothing to go on but the developer’s previous game, and three increasingly silly Robocop movies. I tried to review Terminator: Resistence, but found it so underwhelming that about halfway through the review I started imagining other games that could be made in the series instead. It definitely split reviewers and fans, with the game scoring an average of 47% on Metacritic while Steam has it listed as “Very Positive”. I did appreciate the atmosphere of bits of it, but I still stand by what I said.

The three movies they're cribbing from run the gauntlet from brutal satire to a franchise desperately trying to sell toys. The first movie is a Jesus parable and a skewering of corporate America, but by the third he's fighting robot ninjas and using a jet-pack. I can only imagine what'll end up in the game.

I'm always willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Even if this was my immediate reaction:

Besides, I’ve always wanted to shoot Robo’s original gun, and this might be the only chance I get to do it. I live in hope.

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