RoboCop Game

Ocean Software's RoboCop was a huge hit in 1988, letting players step into the metal boots of the titular Detroit law enforcer. According to the source, Film Stories, the game was released roughly a year after Paul Verhoeven's source film emerged, and it arrived just in time to accompany the hushed chatter from kids too young to see the 18-rated film itself.

Introduction to RoboCop

The game was solidly programmed by Mike Lamb, and available on a variety of computers and consoles of the period besides the ZX Spectrum. It was bolstered both by the aura of forbidden excitement around the film, and also the genuine value of the game itself: the constant march from left to right, blasting villains who emerged from all angles.

Development Story

One of the factors that may have contributed to RoboCop's level of polish was its unusual development story. As explored in a 2014 piece over at Eurogamer, Ocean boss Gary Bracey had purchased the rights to the film from Orion Pictures for $20,000, then sub-licensed those rights to Data East, a Japanese development company. Data East then began developing the game, hooking in several of the pixel artists and programmers who worked on Bad Dudes Vs DragonNinja.

Comparison with Other Games

The quality of RoboCop's programming wasn’t necessarily a given at the time. Tie-ins were frequently a mixed bag before and after - there were interesting ones, like Ghostbusters, and technically remarkable ones, like The Great Escape, but also startlingly disappointing ones.

The mini-games were Ocean’s own devising, with an identify-Emil-Antonowsky puzzle challenge and the above-mentioned alleyway attacker scene - where the action switches to a first-person view - breaking up the foot-based sections.

As well as being a popular game in its own right, RoboCop arguably raised the bar for other licenced tie-ins that came afterwards. Batman: The Movie and The Untouchables were both terrific, the latter being mildly controversial for the splats of gore in its own first-person shooter scenes.

The after-image of its visuals and sounds are still seared into the minds of those who played it all those years ago, with Jonathan Dunn’s unforgettable soundtrack being a beautiful piece of 8-bit melancholy, an inadvertent reflection of the theme of loss present in the film but otherwise difficult to replicate in a blocky 80s action game.