RoboCop is kind of a weird phenomenon to me, because despite
everyone knowing the name, in my experience only a fraction of those people have
ever actually seen the movie. That might have changed now thanks to the remake which
comes out on DVD soon, and though my thoughts on the remake are a little
complex, the original movie is GLORIOUS and should be seen. RoboCop is easily
one of my favorite super heroes, and with his premise you’d think he’d be a
great concept for an NES side-scroller, right? Let’s check it out with RoboCop
for the NES.
Graphically speaking this game is not great. I get that,
back in the NES days, it was hard to make a game look like the movie, but there
is still much to be desired. RoboCop himself doesn’t look too bad, but he’s
washed out in teal and looks really scrawny for someone who is supposed to be a
walking tank. Other people look like brown smudges and other odd color choices.
Though, for how bad the graphics are, the animation is what bugs me. The way
Alex Murphy walks (especially on stairs) can look like he’s walking backwards,
and while he moves slowly, his punch is a really quick animation. There’s even
a part where you can only aim upwards while facing one side, making it awkward
to set yourself up for the shot you WANT to make. Probably not the worst
looking game, but it’s obvious just by looking at it that this was one of those
rushed movie tie-ins the NES was infamous for.
As for the sounds, while I do like the chiptune version of
the RoboCop theme, the sound effects are really lacking. Though the gun noise
is pretty cool, the dog ones are pathetic (both the barking and dying). The
punch noise seems to have the same problem as the animation (in that it’s very
quick and without the visual, you’d have a hard time knowing that’s what it’s
for.
However, the big issue with audio visuals is the mission
titles. After some fairly decent animation, they all seem to feature an awkward
drawing of RoboCop sometimes with his mouth flapping about, and an annoying beeping
as the letters spell out. I don’t need to know the mission, I saw the movie! I
just want to go shoot some dudes!
The game play of RoboCop is… not too good either. Yeah, if
you didn’t get the hint when talking about the animations, it makes a lot of
things really awkward (I’m saying that a lot this review). RoboCop himself
plays pretty stiff. I know that he’s not the fastest moving character in the
movie, but just doing something simple like trying to dodge someone’s attack
feels really slow. Also, there are parts where you need to use stairs and
finding the right spot can be a task. Even something as simple as shooting or
hitting someone becomes questionable, as your hit box seems be more easily in
your opponent’s reach that their hit box is to yours, and because of that weird
punching animation, your window of opportunity is so small. Eventually you
learn how to time things correctly, but you only get that due to trial and
error: it’s not intuitive at all! This is one of those games where you have to
do things mostly just the way the makers intended you to. Like, they have to
program you to play this one certain way, like some kind of machine or a Robo-
WHOA TOO META!
It’s sad to say, but yeah, RoboCop on NES is just one of
those games that confirm the stereotype of licenced games not being very good.
Granted, this could have been a lot worse, but there are too many simple things
that are done wrong; moving, hitting, sounds, the look, etc… it has such an
awkward feeling. The game is beatable, that much is true, but it’s not really
fun at any point. There are even moments where what you need to do is just a
bit too hard to guess for my liking (like a room where you need to punch a wall
MULTIPLE times before it gives out despite showing no weakness as you punch it).
It’s not a terribly frustrating game, it just really shouldn’t be this much of
a chore to get through. I give RoboCop for the NES 4 levels out of 10.
No comments:
Post a Comment