Review

RoboCop vs. Terminator

By: Alex Burr | June 12, 2008

A game with such a title as Robocop vs. The Terminator places extreme expectations on such a huge fan of these two film series like myself, and this game cannot possibly disappoint. Featuring scenes, recalling memories, and eliciting imagination from both of the film sets, Robocop vs. The Terminator is a near perfect realization of that dream-like confrontation between the savior of old Detroit and the machine who was out to end mankind. So, lets go out and do our review at night, because the HK's can see us during the day.

The game feels like an average scroller/shooter game, as you start out in what is probably Old Detroit as Robocop, out to clean the streets of whatever nuke-using thugs are out there. You get the basic “unlimited ammo automatic handgun” to start out with, though there are some good and somewhat original weaponry available throughout the game, such as a grenade launcher that lets you can control where the grenades hit. There is a wide array of weapons available, and most of them are actually useful to an extent.

Bethesda Games knew exactly what it was doing when it produced this title, as there are many references to both films in the many levels available. Old Detroit, the construction site of Delta City, the OCP offices from Robocop, the human base, the T-800 factory, and a fairly imaginative rendering of Skynet itself from the Terminator series are the levels where the action takes place. Most of the missions are just "kill everything and get to the end of the level and fight the boss" type levels, though there are some where you have to save hostages and destroy certain objects. Meh.

Also, going through the game, you never get to play as the Terminator. Granted, I know there is some sort of history between the two in the Dark Horse comics series the game is based on, but I mean, how can you have a game called Robocop vs. The Terminator and not be able to play as Ahhnuld? I don't care about the back story (especially when they don't really tell you during game play) and I was semi-let down by not being able to at least play one mission as the Terminator.

Another downer is the fact that this game is so crazy difficult. I can only make it to the third level on the normal difficulty, and that is a bummer. But if you gather your strength, skill and stamina (ahem: be a cheater, like me), you can gain a look into what lays later in the game. It is utterly spectacular, the graphics, the looks, the feels, almost everything. In fact, the only two things I truly have against RvT, besides the difficulty and not being able to play as the T-800, are the sound effects and the so-so jumping.

The sound effects are poor, especially when Robocop gets hit with something or dies. Also, the jumps just don't look or feel right to me. The final boss doesn't make sense to the rest of the story either, seeming how there was every boss under the Sun before you get to him (ED 209, RoboCop 2, big man with gun, T-800 with Machine Gun, etc.). You get there, and it's a giant endoskeleton head and some minions. How about fighting an H-K and then showing some over-the-top cut scene where Robocop shoots up the main computer network, and then have the game end with the rainy road and some text mish mash about how Robocop saved the day?

The imagination that this game elicits, at least to me, is worth the price of owning it. I think that is where it is at its best. Overall though, RvT is pretty much spectacular. It is certainly worth playing and trying to beat, even though it is quite difficult. Buy it and play it for hours. Just try not to eat too much of that baby food when you get tired from being lit up by the Terminator for hours.

Reviewer Score: 8.0   |   Avg. Reader Score: 8.5

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