Robocop vs. the Terminator

Genre: Run-‘N-Gun Developer: Virgin Games Publisher: Virgin Games Players: 1 Released: 1993

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, let’s 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 decent and somewhat original weaponry available throughout the game, such as a grenade launcher that once fired 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.

Virgin Games knew exactly what it was doing when it produced this title, as there are many references to both films in the many levels of this game. Old Detroit, construction of Delta City, the OCP offices from Robocop and the human base, T-800 factory, and a fairly imaginative rendering of Skynet itself from the Terminator series are the levels in this game. 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 missions 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 back-story, but I mean, how can you have a game called Robocop vs. the Terminator and not have any actual Robocop vs. The Terminator action where you play as Ahhnuld? I don’t care about the back-story (especially when they don’t really tell you during gameplay) and I was kind of 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 the 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. The only two things I have against this game besides the difficulty and not being able to play as the T-800 are the sound effects and the jumping.

The sound effects are kind of icky, 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.) and when you get there it’s a giant endoskeleton head and some minions. How about fighting a 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 mishmash about how Robocop saved the day.

The imagination that this game elicits, at least in me, is worth the price of owning it. I think that is where the game is at its best. Overall though, RvtT is pretty much spectacular. It is certainly worth playing and trying to beat, even though it is pretty 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.

SCORE: 8 out of 10