The ending of Rogue City fell within a RoboCop movie fan’s expectation, with the demise of the Old Man and the toppling of the OCP main office. This should have a time of relative quiet in RoboCop’s story, at least until the events of RoboCop 3. However, some loose ends needed to be addressed. The mercenaries were still out there, somewhere, plotting something big. And it just so happens, they struck at the heart of Detroit’s finest before RoboCop had a chance to track them down.
Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business is a standalone adventure of Rogue City. The best way I can describe the game is a meatier chunk of content too big to be considered DLC, yet not significant enough to be a true sequel. The game is essentially the epilogue to the original game. Players take control of the titular tin man on a quest to drop the hammer of justice on the mercenaries who jumped ship when the payments stopped coming in.
It's important to note that Unfinished Business plays and feels exactly like Rogue City. If you are interested, you can check out my review of Rogue City to get the idea as to what to expect.
The game begins at the aftermath of an all-out assault on Robocop’s precinct. RoboCop drives to the garage like he normally does. But the heavy air of death and destruction leaves no room for words. Inside lay the bodies, both law enforcement and civilians alike, scattered everywhere you look. RoboCop analyses the crime scene in grim silence – no robotic comeback, no one-liners. The search ends in the OCP labs where Sgt. Reed tells him that the perpetrators took RoboCop’s chair. We didn’t know it then, but things were about to get more complicated.
We learn soon later that the mercenaries were back, and they were moving with purpose and intent. They stole RoboCop’s chair so they can interface with OCP tech and hijack it. The OCP Highjacker, as it’s being called now, is a piece of company property that needs to be retrieved. But really, it’s just an excuse to avenge the fallen. An ID badge dropped during the raid revealed that the mercenaries came from the OmniTower: a residential megablock where the police have no jurisdiction. But does that cause RoboCop to hesitate in the slightest? Nope.
Aside from the opening and a handful of scripted sequences, all events in RoboCop Rogue City Unfinished Business occur within the confines of the OmniTower. This place was supposed to be a form of affordable housing for thousands of people, think Peach Trees from the 2012 Judge Dredd movie, except with fewer food courts and more homeless encampments. That’s right. Even in this city within a city, OmniCorp couldn’t give a damn about the people who paid them money to live there. Frankly, I’m shocked they allowed them to stay after taking them for everything they’ve got.
RoboCop went straight into the lion’s den, expecting to clean the place up, while rooting out mercenaries who guard the OCP Highjacker. Well, things didn’t go according the plan, so Robo’s struck behind enemy lines, with an enemy that’s trying to buy time. The rest of the game is a series of shooting encounters and a few puzzles added for variety. It’s pretty much the same gameplay loop from Rogue City, but more compressed, to suit the big empty courtyards and long corridors.
RoboCop will have help from the tower residents. But we’ll get to that part later. Robo finds new allies in Stella and Steve. Both instantly see opportunity to get stuff done with Robo around, so they trade access for favors. These two were an unexpected bright spot in a not-so-short epilogue adventure. Their storyline late in the game was also somewhat entertaining. We also have our guide, the mysterious Miranda Hale, leading us to the mercenary’s hideout. Looking back, I think RoboCop may have been too harsh on her. But stuff happens… I’ll leave it at that.
The game’s combat is exactly the same as it was in Rogue City. I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing, considering this is an adventure that takes place after the original game. The Skills system, however, had a slight change to it. You can regain health from fuseboxes at level Vitality instead of it being a higher-level perk. The biggest change in combat is the newly added executions that pop up whenever an enemy is within grabbing range.
There are only a handful of new weapons in the game. Namely, the Cryo Gun, minigun, and katanas. I don’t know about you, but the mercenaries must have spent their remaining budget on experimental ice guns and robot ninjas. Well, that’s not completely accurate. The mercs brought with them drones and other advanced tech. So, really, that’s money well spent on a threat like RoboCop.
In between mercenary-controlled floors, there are a few civilian floors where the other half of Rogue City’s gameplay loop appears. It is in these areas that RoboCop can take a little break and respond to requests from the locals. It’s like being on patrol in Downtown Detroit but on a smaller scale. Civilians can approach you with everything from noise complaints to looking for missing persons. Since you don’t have jurisdiction to arrest anyone inside the building, the most you can do is issue a ticket. Though sometimes it’s better to issue a warning to scare the daylights out of offenders.
The biggest issue I encountered while playing the game was the number of random crashes. I was at wits’ end at some places. Thankfully, it didn’t happen too often. The worst it got was back-to-back crashes 10 minutes apart. Teyon has since addressed the issue with a hotfix released on July 22nd. That’s good news for the people who haven’t played it yet. It’s a small comfort for the rest of us, though.
Another issue being addressed right now is the one where Robo needs to have a weapon in hand, else everything breaks. This has happened to me a couple of times, and I’ve managed to fix it by punching a nearby gun and then picking it up before the animation finishes. Somehow, that fixed the issue. I’ll take that over reloading a quick save. Actually, I don’t even trust quick saves either. I got hardlocked during an escort mission when it loaded me out-of-sync with what was supposed to happen. Good thing I had a manual save to fall back to.
What I really liked about the game is the alternate perspective sequences where parts of the story are told through the eyes of other characters. Playing as Dr. Hale and Lt. Cole provided more context to what’s really going on in the background. Of course, I can’t forget about the Alex Murphy flashback and the ED-209 sequence. Officer Murphy sounded a lot different than what I had in mind. The Colt 1911 was nice to use, briefly as it was. ED-209 was as lethal as it was in the movies. And yes, stairs are still its one fatal weakness.
From the moment I fired the Cryo Gun for the first time, I knew it was a weapon I’d never part with. Aside from being overpowered as all hell, the lingering frost effect it leaves behind was something I couldn’t get enough of. If they make another RoboCop game in the future, I will pay good money to have the Cyro Gun be added to my arsenal.
RoboCop Rogue City Unfinished Business is a fitting epilogue to the sleeper hit that honored the source material it was inspired by. I truly believed that Unfinished Business was going to be a simple clean-up job, Judge Dredd style, through Peach Trees. I was wrong. Instead, we got what was advertised – an adventure too big to be DLC, and more. I highly recommend playing this game after finishing Rogue City, even when you can play this as a standalone adventure. I think you’ll appreciate the product even more after playing the base game. Now, if they can roll out those bug fixes more frequently, that would be appreciated as well.
RoboCop Rogue City Unfinished Business Review
RoboCop Rogue City Unfinished Business is a fitting epilogue to the sleeper hit that honored the source material it was inspired by.
The Good
- More Rogue City goodness
- A fitting epilogue for Rogue City
- The different perspectives enhanced the overall experience
The Bad
- Random crashes
- Noticeable FPS drops between zones
- Potential for sequence breaks
