RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business – Review

We have a bit of a love-hate relationship with RoboCop: Rogue City, as it gave the iconic ’80s action hero a second lease on life, but it also didn’t do the iconic figure justice, as the 2023 game felt a bit undercooked. Nonetheless, even with its flaws, it still attracted a reasonable amount of attention, warranting the release of a standalone expansion. This brings us to RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business, an expansion that takes place after the events of the first game. We were curious to see if things were more polished and slightly more engaging, but in the end, we were treated to more of the same, albeit in a more compressed experience.

Story

In true 80s action flick fashion, Unfinished Business starts off with an attack on the DPD precinct, leaving loads of officers dead in the station. RoboCop investigates the scene, which leads him back to OmniTower, where the band of mercenaries behind this gruesome deed has been hiding. Even though it’s outside of DPD jurisdiction, RoboCop decides to confront the murderers anyway. What follows is a somewhat shallow and predictable action movie story that manages to slightly entertain. There’s nothing truly original here, but the plot serves as a decent premise for the constant shootouts that this game has to offer.

Graphics

Just like the original 2023 game, Unfinished Business didn’t immediately blow us away. The game looks fairly okay, but more like something that we would have seen on the previous generation of consoles. The environments constantly use the same assets, the villains consist of only a handful of models, and the overall area the game takes place in is rather limited. Quite a few visual glitches are present as well, and the lip syncing and facial features in general look horrific. It’s rather weird to just see RoboCop pucker his lips while a full spoken dialogue comes out. There is a fair amount of blood and gore present that does distract from all the other graphic inadequacies.

Sound

The sound design isn’t half bad here. The iconic theme song is embedded in certain parts of the gameplay quite nicely, and the overall background music is also decent. It’s perhaps a bit understated due to the many gunshot noises, but it blends together nicely. The voice acting is also fairly decent, but it doesn’t stand out. We did appreciate the fact that the game does have quite a few voiced dialogues.

Gameplay

RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business is a standalone expansion of 2023’s RoboCop: Rogue City. Just like the original, Unfinished Business is an FPS with some RPG mechanics and a few open-world mechanics. The environment of Unfinished Business is a lot more limited, however, as almost the entirety of the game takes place in the same location. We can already state that if the 2023 release was your cup of tea, you’ll probably enjoy this one as well. This one also includes similar gunplay and upgrade mechanics.

While there are a few new additions to the gameplay loop, such as a flashback mission, there is nothing new here. You’ll constantly be doing the same motions from start to finish, where you breach a door, shoot down a couple of bad guys in a slow-motion sequence, and then pick off the remaining enemies afterwards. Most enemies just stand still, often not even behind cover, trying to gun you down. At times, we felt the way the enemies were waiting to be shot would be more suitable for a Time Crisis-like formula, where you blow enemies to smithereens while moving on rails. RoboCop is, of course, one of the slowest protagonists ever, and while it does make sense given his robotic carapace, it just gets old quickly. Luckily, there is a dash-like skill that does make certain segments a bit more bearable. The gunplay isn’t too bad, and it’s rather satisfying how brutal RoboCop can be, but we felt that hitboxes weren’t always that accurate either.

The fact that Unfinished Business is a fairly generic by-the-numbers affair isn’t its biggest issue; the fact that it’s also unpolished is what truly drags down the experience. Everything just feels rough around the edges, unfinished (no pun intended), and too shallow to be entertaining. Luckily, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome, as you’ll probably be finished with what Unfinished Business has to offer in roughly 8 to 10 hours. The price of entry is also lower as a result, but still a bit too high for what you’re getting here.

Conclusion

RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business is a fairly decent standalone expansion of 2023’s Rogue City and provides pretty much more of the same. You’ll enjoy constant shootouts with one of the most iconic ’80s action heroes, albeit in a limited setting with quite a few rough edges. If you were a fan of the original game, you’ll certainly have fun with this one. If you were disappointed by Rogue City, then it’s best to skip this one altogether. All in all, it’s a decent shooter with some RPG elements thrown in the mix for good measure. You could do far worse, but there are many better options out there.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.