In this series of presumably semi-regular features, I’ll going to be bringing up games from the past that for one reason or another deserve another chance to shine. Whether that opportunity comes in the form of a re-release, a remake, or a sequel will be addressed case by case.
RoboCop versus The Terminator
Multi-Platform (1993~1994)
The original Terminator and original RoboCop movies are defining movies in my life. See somewhere in the mid 90s (around the age of 7~10) was when I first got to see these films, which was nearly a decade before I’d of been able to actually buy a ticket to see them. To this day I can remember my first exposure to them.
The Terminator was whilst my Nana & Grandad were taking care of me one weekend night, and my Grandad just happened to have it on TV and presumed it couldn’t be that big of a deal, or possibly assumed I’d be too young to be interested in it and just play with my toys. I was interested though, very. I found it somewhat terrifying. Unlike the movies that came afterwards, the first film is more of a thriller, a constant chase that seems almost one-sided and hopeless. As a kid it’s hard to distinguish you’re only watching a film, so when innocent people were being killed so casually it really left a mark. I kind of had to stick it out to the end because their was no way I’d of slept again for weeks unless I had some closure.
RoboCop on the other hand was at a friends birthday party. After the usual kid tasks like playing around in his back yard, and a bunch of us creating stories and directing fight scenes with action figures. A couple of went into the lounge were my friends dad was. I guess given he had no tasks to do in hosting this birthday party he was just chilling and had popped on RoboCop on VHS. A few of us sat down and joined in, we’d missed a little bit of the intro (most notably, boobs) and no prior warning was given to us kids about what we were in for. Within minutes we witnessed the graphic ED-209 “glitch”, and not soon after the brutal gunning down of Alex Murphy. I also always vividly remember the guy killed by Toxic Waste, his demise was so grim and I think I probably went quite a few years being cautiously fearsome of ever being around Toxic Waste.
Brief moment to give a shout outs to: Lava, Toxic Waste, Quick Sand, and bottomless pits. Thanks to video games I’d live my life worried I’d ever have an encounter with such a thing and succumb to it, numerous nightmares were had.
What I didn’t know as a kid was that a comic series for RoboCop vs Terminator came out by Dark Horse Comics by the hand of Frank Miller (you may know him from seeing his name on the “Sin City” movie, or perhaps you read his comics, his DareDevil run has had some influence on the Netflix series, as did his Year One and Dark Knight Returns Batman series).
Another thing I’ve only just learned about this game in doing research for this article was that similar to the “Aladdin” and “Jurassic Park” games, this game was not a ‘copy and paste’ job across all the different systems. It seems online there is mixed opinion over whether the Super Nintendo or Sega Megadrive/ Genesis version is the better game. Personally I grew up with this game on Game Gear, which looks to sit just slightly above the NES and Game Boy iterations in terms of quality.
Here’s the thing though. The games are just TOO damn hard!
Think about how clutch each encounter between T-800 (Arnie) and T-1000 (Robert Patrick) were in Terminator 2. The amount of ammo some of the common enemies you find in game can take and the sheer amount of them that bombard you is just cheap.
In each version of the game you play as RoboCop, you essentially walk through levels shooting at seemingly an infinite number of Terminators, robot drones, and dealing with the sort of obstacles you’d expect from a side scrolling action game of this era. One thing interesting about the games though (which might be taken from the comic?) is that you seem to fight a lot of lady Terminators, which would be the first time to my knowledge that anything using the Terminator brand series did that, until Terminator 3 & The Sarah Connor Chronicles came along.
I’m not sure what people thought of the music for the games back then but both the 16-bit soundtracks seem to do the job. The SNES and Sega version look different enough from each style-wise. Super Nintendo has comic book cutscenes which are a nice touch, were as Sega has simply a text scroll story into. However Sega has blood, which definitely was a selling point given the audience the movies were aimed for.
I quite liked the box arts used universally across Europe simply because it portrays the iconic characters known from the films, in comparison the US games go for a more simplistic Skynet-esque design. I did come across a reddit thread showing the Super Nintendo box standing out with some style though, not sure if this was all prints of the game or a limited run. Go check it out >>here<<
I’m definitely not suggesting these specific games get re-licensed in order to make them accessible for people today, because they are by no means relics, and aside from some overpriced sellers on eBay you can still get the originals cheap enough if you so wished.
What I would welcome would though, would be a First Person Shooter (or possibly even a Third Person in a ‘Gears of War’ kind of heavy feeling style) that uses the license to great effect. RoboCop and Terminator have iconic characters, settings, weapons, and plenty more lore to pull from (for better or worse). Another way I’d welcome a reboot of the RoboCop vs Terminator idea would be as a Metroidvania-esque game similar to games like Shadow Complex, the latest Strider, Headlander, or Alien Infestation.
It’s easy to play arm chair game developer and talk about how something would be great if… but it would definitely come down to whomever hands such a project fell into, and if the publisher behind it was willing to put into the game. If the money was only going into paying for the RoboCop and Terminator licenses and farm something and just hope for the best then we’d just end up with history repeating itself.
Sure I’m sort of pitching this idea based off the fact I enjoy both the original movie franchises (some far far more than others) and would love more from this pre-existing crossover series and the potential I feel it could have in the right hands. Crossover titles have worked well on a few occasions in the past, and it could be a great way for both franchises to boost their brand values if the final product was good. Star Wars has had a number of great spin-off video game titles existing within that universe, and to some people specific games hold nearly as much beloved nostalgia to them as the actual film series do. Perhaps RoboCop and Terminator could finally have some games that do those universes some justice too (no pun intended).
I ought to pick up the SNES and Megadrive versions for cheap one day and play them when I feel I’ve played too many modern games and need put my privileged ass in back it’s place.