RoboCop (history and reception)

Akagi Masumi's list of arcade games dates Data East's RoboCop to January 1989 in Japan and files it under Data East USA in February 1989. Computer Entertainer wrote in April 1989 that the coin-op had been doing well in the arcades since its release the previous November. robocop-history/arcade

The list gives year and month only. The two American dates disagree by three months, and neither gives a day; "last November" in an April 1989 issue reads as November 1988.

Cited by: RoboCop

The Famicom booklet says the game is licensed from Ocean: its back cover reads "Licensed from Ocean Software Limited." robocop-history/license

Cited by: RoboCop

Nintendo Power's NES guide credits the game design to Data East USA under license from Ocean Software. Your Sinclair reported in December 1988 that Ocean had secured the license long before the coin-op company, which had to get it from Ocean. robocop-history/license-reports

Cited by: RoboCop

At the Summer Consumer Electronics Show of June 1988, RoboCop made an appearance, posing for photos in Data East's section of the Nintendo booth, to promote Data East's coming NES game, priced at $44.95 and described by Computer Entertainer as an action-adventure following the film's plot. robocop-history/ces-1988

The report doesn't say who appeared as RoboCop.

Cited by: RoboCop

Nintendo Power's first issue (July/August 1988) announced that Data East would soon introduce RoboCop, "this near future science fiction adventure". Its second (September/October 1988) recalled the announcement and said it had found no more details. Its November/December 1988 issue listed RoboCop for February in its release schedule. robocop-history/nes-announced

Cited by: RoboCop

In April 1989, reviewing the Commodore 64 game, Computer Entertainer still described an NES RoboCop as planned. robocop-history/nes-planned

Cited by: RoboCop

RoboCop came out for the NES in North America in December 1989, with Data East as licensee. robocop-history/release-nes

Nintendo Power's Players' Picks ranked RoboCop twelfth in January/February 1989 and eleventh in May/June 1989 (robocop-history/players-picks), most of a year before this month; no source read explains the gap.

Cited by: RoboCop

Nintendo Power's Top 30 table has a Players' Picks column beside Pros' Picks and Dealers' Picks. Its January/February 1989 issue, which introduces the table with "We hear you loud and clear", ranked RoboCop twelfth among the Players' Picks with 1,091 points, between Gauntlet and Bases Loaded. In the May/June 1989 issue it was eleventh with 1,465 points, behind Bad Dudes and ahead of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. robocop-history/players-picks

Neither issue says how the points are counted or who votes. Nintendo's list dates the NES cartridge to December 1989.

Cited by: RoboCop

A Japanese retrospective catalog dates the Famicom RoboCop, from Data East, to 25 August 1989; the Famicom booklet carries a 1989 Data East copyright. robocop-history/release-famicom

The catalog is an unsigned retrospective that names no source for its dates.

Cited by: RoboCop

The Famicom booklet's back cover carries the copyright line "©1989 DATA EAST CORP." with Data East's address in Suginami, Tokyo, and the line "©1987 Orion Pictures Corporation." robocop-history/famicom-maker

The OCR garbles the company name; the scout read it on the page image. The Internet Archive item gives the code DFC-CP.

Cited by: RoboCop

Chris Scullion's NES encyclopedia lists the NES RoboCop as a 1989 game published by Data East and Ocean and developed by SAS Sakata and Data East. robocop-history/nes-makers

No credits from the cartridge, box, or NES manual have been read; Ocean's part is read here as European publisher, which the entry doesn't say.

Cited by: RoboCop

Scullion describes the NES game as six side-scrolling stages (Old Detroit, City Hall, a warehouse, OCP Headquarters, a steelworks, and the OCP boardroom) in which RoboCop punches and shoots his way through. He has a health meter and a battery that runs down regardless and needs new batteries. The bosses include two fights with Clarence Boddicker and two with ED-209. robocop-history/nes-structure

Cited by: RoboCop

Nintendo Power's November/December 1989 guide picks up after the first stage's street patrol. In Stage 2 the mayor is held for ransom in City Hall, where some windows hide snipers. A bonus stage follows in which hitting 30 targets within 38 seconds earns an extra life. Stage 3 sends RoboCop after Clarence Boddicker in an old factory, where a Cobra Gun waits, and Stage 4 after Dick Jones, vice president of OCP, who hides with ED 209 in the factory that built it. robocop-history/nes-guide

Read in the OCR text, which scatters the captions; the Stage 3 suspect is Clarence ("Cjarence Boddicker" in the OCR). The guide's map labels the stages "STAGE E" (2) and "STAGE U" (4) in the OCR.

Cited by: RoboCop

The Famicom booklet calls the game an action game in which the cyborg police officer RoboCop faces one crime after another, defeats the villains, and solves the cases. He fights with punches and a gun, but in some places the gun can't be used and he has only his fists. robocop-history/famicom-premise

Cited by: RoboCop

On the Famicom the control pad moves RoboCop and picks his direction of attack: up enters doors, climbs stairs and raises gondolas, and down crouches, descends stairs and lowers them. B punches, and A fires the gun, punching instead when the gun is put away. Select guards against enemy attacks, and Start pauses. The gun fires diagonally up and down as well as in the four directions, and he can shoot and punch while crouching. Controller II isn't used. robocop-history/famicom-controls

The OCR renders the button symbols as ⑧ and ⑳ and drops them from these lines; the scout read them on the page image.

Cited by: RoboCop

The Famicom screen shows two gauges, T, a timer that falls with time, and P, power that falls with damage; the game is over when either runs out. A player can continue up to three times. robocop-history/famicom-gauges

Cited by: RoboCop

The booklet lists three guns for RoboCop. The Auto 9 he starts with has unlimited ammunition; the machine gun has a shorter range but fires rapidly, which helps at close quarters; and the Cobra cannon is a gun of outstanding destructive power, with only 2 shots per pickup. Yellow power food restores 3 points of the power gauge and blue power food 10, and a battery pack restores 3 points of the timer gauge. robocop-history/famicom-weapons

Cited by: RoboCop

Indicators warn RoboCop as he goes: an infrared scanner flashes when there is an obstacle he can destroy, an attack identifier flashes when an enemy appears that only punches can beat, and a range finder flashes faster as he nears the boss. robocop-history/famicom-indicators

Cited by: RoboCop

After stages 2 and 4 comes a bonus stage of target practice: the player aims at targets that appear one after another and scores by how many are destroyed within the time limit. robocop-history/famicom-bonus

Nintendo Power's NES guide puts a bonus stage after Stage 2, City Hall (robocop-history/nes-guide).

Cited by: RoboCop

Computer Entertainer recommended the Commodore 64 RoboCop in April 1989, with three and a half stars for graphics and three and a half for game play. It called it a game by Ocean Software and Data East that "plays very much like Data East's coin-op version" and follows the movie plot "quite closely": RoboCop walks the streets of Old Detroit, rescues a hostage from a criminal, identifies the thug from mug shots, goes into a warehouse that turns out to be a distribution center for cocaine, and learns that the Senior Vice President of "the company that turned him into a bionic crime fighter" leads the worst of the city's crime. It gave the price as $34.95 and listed Atari ST, MS-DOS, and Amiga versions as coming. robocop-history/c64-review

Data East published the game for American computers; its Commodore booklet carries Data East USA's San Jose address, a lead not pinned here.

Cited by: RoboCop

Previewing Ocean's Spectrum version in December 1988, Pete Shaw of Your Sinclair wrote that where the arcade game had only a streetfighting scenario, Ocean had packed nine sections into the Spectrum game, among them a streetfighting section, a warehouse section, an identikit section, a battle with Ed 209, and an alley off the main street where a girl has been kidnapped. He expected it with the film's video release in December. robocop-history/spectrum-preview

Read in the OCR text, which is clean for these lines.

Cited by: RoboCop

Crash's Christmas 1988 review describes the Spectrum game as three loads, one for 128K owners, opening with RoboCop on the beat in a horizontally scrolling section. RoboCop starts with four lives and an energy level refilled from baby food jars, and his ammunition is limited. An assault where a woman is held hostage switches to a first-person view. Meeting Emil, one of Murphy's murderers, sends RoboCop to the police's photofit library, where the face must be matched; the information leads him to a drugs factory. In the OCP tower he is attacked by ED209, and in the junkyard where Murphy was killed he confronts Clarence. robocop-history/crash-review

Read in the OCR text; the scout checked the photofit line on the page image.

Cited by: RoboCop

Crash rated the Spectrum RoboCop 92% overall, with 88% for presentation, 90% for graphics, 86% for sound, 92% for playability, and 91% for addictive qualities. Of its three reviewers, Mark (90%) found it "genuinely superior to the arcade", and Stuart (94%) called it "an instant Spectrum classic"; Phil gave it 91%. robocop-history/crash-verdict

{
 "review": "Crash",
 "of": 100,
 "scores": {
  "presentation": 88,
  "graphics": 90,
  "sound": 86,
  "playability": 92,
  "addictive qualities": 91,
  "overall": 92
 }
}

Mark's comment credits extra sections to "Michael Lamb and Dawn Drake" (the scout's reading; the OCR cuts the surname). The magazine prints first names only.

Cited by: RoboCop

Gallup's British chart of full-price games, as New Computer Express printed it on 29 July 1989, has RoboCop at number one, as in the week before, on the Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Amiga, and other formats. The same issue wondered whether Ocean's Batman would finally knock its own RoboCop off the top of the charts. On 9 September the paper reported that US Gold's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade had taken over at the top from RoboCop, which had sat there for a record 36 weeks. robocop-history/uk-chart

The 36 weeks is the paper's figure; the Gallup charts for those weeks haven't been read. The chart's formats line under RoboCop reads "Spectum 064, CPC. ST Amiga, Others" in the OCR.

Cited by: RoboCop

The Hit Squad reissued the Spectrum game on budget for £3.99. Reviewing it in January 1992, Sinclair User recalled that RoboCop had dominated the charts so long that the industry wondered whether it would ever be toppled, and Big Al Dykes gave it 92% overall. robocop-history/budget-1992

{
 "review": "Sinclair User",
 "of": 100,
 "scores": {
  "overall": 92
 }
}

The OCR of the score box is unreadable; the score and the reviewer are the scout's reading of the page image. The issue's contents index (data/contents/sinclair-user-119-1992-01.yaml) gives the byline as Garth Sumpter, which the score box contradicts.

Cited by: RoboCop