245 · RoboCop

• Kitt is more than a car, it’s an extension of you, Michael Knight
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • The Movie
    • Police officer Lt. Alex Murphy, shot dead on the job, then reanimated as a cyborg ROBOCOP
      • There was a cartoon for kids too?
• Gameplay
  • beat 'em up/run and gun
    • Ammunition limit helps keep this varied
    • No jump
      • Bionic Commando, but without the explanation
  • Time Limit
    • You know how people complain about Open World game sidequests when the whole world is in danger? What if this time limit is the answer to that.
  • Energy/Power
    • Feels like they have them reversed?
    • Power should be strength. Energy should be HP
    • You have to collect these to stay alive
  • Inventory system
    • Something we wanted Contra to have
  • Cutscenes
    • Gorgeous sprite work with hilarious facial expressions?
• Music
  • There are only two songs in the game – a short rendition of the movie theme, and a boss tune
• Success
  • The arcade game was the highest-grossing arcade game of 1988 in Hong Kong, and reached number-two on Japan's monthly Game Machine arcade charts. On home computers, the game sold over 1 million copies worldwide, and it was especially successful in the United Kingdom where it was the best-selling home computer game of the 1980s.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • https://www.mobygames.com/game-group/robocop-games
  • There are actually three separate games based on the original movie. These include an arcade game, originally developed by Data East and ported to a few computer platforms by Ocean; a different game developed specifically for European computers as well as the Game Boy, which is a loose interpretation of the arcade game; and an NES game by Sakata SAS, a team who often worked with Data East on its NES games, which was ported to the TRS-Coco.
• EGL
• Next week - Bokosuka Wars
• NEStalgia Byte - Star Luster

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Robocop, the future of law enforcement.

00:19 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. And guys, it's worth saying I record that every single episode that and welcome to NEStalgia. I always do it the same way, but it has to be rerecorded every single time. It's not just a copy paste job. Yeah, we keep forgetting to save it. It's funny because I never hear you doing it again. So that's a little suspicious.

00:49 Whoa, that's a problem with your headphones, buddy. It just can't pick up that word. Right. In fact, if listeners are listening to this episode and they don't hear anything, that's a problem with their headphones. You guys probably want to get those checked out because right now you're just listening to silence. If you plug in your headphones, you should hear us.

01:06 Yeah, probably anytime you're listening to silence, the podcast is playing and there's something wrong with your headphones. Or if you're listening to silence, chances are you're not listening to the podcast, in which case you should be hitting play. True. Sean, what the hell are we here to talk about today? Well, there's a little something called Robocop and it's based off a movie also called Robocop from the 80s. It's an 80s movie, believe it or not, where there's a cop that's also a robot and he lives in Detroit and he raises a family. Okay, wait, but he wasn't always a robot.

01:46 He kind of raises robot, half robot, half human family. It's sort of like Sims, an early Sims-like. I also might not have played the right game. Interesting. Okay. Well, I'll tell you that Robocop was kind of a, he was a cop, then he got like shot on the job, then they reanimated his lifeless body into a cyborg Robocop and that's how he becomes Robocop. Forget that his name was Lieutenant Alex Murphy. They just like, yeah, scrap the name. He's Robocop now. Like, oh, you know what? I did lost his name. I did play this game. Oh, very cool.

02:25 Yeah. And if the movie wasn't enough, there were sequels to the movie and then a reboot of the movie. I saw a trailer for it that starred Samuel L. Jackson and just seemed kind of soulless, but that came out in like the 2010s, back when they were just remaking all these 80s action film stuff. And then there was a cartoon for kids too. And I don't think Robocop really lends itself to like animated kids cartoon Saturday morning stuff. Yeah, the movie's pretty violent. Yeah, it alludes to a misunderstanding of Robocop, I think. Sort of like Starship Troopers.

02:57 Well, because I do remember before I knew really anything about the movie, I had this really cool Robocop toy that had like a lot of different like light up functions and, you know, like laser sounds and stuff. And like, that's how I knew Robocop was from this cool toy. And then I saw the movie when I was a little older. I was like, damn, this is a violent movie. It's funny that you mentioned that, Joe, because with a lot of movie video games that we've been getting, they've been pretty safe bets like Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

03:23 But we also got Rambo at one point. And that's a violent like movie as well. What else did we get? We got another like anti-war movie that got turned into a video game as well. It was I can't remember what that one was. But my point being that sometimes we get these games that don't really feel like they're for the market that was playing NES video games at the time.

03:45 Robocop kind of bleeds into both territories. Like it's fine if you didn't see the movie because it's just a cool idea that this is a robot cop that you control like that works in video game form. I don't think kids needed to go see the presumably rated R movie to understand what was happening in the video game. They just maybe this was their only way to get access to Robocop. Yeah, but then it also like follows the plot beats for the most part. So that also is that.

04:16 But like you, they're also not very, you don't really need to know what the plot beats mean. They're just like, oh, that's the scene from the movie, but it also could just be a scene in a video game. It's no different than the Spider-Man 2002 video game that came out a week before the movie and spoiled the entire movie. You managed to beat it in time. You actually watched the Green Goblin get killed by the glider. And it's like, oh, now you spoiled the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it. Well, I'll tell you one thing that I definitely didn't spoil the part that Spider-Man is not allowed to fall from the buildings because they're just clouds below them.

04:56 Oh, yeah, right, right. Yeah, the buildings of New York City buildings are so tall that the clouds are below the buildings. But now I guess I've spoiled that part too, Joe. So you spoiled New York City. Yeah. Don't go on a trip to New York City. Now it's all spoiled. Bring it back to Robocop. I do think, though, that even if you were too young to have seen it, it was like, I feel like it was a big enough pop culture moment. And it was just like a part of the of like the pop culture of the day that like if you were a kid in the 80s, you were very aware of Robocop thought probably thought he was cool. And like if you hadn't seen it, you pretended you had seen it with your friends.

05:35 So like it was probably still enough to get kids interested in the Robocop game. I'm guessing Robocop is kind of in the same way. GameCamp is the Terminator for me. And funny enough, they did wind up making like a game on the Sega Genesis Robocop versus the Terminator, which is interesting as well. Like Alien versus Predator. Yeah. They never made that movie, though. They should have made Robocop versus the Terminator.

05:59 All this to say that, yeah, the movie doesn't really mean much to me. I grew up long after it and it's not really like in my cultural zeitgeist of things. So when I when I turned on the video game and everything, it was it was about what I expected for a Robocop movie video game, which is great because we've been getting a lot of movie video games that feel like they're really stretching out the idea of translating the movie into video game form. And Robocop just kind of gets it and makes it this action beat them up, run and gun crossover style game that just focuses on the violence of beating teenagers.

06:37 It seems like there's a lot of teenagers that I'm kicking the crap out of. I don't I don't know if they're just way shorter. Yeah, I guess that's what's giving me the right. I never thought about how big Robocop might be that he's like potentially seven foot like like his legs extended from his regular sized legs. Like, did they make him taller?

06:57 Not in the movie. Maybe in the video game. I think he is. He's taller. He's taller than human him. But I mean, it has been a long time since I've seen the movie. But what I going back to like this whole, oh, this is just a straight up video game version.

07:16 It is refreshing that something that simple in something that I think at the beginning of this podcast would be like, oh, we're going to be really sick of this. I'm just like just make it a side scrolling action game like it doesn't need to be a capitalism simulator with with Ghostbusters. Or you need to learn how to navigate open waters in Jaws or even something as down to earth as Knight Rider where it's it's more so about just the driving things, which I which which is still probably what you wanted to play with Knight Rider. But it wasn't what the what the show was fully about.

08:00 So, yeah, I was actually pleasantly surprised that it was this simple. And they make a choice to, you know, if I if I'm going to bring it close to Contra here, right, like they make it a choice to be both a beat them up with your your fists and close combat. And then in certain sections, you get to kind of use a gun. There are sections where you're not allowed to use a gun. That's not clear to me. So I'm not going to try to explain that. But basically, like sometimes you got to use your fists. And other times, I guess RoboCop deems it safe. Yeah, he just decides. Yeah. He decides for you. At first, I was like, oh, did I push a button that like unequipped my gun? But no, it's just not. You're not allowed to use a gun in that space.

08:40 So there is like this mix of both close combat action game and then this more Contra like run and gun style game where you can shoot in every direction, including diagonals, which is great. Always good to see a game that doesn't force you to just shoot up, down, left and right. But you do this in a world in which RoboCop, no matter how tall he is, cannot jump.

09:05 Well, I think I was also thinking about this. I'm like, well, did we ever see RoboCop jump? Like he's a big, heavy, like thing of metal. I don't know if I'm just if I'm giving them an out here or if that is sort of like canon. I kind of thought that about the whole way that he moves. He doesn't jump. He feels very heavy, moves very slowly. But in a way that seems like this like menacing. Yeah. Made of heavy metals, literally Terminator type character. Yeah, that kind of jokey walking like a robot, like as a joke.

09:41 Yeah. But it felt right from what I remember the way that he moves in the movie. I don't know that making someone in this type of 2D side-scrolling game feel like he moves like RoboCop also translates to like fun movement. But it felt, it didn't feel out of place. Yeah, I think the combination of the no jumping-ness.

10:12 Because whenever I think back to the movie, like I can hear like servos moving when he walks, but I don't know if that's just my brain playing tricks on me of what I should think to expect. But between that and the amount of punishment you can take from the enemies and just sort of the simplicity of his attack arsenal, whether it's guns or punches, it felt right. Yeah, it's not a bad design choice given that you're then forced to, you know, you can't skip over anything, right? But the problem becomes that the way that they design the levels is just a series of corridors and walking up or down stairs.

10:56 There's no platforming whatsoever, but there's no inventive like navigation system at all. It's just walk from the left to the right and then, you know, here's a staircase, go up that staircase. Now go from right to left. You will have a lot of trouble navigating. Yeah. Yeah, the staircases in particular, they didn't really work out the kinks there. You have to be in the perfect spot for those staircases to walk up or down them.

11:22 I think I had more trouble walking down them than up them for some reason. I also did, yes. Yeah, but it doesn't matter most of the time because as long as you clear the enemies off the screen, they don't respawn unless you also are moving. So it's fine. But there are some scenarios where it's very frustrating, where there's like a guy who it's like, they want you to go down the stairs and take care of him. But man, if I could just get down the stairs first, this wouldn't be a problem.

11:47 It's so silly because even when, like after I was done playing and I was like, okay, now how does, what does it look like when somebody that really knows how to play this game plays this game? And even like the no hit best run was like fumbling down the stairs. I'm like, okay, I feel related right now. I feel seen. Am I misremembering? I know that in Robocop, like one of the only things I remember is like the big bad robot in the end can't handle stairs.

12:16 But does Robocop himself at one point have trouble going downstairs in the movie? I like that we just keep canonizing faults. Yeah, I know. Like I'm not implying that I think that the developers did that on purpose. I just think it would be funny if that were the case. I vaguely remember that, but yeah, I don't think that it was an intentional design choice. I don't remember that.

12:42 In the movie, were there also people who tried to attack Robocop but just conveniently jump kicked over his head? Yes, most enemies. They would just jump kick over and they would just keep running. I thought that was funny that like most enemies are easily punishable, right? There's not too many other than guys with guns at a distance point that it's like, oh, I kind of got to also line up and make sure my diagonal shot or whatever lines up with theirs. Most people that are charging at you in this game are meant to just, you know, one hit KO. Robocop is, you know, all invincible and super strong and all that.

13:16 And that's fine. And that's fun. And it works from when you're supposed to feel like a badass. I think we were talking about this with Knight Rider. It's like, if Kit doesn't feel like the coolest car in video games, what's the point? And, you know, with Robocop, I think they kind of embraced his overpoweredness.

13:32 Maybe, I don't know, like the enemies themselves, though, could have been something more than just people that run up to you and try to punch you or people that jump kick over your heads. Or later on, it becomes machine weapons that shoot from a distance. Like, maybe they could have figured out something else to play with the idea that you can't jump, but other enemies can. It's kind of funny that the idea of that boils down to then them jumping over you and missing you completely.

14:01 Now, do you think that Robocop should have been more of like a beat-em-up? Or, I'm not implying that's what you're saying, but do you think this was the correct genre for a Robocop game?

14:13 I do think it was the correct genre for a Robocop game, especially after having played Contra. Like, this feels like people who learned the right lessons from a successful video game and, you know, pretty much ripped it off and fit it onto the, skinned it onto the appropriate IP. And for the most part, whether this game is dynamic enough to be played in 2022, it played just fine for me. Like, I was playing through the levels, I felt good about both the player skill and the game difficulty to enjoy this game enough.

14:45 I agree. I think that, you know, maybe even like the way that I'm talking about it, I'm not giving an accurate representation of how I felt about this game. I mean, I feel like the, on paper, I agree with everything you guys are both saying. I mean, I think this game played fine. I mean, it, you know, it, it made sense. I just didn't really have much fun with the, like, with the, the, the movement, I guess.

15:13 And like the, the gameplay loop. And it's hard for me to really put my finger on it because it's not that much different than like other kind of like side scroller beat them up ish games that we played like this. But it just, it just felt, even if it was intentional to make him slow and powerful feeling like that, just made it feel a little clunky to me. Like, like even. No, I totally get what you're saying. Even if I'm factoring in the fact that it was deliberate.

15:40 You know, it just felt like, it felt like it was clunky. Enemies never presented too much of a challenge. So like the combination of like my movement, it, it, it felt a little bit more like I was, there were a lot of times where I felt like I had to like kind of work through a chore of just getting through really boring parts of the level to get to the next interesting thing. And then there'd be an interesting boss battle that was pretty fun.

16:03 But like there was just a lot in between that felt like, like robotic. Yeah. I mean, I think that this game, um, there's nothing really crazy in terms of like the gameplay and what you do. Like there's a cool, like fun moments where there'll be like a trap, a trap wall that you have to break a wall to get through to not get crushed. Or like there'll be new enemy types, like helicopters that you have to shoot from below. And there's that hostage situation that's kind of fun.

16:40 They, they, they drew it out a little too long, but yeah. So there's little moments that, that break the monotony, but like what I liked about this game wasn't even so much how it felt to play or like the gameplay itself. I just, I think that if I can just move to like the visual presentation of this game for a bit, it's one of the coolest looking games that we've played on here.

17:05 Uh, so far to me, uh, whereas in a lot of these side scroller games, a lot of the games seem to take place into just like random corridors that have, uh, just textures. This, this, like you're, you're, you're, you're walking through the city of Detroit. You're going through like a, uh, a factory or you're in a, an office building. And the thing that I liked about this stuff is between the detail and the backgrounds and the character sprites, it actually felt like a real place that you're side scrolling through instead of just a, uh, a textured path.

17:44 So a lot of my enjoyment came from just the art of the game. Yeah. Even the, the RoboCop sprite is great. The, uh, cut scenes between levels are really, uh, cutting edge pixel art. Uh, maybe a little funny, uh, to some people nowadays, but I don't know. I thought it was, it was pretty gorgeous work, but I do agree with what you're saying, uh, Sean, but I did want to go back to what Joe was talking about with the, the movement. And I don't even think it's so much his speed or whatever.

18:14 I think it's just the lack of movement options in this kind of game that make, that might make the gameplay feel more monotonous, not necessarily boring, but repetitive and just nothing really changes. Yeah. We see, you know, new locate, new locations. We're following a very clear story. Uh, our character is very capable from the beginning. Doesn't necessarily gain any new power-ups, gain some new weapons along the way.

18:42 Uh, but nothing really changes from the beginning to the end of the game. So if you're not loving how this game starts out, there's good chance it's not going to evolve for you. And maybe that's what you were experiencing, Joe.

18:54 Yeah, I think that's it. Cause like I said, I agree with all those like things in between where I'm like, oh, this part's fun. And this is an interesting like break of the format, but like getting to them, um, just did not present anything fun. And also just, uh, for the record, I also agree that, uh, it looked a very good looking game, but, but just something about it was like, I think a lot of it. Yeah. A lot of it boils down to, uh, there being absolutely no variety when it comes to the actual like melee, like the, the hand to hand combat. Like you would almost think that like, maybe you should just get rid of that aspect of the game, just make it about shooting people.

19:36 Um, if you're not going to make it so that he has more than just a punch. I mean, yeah, taking out every enemy with just one punch, I guess that feeds the power fantasy, but it doesn't really lend itself to a very interesting beat them up portion of this Robocop game. I think if maybe if it was just even more focused, just make it contra like, and maybe add a couple more guns or more, uh, enemies with guns, uh, then it would have more variety from, from that, like more focused so that they can focus on that.

20:18 The Robocop UI or the stats that you have available to you are energy and power, but it feels like they have these reversed. At least if I understand it correctly in the manual in that the way that the game listed out is energy is if you have a lot of that, that's your strength.

20:38 And, uh, the power is like your, uh, electrical power and that's your, uh, HP. So if you run out of power, you run out of HP, but I feel like the power should be indicative of your strength and the energy should be your HP that if you run out of energy, you ran out of HP, not the other way, but I guess they're referring to energy as like the solar power of, uh, Robocop and the power as more of the electrical, like circuitry system of Robocop. Robocop. I don't know. I just thought this was funny. You have to collect these to stay alive throughout the level. It kind of acts like a time limit in some regards.

21:18 Cause if you, uh, you know, your power, which is the one that's HP. See how hard it is for me to remember this folks. Uh, your power just constantly drains again at a very slow speed though. So nothing to be too worried about. I thought it was energy that slowly drained. No, the energy is your strength, right? So, Oh, maybe you're right though. Maybe your strength slowly gets sapped out of you. I don't think it actually has any, obviously the one that is marked with a P. Yes. So power is the one that's marked with a T.

21:47 Well, that's the time. Yes. That's the time, which is also your energy. That's why it's like your, your, it's basically just your batteries running at you to go recharge and they just shut down on the spot. If you run out of it, uh, where, so like they should have just used one, like just call it either energy or power. And then the other one is damage. It doesn't, it's silly this way. Uh, cause I don't think like it doesn't have anything to do with your strength. Like your, your punches are, you're killing one hit one way or the other. So it's, yeah.

22:18 So the energy, the energy decreases gradually as you play and the manual helps clear this up because to give yourself more energy, just pick up battery rechargers. Sure. That's a thing that exists. And then for power to build up your power so that you can take more hits, pick up power food. The hell is that power food? It's like, you know, they had this whole conceit going of like energy and power. And like the power indicator shows you how many more times you can get hit to stay alive and just eat your power food. Folks like patented RoboCop power food.

22:52 Kale and beets I think are probably superfoods. Kale. That's funny. Uh, all this to say that it was just needlessly complicated, right? Like, uh, I, I think Sean, your solution is best of just give us one bar and just have us that be the HP. Well, I meant more so just name the one that, that has to do with your damage and just call it damage.

23:15 Oh, but then maybe that could be interpreted. Yeah. That could be interpreted as the damage that you do, not the damage you've received. But the power could be interpreted as the power of the enemy. Yeah. It's, it's better than the difference between energy and power. I'll be honest. I thought the power was indicating how much power I had left on my NES.

23:35 Oh yeah. I thought that it was just slowly draining my NES power. They say not to leave the carts on for overnight. That's also in the manual. Don't put them on a chair. Yep. All right. Next, next beat. Cause we're, we're definitely falling off the track here. Uh, there, there were guns in this game and we talked about how it's funny that Robocop lets you, doesn't let you choose whether it's time to use your guns or not. But when he does choose to use your guns, you have more than, uh, just the pistol, uh, available to you. So, uh, in the manual, they refer to them as the auto nine, the machine gun and the Cobra gun.

24:13 And the auto nine has unlimited, uh, shots, the machine gun and Cobra gun. You have to pick up the ammunition. The good news is, is that it's not like you pick up the Cobra gun and then you must use it until you run out of ammunition, which we've seen with a good amount of NES games.

24:30 This one actually allows you to pause the game. And then that creates like an inventory system where you can cycle through the guns, a system that, uh, I feel like a lot of games could have adopted. Uh, we've been talking about Contra a lot. So I'll bring that one up again. And that would have been great if you didn't have to just like sacrifice your current power up to then get the new power up. If you could have, uh, paused the game and cycled between them. I think there's a ROM hack for that, but, uh, Robocop just does it naturally in the game.

24:57 Uh, and that's, uh, the, I, I appreciate that we're seeing that kind of modernization. Cause I don't think that exists in any other game. There's like, uh, unless they're like, you know, okay. In RPGs, you'll have to go to a separate screen. That takes a full couple seconds to load. Uh, and then you go and you select the, the, uh, acts of might or whatever. And then it takes a couple seconds to bring you back to the screen. And now you can use it, but just pause, press up or down or select, select, whatever.

25:29 And then your weapons there and you get back right to the action. I just appreciate how seamless it is. It's very good. But also, and I don't want this to be just another situation where we're trying to find, uh, uh, like canonizing faults in the game. And we really, we definitely should have rewatched this movie before recording this episode. Um, but is it the thing in Robocop where like his computer decides when it's okay to use gunfire? Is that a thing? Oh, like he's being told by the police.

26:04 Yeah. Is that a gun? Yeah. That's what I'm, that's what I'm thinking. Maybe. I don't know. I think that that rings a bell. I only saw the movie one time, but I feel like there was like a point where he couldn't because there was an innocent person or like there was, it was, I could be just totally off. But like that, that something was tricking his computer into like thinking that it was that like there was too dangerous to use a gun or something. I don't know. I like it when we just guess. Yes. I like that you've made me look it up just to see if I could find anything.

26:38 And, um, the main weapon used by Robocop is the auto nine, which is true. It's also in the game here. Uh, it's a Beretta 93R machine pistol in real life, but it was heavily modified for the film featuring a longer barrel with an enormous, uh, uh, flash hider shaped like a casket, blah, blah, blah. But then I like it at the end, the guy goes on a rant about how like, you know, Robocop fires this weapon in three round bursts, but the fictional stats of the weapon, which is funny in itself that there's fictional stats for a weapon claim. It has an implausibly huge 50 round magazine, which where would they be hiding those extra rounds of ammunition? Well, that's why he's so tall. It's in the shoes.

27:23 Yeah. Okay. Well that much is true, right? Like he does, he has the gun like in his leg. That part I remember. So the actual magazine is in the leg. No, no, no. He takes the gun. Like his leg opens up and he has, he takes the gun out from there. So yeah, maybe he puts it back in and it gives him the other 40 rounds. I don't know. We should just name this episode as a supreme misreading of Robocop. No, this is just like her story. Okay. The video game. We are, we are using keywords to find out the plot of the Robocop movie without forcing ourselves to rewatch a, uh, probably 95 minute movie on a, on the good news last week. Uh, Knight Rider didn't have the theme song.

28:11 Robocop has the theme song, albeit a very short rendition. You gotta, you gotta hand it to him. That's important. They really worked it in there. Yeah. We think, we think that's the theme song. No, it's the theme song. I'm serious. I'm just kidding. I know. Oh, I get it. Yeah. Now I understand. And if you're figuring it out too, just now, then congratulations. You're slower than me.

28:57 We could also talk about the boss fights where we kind of glossed over that stuff. We could talk about the variety of the enemies. I don't necessarily think anybody wants to hear what we have to say about that kind of stuff. Because it's just moral. I'd like to talk about the, uh, the heads up display.

29:13 Sure. Just because last week we had, was last week we had Knight Rider? Yeah. We did. Um, so last week we had Knight Rider and we talked about that, how that was kind of like an important part in making you feel like it was kit, you know? And I feel like there's room for that interpretation for RoboCop because like the only other thing other than like you being really powerful and, and blue and metallic that makes you feel like a robot or a cyborg is like this heads up display. I don't think that they put as much love into it as they did in, um, in, uh, Knight Rider. Knight Rider.

29:52 Um, but like I, I, I see what they were trying to do with some things that feel like they weren't necessary. Like the, in the heads up display, you have like an indicator that tells you how close you are to the boss. You also have, um, you have like an infrared, uh, like indicator that tells you when you're using your infrared technology, which I actually think is a very good thing because it takes that problem we've had with other games where there's like a hidden door that you would never find unless you knew where it was. And it gives you a hint as to where it is.

30:26 Um, it, you know, it tells you when you're using, when you're able to use which weapons. There's also an, another one. I can't remember what this is that I'm looking at here, but it's an E on the right. And it did have a function. I don't remember. Does he have ammo you have? Yeah. I think that E is just like, Oh, you're, you're low on health right now. Even though the indicator for health is right there.

30:48 Yeah. I mean, again, so it's something you don't really need because you can see your health, but it does like lend itself a little bit to the like, Oh, you're a robot. And this is like your heads up display telling you like the, the data of what's going on within your, within your suit or whatever you want to call it, like your body. Um, yeah, it's a little, it's a little clumsy because, uh, I don't think there needs to be something always on the screen that says, Oh, you can punch here. Like you're allowed to punch. Whereas, you know, there's only the one button for punching or shooting. And if you hit that button, that usually means that you're allowed to punch.

31:27 Um, and yeah, but I do, I do agree that sort of putting like a diegetic reason for the heads up display is cool. And this would be a situation where it makes sense, but it's a little total. It's not fleshed out. It's not very fleshed out. Yeah. It's like they put it there. Cause like, Oh, he's a robot. We should put that there. Let's throw a bunch of shit in it that you can look at, but it's like, doesn't feel like it, it doesn't feel exactly right. But I get what the, what the idea was.

32:13 The arcade game was the highest grossing arcade game of 1988 in Hong Kong.

32:23 Specifically on Tuesday. I just think that's so funny that like what warrants getting a mention on like Wikipedia versus what doesn't, you know? Um, granted Wikipedia is for the whole world and Hong Kong is part of the world. Part of the world. Yep. So got to be included, but I don't know. They never told us what the highest grossing arcade game in France was in 1988. They didn't have arcades. Well, maybe you just haven't looked up that arcade game's Wikipedia page. Yeah. I'll have to reverse search it. Uh, that's a advanced strat for you. Her story players.

32:57 Uh, also it reached, it reached number two on Japan's monthly game machine arcade charts. Again, another funny stat because is the game machine arcade charts like game machine is the company. So are they legitimate? Like who's tracking it? Is this just something they're putting out? What, you know, is number two something worth writing down?

33:21 Yeah. I don't know. I question just the specificity in the success of this game. On home computers, the game sold over 1 million copies worldwide. Is that a lot? Like, I'm confused. I mean, that sounds kind of a lot. Home computers all over the world. 1 million computers only in Hong Kong. Yeah. It was especially successful in the United Kingdom where it was the best selling home computer game of the 1980s. Okay. That's definitely a stat. That feels big. We got there. We got there eventually. Home computer thing. Yeah. Nothing about the success of the NES game at all. But don't you worry, RoboCop fans. There's a ton of RoboCop games. There's RoboCop, RoboCop, RoboCop 2, RoboCop 2, RoboCop 2, RoboCop 2, RoboCop 2, RoboCop!

34:32 by different companies. It's crazy. Well, because they're all named RoboCop 2 because they're named after RoboCop 2 the movie, right? Yes, yes. Okay. I think that it's like, they're like, oh, they made a RoboCop game. This is RoboCop 2. It's like T-O-O. And they're all RoboCop 2.

34:49 RoboCop as well. Yeah. More interesting stats as we go down the line here. Last week, we played Knight Rider, and that was Acclaim Entertainment and Pack-In Video was the developer. Neither of them go on to make the RoboCop game, but Ocean Software, who usually gets these game licenses, got the license to make RoboCop games for every platform but the NES, where Data East took the license for the NES games. And so, guys, we played a Data East game, and we didn't complain that much.

35:29 Yeah, it's kind of crazy. And they even put their logo on a bunch of stuff, actually. Right. They were so proud of it. It never affected me. I never thought, you know, I don't have that association with Data East, like, where it's that poor. So, I never started the game and was like, oh, don't have high expectations for this. I just kind of jumped right into it. But, yeah, who publishes the game doesn't really matter much to me. I don't know about you guys. No, it's only in hindsight that it's like, oh, that makes sense. Yeah, it's usually, honestly, only during the recording of the podcast that I start thinking about that. Right.

36:04 And there are actually three separate RoboCop games based on the original movie. There's an arcade game, which was originally developed by Data East and then ported to a few computer platforms by Ocean. A different game developed specifically for European computers as well as the Game Boy. So, the Game Boy version didn't get an NES port. It got a European computer port. And then there's the NES game, which we played today. And we will play RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3 all on the NES. So, excited to see if they ever let them jump. Well, don't we also have RoboCop versus Terminator on NES? That's SNES.

36:45 Yeah. I'm so sorry for your loss. But when we get to SNES-salja. Yes. Yep. Bound to happen. Just wait. 2044. When we're old and alone. Interesting thing. We're going to do them all alone. Interesting thing about the RoboCop versus the Terminator title screen. They chose to use the Terminator that is just the, after all the flesh has been burned off of him. Like, so it's just the robotic skull. I'm surprised they didn't go for the Arnold Schwarzenegger look on the title screen since RoboCop is completely armored.

37:24 Well, I think that the Terminator skull is more iconic than just Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know? Like, you show me that, and I might think that I'm playing like a daddy daycare simulator or something. Plus, if you see... I don't think he was in daddy daycare. Sorry. I think you're thinking of kindergarten cop. Kindergarten cop. Same thing. But also, if you see it, like, and you don't know of Terminator, you're just like, oh my God, this dude is going to fight that robot? Like, at least you see two robots. Yes. Cyborgs, I guess. They're both technically different types of cyborgs, but... Yeah, that is the point that in RoboCop versus the Terminator, a game that we're going into a lot of depth on, for one, we will never be playing.

38:07 You fight all of the Terminators, you know? So it's not just the Arnold Schwarzenegger version. It's all the robot wars part, which is interesting. I wonder if that works into the canon at all. I know that both the Terminator and RoboCop are in Mortal Kombat 11. That's, you know, that's interesting, right? That's true. So, yeah, maybe the same company must own both of them.

38:35 Apparently, Sean, what you were thinking of, Daddy Daycare, that stars Eddie Murphy. I know, I know. Eddie Murphy. When you type in Eddie Murphy robot, there's not many movies that populate. I made a mistake, guys. Well, you're not allowed to make a mistake in this next section because it's legally binding, whatever you put down. And that is something we do every week called the Essential Games List.

39:05 Sean, your legally binding vote. Well, before I cast my legally binding vote, I just, again, want to apologize to all of our listeners who are fans of RoboCop, like, more than just, like, cursory fans of the movie. Like, if you actually knew the answers to the things that we were just sort of guessing and kind of showing a lot of disrespect to whoever that was that played RoboCop. There's, okay, wait, can I clear this up? There's no way he didn't jump in the movie. There's no way he was, like, that tall, that he was taller than regular people by that much.

39:42 There's no way that his gun holds 50 rounds. Like, I know these things. It's not like I went in that blind. I'm not talking about just you, okay? There's several of us on this show. Okay, that's true. All right. Yeah, we don't all think Eddie Murphy was the Terminator.

40:01 Well, anyway, aside from that, there's your apology. I do like, I did enjoy the game. I did enjoy playing it. I liked the backgrounds. I liked the boss fights were cool looking. But other than that, they're, like, I will forget that I played this game in, like, a couple years because there really isn't too much going on for it in terms of the gameplay itself. It's just like, oh, cool, RoboCop. So it's not essential.

40:35 Joe? Yeah, I'd say that it's a very, to me, a very basic, I'd say average at best, like, side-scrolling game for me. And I personally just didn't have a ton of fun with it. You know, it wasn't, I wouldn't say I would, like, hate it or it was bad, but it just didn't, it did not catch me, like, really in any particular way other than, like, oh, kind of neat because it's RoboCop and it looks pretty. But, yeah, didn't love it and definitely agree that I will probably forget that I've played this maybe next week. So no, by the way. Yeah, so no. Thank you.

41:14 For me, RoboCop is a perfectly fine game and perfectly fine doesn't get you on the essential games list. Maybe I mean to say that I'm surprised that it wasn't terrible given the reputation that these movie games have on the NES. Yes, however, glad to see it break that streak, I suppose. But definitely, I wouldn't say I'm going to forget about it. I guess I'm going to use it as a reference point for, yeah, some movie video games don't suck, especially on the NES. You know, we don't really get movie video games at all now, right? Or at least maybe not the movies that I'm paying attention to. Like, they didn't make a nope video game, right?

41:55 I feel like they do, like, other, if it's like a comic book-y thing, they'll do, like, a game based on the content, or based on the original source because the movie came out. Yeah. You know, like they did Guardians of the Galaxy, which is not based on the movie, it's based on Guardians of the Galaxy, but, like, I don't think they would have made that if the movie wasn't successful. No Chris Pratt likenesses were harmed. Right. Yeah. It's kind of crazy that there was no Frozen video game.

42:23 Kingdom Hearts 3. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty much was a Frozen video game. And also, there's probably, yeah, there's also probably some mobile games that have this stuff, too. Like, maybe that all got pushed onto the mobile platform. Yeah, you think anyone's going to do a mobile retrospective in, like, 40 years, like how we are doing for Nostalgia? That's a great idea, Mike. Let's do it. All right. Another thing we'll sign ourselves up for. Next week, we got a big one. It's Shadowgate. A lot of people on the Discord, which is a Patreon-only thing, just go to our patreon.com slash nostalgia and join to get in on the Discord. A lot of people on the Discord have been talking about this, saying they can't wait for this episode.

43:00 Well, joke's on them, because everybody gets it, actually. You don't have to pay for it, but, you know, you still can listen. However, you can't listen to the exclusive Patreon episodes, where we're going to be playing games like Boko Suka Wars. Now, that sounds crazy, and you're like, I never heard of that NES game. You know the drill by now. It's actually a Famicom game, but it's completely playable without any knowledge of Japanese. So... Right. The whole deal. It's pretty damn cool, and it's worth $5 a month to listen to those episodes. A month? It's $5 a month. I would have paid $5 a week for that. Yeah, I think so. I'd easily put down $150 a week per day for one week each month. Wow. Have you tried using a different, like, uh...

44:22 note? Like a musical note that you would go up to? Like a, and welcome to nostalgia. Well, you don't have to, like, go up into falsetto, but you could be like, and... Instead of, and... Oh, not like, don't hold it. No, no, no. Like, you can hold it, just like at a different tone. And welcome to nostalgia. And... Welcome to nostalgia. And... Can you give me a B flat? And... Me, me, me. I'm gonna do it now. I'm ready. All right. And... Welcome to nostalgia. Chronological expository. Ch-