Robocop is a hybrid game, featuring elements from both beat 'em up as well as run and gun titles.
Release
Despite being an arcade game, numerous versions appeared for home computers and video game consoles. The first group was released in 1988 for the Apple II, PC compatibles, Amiga, and Atari ST. The Apple and PC ports were developed by Quicksilver Software, while the Amiga and ST versions were developed directly by Ocean. Data East published the game in North America. A NES port followed in 1989, developed by Sakata SAS Co, and a version for the TRS-80 CoCo 3. Ocean developed and published a version for the Game Boy in 1990. In 1989, Ocean released a different Robocop game that only bore a loose resemblance to the arcade; this version was produced for the Commodore 64, MSX, ZX Spectrum, Tandy Color Computer 3 and Amstrad CPC, as well as PC compatibles, meaning that PCs ended up with two entirely different Robocop games for North American and European audiences. As with many Ocean C64 titles, both cassette and disk versions were released; the North American release was based on the disk version. All C64 RoboCop versions were notorious for having high numbers of bugs; in 2015, cracker group Nostalgia released a completely bug-fixed Robocop compatible with both PAL and NTSC machines. A port of the game for the Atari Jaguar was planned but never released.
Reception
In Japan, Game Machine listed RoboCop on their February 1, 1989 issue as being the second most-successful table arcade unit of the year. The ZX Spectrum version of RoboCop achieved particular critical success, receiving a CRASH Smash award from CRASH, 94% in Sinclair User and Your Sinclair gave 8.8 out of 10, also placing it at number 94 in the Your Sinclair official top 100. The overall opinion was that this game was better than the original arcade game. Its capture of the original material, smooth scrolling and animation, sampled speech and sound effects were highlighted. In addition, the ZX Spectrum RoboCop was one of the biggest selling games of all time on that platform and was number one in the sales charts for over a year and a half. It entered the charts in April 1989, and was still in the top five in February 1991. The readers of YS voted it the 9th best game of all time. The title theme of the OceanSoftware versions has become well known for its serene, calm tune, which heavily contrasted the tone of both the actual game and the source material; the version of the theme heard in the Game Boy port was later licensed by European kitchen appliance company Ariston for use in a series of TV adverts. The song was also used as the theme song for Charlie Brooker's documentary, How Videogames Changed the World, as well as the music for the Internet short, "Dilbert 3". The song was sampled in Lil B's song, "In Down Bad", from his mixtape "White Flame".
