While it wasn’t to everyone’s tastes, RoboCop: Rogue City was a real breakthrough hit for developers Teyon. Having followed the dev team since the wonderfully awful Rambo game, and rather enjoying Terminator: Resistance, it’s great to see their progress being rewarded. While I enjoyed Rogue City a lot more than my erstwhile colleague, there were clear issues with pacing in that title as the beat cop aspects felt a little over represented. Unfinished Business feels like a direct response to that criticism as it is a far more focused and better paced adventure.
The retro stylings of RoboCop are clear to see, the shiny graphics engine notwithstanding. Old school tech, clunky electronics, green screen monitors and VCRs litter the environment. This retro feel is further compounded by Unfinished Business being a good old-fashioned standalone expansion rather than a DLC. This means that not only is it a complete narrative in its own right, but that you don’t need to own or even have played the original. It does follows on from the first game – which was itself set between RoboCop 2 and 3 – but also adds new origin lore so that, aside from some dialogue references, you wouldn’t miss out on anything by playing this first.
I played through Unfinished Business on PS5, having enjoyed the original on PC and although I always prefer mouse and keyboard for first-person titles, the tank-like nature of RoboCop means that it handles equally as well on controller. Teyon have really captured the feel of being a massive chunk of metal with the absence of any jump or crouch distinguishing gameplay from other FPS games. There are sections where you control other characters in Unfinished Business, such as with flashbacks to a pre-robo Alex Murphy, giving the opportunity to have traditional controls that contrast brilliantly with our main unstoppable cyborg hero.
The opening level of Unfinished Business is a traumatic one. The Precinct has been attacked and you investigate the carnage to discover that your OCP interface equipment has been stolen. Once you track the mercenaries responsible to the Omnitower – an OCP skyscraper that sits outside the jurisdiction of the police force – you set out to seek justice (and a bit of light revenge). The focused nature of the location here helps to avoid the somewhat frustrating meandering of the first game. There are still side quests and investigations to carry out, but they feel much more rooted to the central narrative than they did in Rogue City.
Once you find your way into the OmniTower, you are soon greeted over your communications by a mysterious ally who offers guidance and can hack some locked doors for you – their identity is key to the surprisingly effective story that adds a lot to the general lore of RoboCop. This is also expanded by the reveal of the main villain, a face from Murphy’s past with a twisted motivation of their own. Voice acting is solid throughout, and while some of the facial animations are a little uncanny valley this wasn’t enough to distract from the delivery.
The real meat of the game comes from the visceral combat and RoboCop has a wealth of weapons to wield. The default Auto-9 pistol returns and can be upgraded using different circuit boards as you progress. Some of the best boards are rewards for completing side quests and the parts you use to upgrade are hidden in OCP chests scattered throughout the tower. I found a high-powered board that gave me automatic fire and no need to reload, fulfilling the RoboCop power fantasy to a tee, even if it did make some of the later encounters a little too easy.
Alongside your trusty pistol there are many different weapons to pick up and use, and you can carry one extra alongside the Auto-9. These range from a simple pistol to assault rifles, a gatling gun and even some high-tech story related weapons so there’s never a shortage of firearms to mix up the combat. You can also pick up and throw environmental objects, as well as trigger special environmental takedowns when near particular parts of the scenery.
The focused nature of the location is accompanied by a plot that drives you through the game’s 8-10 hour play time. As mentioned above, the side quests are far more integrated into the main story and there isn’t the same kind of tedious downtime that plagued the first game (although I quite enjoyed the banal side of ticketing wrongly parked cars). Most of the characters you interact with have some function to aid your progression and there are some suitably funny interactions at times.
A minor complaint is that I did have a couple of small progress bugs where actions didn’t trigger in my review build, but these were very rare and always sorted themselves out after a quick reload.
