RoboCop: Rogue City is one of the best 7 out of 10s I’ve ever played. In just under two years, developer Teyon has refined everything that made that title great, in the expandalone – Unfinished Business. RoboCop is heading to the OCP Omnitower. My playthrough lasted for roughly 7 hours. While it was more fun than ever, it wasn’t all sunshine and chrome.
Omni Tower
The majority of RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business takes place in the OCP Omni Tower. It is a massive leviathan of an unfinished building. A decrepit statue of all that is wrong in RoboCop’s Detroit of the 80s Future. The top floors of the building have been taken over by a mercenary force.
They are the main antagonists of the game, as though Omni Tower is technically out of police jurisdiction, a raid on RoboCop’s precinct that leaves most of his coworkers dead has him out for vengeance. Unfinished Business is mostly action with a few decently well-paced living areas in which you’ll get your detective and side-quest hat on.
The main story itself is a “fine” bit of revenge. It doesn’t feel like your choices matter to the same degree as they did in Rogue City. I’ll need to try multiple playthroughs to see, though, as you will occasionally play as characters besides RoboCop. There is a flashback level featuring Alex Murphy, the man before the machine, as well as a few other surprises I won’t spoil.
Those shifts from the walking tank into other types of FPS gameplay help keep the game fresh. Even with its short runtime, I could see murder fatigue settling in if you were only blasting mercs the entire time. That combat is as fun as ever, with the latter parts of the game making you feel like a God of death.
Dead Or Alive, You’re Coming With Me
If you played Rogue City, (and you really should as it’s joining Game Pass!), before Unfinished Business, you’ll know the basics. You are RoboCop, a human-robot hybrid with an armor-covered frame and an incredibly powerful and fun-to-use pistol, alongside various in-game abilities. Those abilities are unlocked by default in Unfinished Business, so your extra armor, dash, slow-time, and flash functions are ready the moment the game starts.
The gameplay is largely the same as the base title. You shoot, move into and out of cover, slam through doors and walls to breach them, and can use enemy weapons as a secondary. As far as new weapons go, there was one stand-out that came later on that was a lot of fun to use. As this is a one-area-focused title, the mission structure is different. You’re always pushing forward, never coming back to the precinct in between, or exploring the city to find the next one. The majority of the time, you’re looking to find a way up to the top of the towers while helping as many civilians as possible.
The upgrade system is the same as in-game actions, giving you experience points. Every 1000 points nets you an upgrade point, which can go into a series of stat groups. There is a PCB section that lets you play a light puzzle game with variously shaped pieces to upgrade your default sidearm. By the end of the game, those boards make you into a murderbot God, in the same way the base game did. It is all fun, generally feels great on Xbox, except when the hitches hit.
Performance Woes
RoboCop Rogue City: Unfinished Business has two graphical modes: Performance & Quality. I played the game entirely on Performance Mode, as it is a shooter, and I need my smooth framerate. In either mode, the game had a terrible problem with hitching in my review build. Constantly, especially later on, the game suffers from stutters that last up to a second. One of the main places I had issues was during the new takedown animations. When RoboCop and an NPC are near certain items, you can kill them with a cutscene. To do this, the game would stutter, fade to black, then come back with textures missing before cutting back to gameplay.
It mostly occurs in the larger play spaces that are full of NPCs during the ‘detective’ parts. It is a damned good-looking game in general, though NPC character models can give off an Unreal Store Asset vibe. The lighting and clarity in performance mode feel like a step up over Rogue City. That is ruined, at least for now, by the stuttering issues. Hopefully, a day one patch or some early tuning will fix it. There’s also a small chance it was just my Xbox that was having an issue, so keep an eye out for what other reviews are saying.
The audio suffers no major issues, with a great mix of the old movie soundtrack and some new thumping beats powering up the drama whenever necessary. The voice acting and writing continue to be far better than this level of game normally has. Peter Weller’s RoboCop is a great mix of deadpan humor and occasional fury. The main antagonist is the only weak spot, with a mediocre build-up that isn’t helped by his generic looks.
Wrapping Things Up
RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business is an expandalone that outshines its original in almost every way. However, better pacing and bigger moments are marred by poor performance, at least at launch. If you can look past that and you already enjoy the first game, then this one is an easy recommendation at only $30.
RoboCop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Fun premise and story
- Looks fantastic
- Pacing between action and story
CONS
- Performance hitches are rough
