That RoboCop: Rogue City demo took me around 3 hours when I played it a couple weeks ago or so, and I don't think I even did everything in it. I see that some companies still know what a proper demo is. I give 'em props for that. Demo definitely gave me a good idea of the game. Consider me interested.
So the game has DLAA, which I was very happy about, and the game looks dang good widdit. I couldn't maintain 60fps, especially out in the city with the reflections and lighting and sh1t going on. Probably some lack of optimization going on, and UE5 weirdness. Indoor areas no problem having a nice high framerate, and some areas out in the city sure, but a lot of times it would be in the 50s or barely above 60fps. The graphics certainly aren't anything to write home about. So I ended up using DLSS Quality mode (Balanced and below were too much of a visual compromise, as is often the case). That put me up in the 90s mostly, and indoors I was seeing 120s. Of course I tested all of the upscalers. XeSS and FSR2.2 gave about the same performance boost to the 90s (from what I recall), but as usual XeSS was the better-looking of the two. DLSS is of course the best-looking and best-performing out of all of them, but even that was not without its visual flaws. A lot of pixel shimmering and swimming going on. Image wasn't so stable at times. So an RTX 3090 can't maintain well above 60fps at 1440p in a game like this without resorting to upscaling methods like DLSS? Yeah, definitely some lack-of-optimization going on. From what I could tell, my old-@ss CPU should not have been a burden, cuz I was GPU-limited most of the time, and the CPU definitely wasn't at max utilization. The game brought me to maybe around 11GB of system RAM usage, and I'm pretty sure vRAM usage was less than 8GB. VRR of course helped a lot. Just wish I didn't have to resort to DLSS. DLAA looks so good in every game I've seen it in so far.
Character models are decent, good enough but not great. Animations, lip syncing and such are quite lacking, but eh, who gives a f*ck in a game like this (plus probably cuz the demo is based on a non-finished build of the game). The game is pretty dang accurate to the source material (at least from what I remember of the movies). Art-style gets the job done to service that, nothing more and nothing less. It's more than good enough. The graphics aren't terrible, some impressive stuff in there, but it looks like what you should expect a current-gen game to look at the bare minimum (which sadly is more than I can say for a lot of games). It's immersive enough. The first time you get into combat makes a strong impression, especially with the classic music kicking in. Game does a good job making you feel like you are RoboCop. You investigate crimes, question people, look for evidence, scan a lot of sh1t, and even issue parking tickets and citations and sh1t. There's some kind of system where you're supposed to be winning the trust of the people, and your actions and dialogue choices influence that. Most of the music aside from the main theme works to set the mood of the area and moment, but it's like a generic movie score, not really too memorable on its own, or worth listening to on its own. That's fine for a game like this.
I like the unique feel for RoboCop's movements. It feels like I am playing a mech game, except the "mech" is around the size of a normal human. Dude is a walking tank. You won't be running anywhere too fast, and you can't jump, but man you don't NEED to do any of those things. Just advance forward at a steady pace while chopping people up into giblets with the bullets of your base hand pistol, which is semi-automatic burst fire, and has infinite ammo. Yyyeeeaaahhh. You can use assault rifles and SMGs and other pistols and sh1t, but f*ck all of them. Your base weapon is a monster. Oh and you can wield mounted turret machine guns like they were normal-@ss weapons. But yeah your base pistol is a meat grinder. You point it at a dude, squeeze the trigger, and in a moment there is no longer a dude there, just what looks like what happens when you toss a human body into a large blender/food processor. It feels like YOU are a mobile mounted turret, and the guys are storming you in suicidal waves, only to be gibbed. Kinda feels like the Crysis suit, but if it was permanently in Maximum Armor mode, plus Maximum Strength mode. You are basically a small Metal Gear Rex, a walking battle tank acting as a police officer out on patrol. If criminals do not comply with your orders, you leave unidentifiable pieces of them all over the area with EXTREME prejudice. Batman may brutalize the human body, but enemies are still left alive. RoboCop does the same thing, except the enemies won't be a problem anymore, EVER. Closed-casket funerals all around.
So far objectives have been reasonable enough within sprinting distance so I haven't gotten tired running around. Dodging and stuff eh, f*ck dat, you just take hits to your armor and heal when you need to. RoboCop doesn't need to dodge. RoboCop barely needs to take cover. Also I think maybe Normal was too easy of a difficulty. Melee is ridiculously powerful. Skill tree is simple and makes sense. They didn't go crazy widdit, and I appreciate that. Yet there is enough variety in the kinds of skills you can get for Murphy. I don't think the game is really gonna be exploration-heavy. That's fine cuz your mobility is limited anyways, and you don't get usable vehicles (as far as I can tell) or anything.
Oh and sometimes you have hallucinations of the family who lost you, or hear their voices. See that crazy sh1t made RoboCop hesitate in a hostage situation in the opening level, which is why the public doesn't trust him. So you gotta help out the community and win their trust back. That involves turning a lot of criminals into mincemeat. Tell a young kid to stop spray painting, tell another kid it is past his curfew, put a ticket on a car for blocking a fire hydrant, and leave pieces of drug dealers around like it was Normandy beach. I mean this is the one city that is worse than Gotham (or Chicago), so yeah RoboCop is kind of necessary, and honestly, that's not really doing anything to change the behavior of criminals. Sorry but if I was a criminal and RoboCop was around, I would give up a life of crime. As with Gotham, again I wonder why anyone chooses to live in that RoboCop city. Though to be honest, real-life Detroit ain't too far away from this RoboCop version...
Anyways the game seems interesting enough for me to want to spend more time with it. Launch price is $50, definitely not gonna pay that (or anything close to that), but I wouldn't mind grabbing it on a good sale. I'm just glad there was enough meat in this demo for me to get a good sense of what the game is like, how it plays, and how it flows. Not bad. Seems fun enough. I guess in a world of $70 games, $50 is a "budget" launch price huh? Well the game doesn't feel like a AAA one, it feels like a good AA one (and I've seen some websites say the same). Ain't nothin' wrong with that. It feels like the world finally got the RoboCop game we should've always had, and it feels like it might be a better sequel to the first movie than the 2nd and especially 3rd movie. Gives us a much better look at the day-to-day life of Murphy than what the movies could give us. Seems fun enough for what it is.
