RoboCop

RoboCop is an arcade action game developed and published by Data East in 1988, based on Paul Verhoeven's 1987 science-fiction film. The player controls RoboCop, the cyborg law-enforcement officer created when a fatally wounded Detroit policeman is rebuilt by the corporation that runs the city, and marches him through crime-ridden streets, warehouses, and industrial districts in a heavy, deliberate stride. Gameplay blends run-and-gun shooting with occasional bonus and targeting stages, and the character's slow, mechanical movement became part of its identity. The game was a considerable success and was ported extensively to home computers by Ocean Software, becoming one of the best-known movie tie-ins of its era. Its digitised speech samples and the imposing, deliberate presence of the title character helped it stand out in arcades crowded with faster and flashier competitors. The wider RoboCop concept, satirising privatised policing, corporate power, and media saturation in a decaying American city, originated with Verhoeven, a Dutch director casting an outsider's critical eye on the United States. That the most American of screen lawmen was conceived from abroad, then adapted into games by a Japanese studio and carried around the world through sequels and later titles including RoboCop versus The Terminator and the modern Rogue City, makes him a fitting symbol of how the country's self-image is so often shaped by people looking in from outside.