Based on Irvin Kirshner‘s underrated 1990 sequel to RoboCop, in RoboCop 2 you once again take the role of the cyborg cop of the future in order to uphold the law and protect the innocent. RoboCop 2 was developed and published by Ocean Software and released soon after the film came out.

In RoboCop 2 you’re battling against gangs pushing the superdrug ‘Nuke’, and the gameplay is very similar to the previous game. RoboCop stomps around scrolling levels, shooting bad guys and arresting flashing enemies.

RoboCop can this time jump, and the first level has elevators, conveyors to ride on and platforming elements to negotiate. In later levels there are also hooks to ride on over vats of bubbling beer (since the level takes place inside a brewery).

RoboCop‘s health is represented by a bar in the top right-hand corner of the screen. If this is completely worn down you’ll lose one of your three lives. You can replenish this however by shooting power-ups that fall down the screen.

The usual ‘shooting gallery’-type levels return in RoboCop 2. There’s also an occasional sliding puzzle minigame where RoboCop has to rebuild important memories from his past. In this you move a cursor over a disintegrating circuit board, collecting memory fragments and avoiding falling into holes made by your movement.

RoboCop 2 has superb, beautifully coloured graphics and smooth scrolling – the visuals really are a work of pixel artistry on the Spectrum. The RoboCop sprite, and all the enemies, are much better-drawn than they were in the first Spectrum RoboCop, and the intermission screens are also exceptionally well-drawn. Ivan Horn, who created the graphics, did an exceptional job.

Gameplay-wise, RoboCop 2 is a decent run-and-gun game on the Spectrum. In my humble opinion it’s better than RoboCop [one].

More: RoboCop 2 on Wikipedia
More: RoboCop 2 on World of Spectrum