The third RoboCop game for the Spectrum was developed by Probe Software and published by Ocean in 1992. It is based on the film of the same name, and is unfortunately not in the same league as RoboCops one and two… Just like the film itself.

RoboCop 3 begins with a fairly standard (and relatively uninteresting) shooting gallery level, where you have to shoot criminals on the streets and in windows. Then there’s a repair intermission (where you repair RoboCop‘s damaged parts using tokens), then a side-scrolling run-and-gun section.

The scrolling shooter sections in RoboCop 3 are less impressive than those in previous RoboCop games. The RoboCop sprite itself is poorly drawn when walking, and enemies are bog-standard and repetitive. Scrolling seems to be character-based, which does make the game faster, but not smoother.

In later levels RoboCop gets to use his jet pack, which was introduced in the film, and this does at least make the action a bit more interesting.

There are some boss battles – there’s a fight with a tank at the end of level three, but it’s really nothing special. The ‘ninja’ enemies that you have to fight a number of times in the game seem out of place, and when they’re defeated and explode, if you look carefully the final frame is actually a reused frame from a different enemy…

Overall, RoboCop 3 on the Spectrum is the weakest entry in the series and didn’t do a great deal for me, playing it now. In 1992 the Spectrum was nearing the end of its commercial life and games were selling less and less, so it comes as no surprise that this third RoboCop game isn’t very good.

More: RoboCop on Wikipedia
More: RoboCop 3 on World of Spectrum