The defective version of RoboCop for the Commodore 64
RoboCop is an arcade video game inspired by the RoboCop movie, developed and published in 1988 by Data East. Later, Ocean Software, which had already acquired the movie's license and had granted it to Data East, released conversions for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Game Boy, MSX and ZX Spectrum. Data East instead published conversions for Apple II, NES, TRS-80 CoCo and MS-DOS; in fact there are two distinct and independent versions of the game for MS-DOS.
The Commodore 64 version of RoboCop differs from the other releases because it was released on the market despite being aware of the fact that it was a defective game and with no intention to fix the bugs even later.
In fact, the long awaited conversion of RoboCop for the Commodore 64 contains serious programming errors which make impossible to complete the game.
Ocean clearly realised that in level 6 the graphics was broken making impossible to continue playing. However, instead of fixing the bug because (Ocean had to release the game by a certain date), Ocean decided to make impossible to access that level, setting a time limit that was not possible to respect in the previous level (the 5th), thus making it unsurpassed and therefore hiding the programming error. The game actually, after the unplayable level, has another technically functional level, including a fight with the final boss.
What actually happens is that Ocean had to release the video game as soon as possible to take advantage of the success momentum of the RoboCop movie, and therefore did not want to wait for the game to be fixed by the programmers. On the other hand, in the level following the corrupted one there are some further bugs where the graphics become corrupt if you shoot hostages, an indication that program still needed to be optimised.
Cleverly, Ocean sent an incomplete version of the game to the magazines with only four levels. The editors based their reviews on that incomplete version.
Here's what looks like RoboCop game if you reach end of level 5
Following picture shows the graphic artefacts that appears in the next level if the hostage is shot
Magazines of the time obviously did not report the bugs, and people ended up unwittingly buying a corrupt version of a video game. RoboCop in some popular magazines got oddly high marks, considering that the game had obvious gameplay problems, including a poorly calibrated difficulty.
The game also obtained an extraordinary advertising campaign in the magazines of the time, as on Zzap!, thanks to which many were induced to buy it.
Note that magazines such as "Commodore user magazine" described the game by listing its levels, but stop at level four, as if there were no others.
In fact, magazines had all reviewed not the full version of the game, but the incomplete version of the final levels.
Both the floppy and the cassette versions have the exact same problem.
Subsequent reprints of the game did not correct the bug, and you can be sure that the reviews of the economic versions do not warn of its presence, although there was plenty of time to test deep the game.
This tells us once again that games were reviewed without being properly tested, perhaps only with a superficial playing or even copying information from reviews on other magazines.
The bug was not fixed even when the game was released in the economic edition of the Hit Squad serie
However, it was possible to partially circumvent the bug using cheat / tricks.
The game is divided into three "loads":
- in the first load there are three areas (the first and third with horizontal scrolling, the second with fixed screen with viewfinder);
- the second load contains four areas (the first is a sort of "bonus", in which you need to recompose an identikit; the second load is the one in which you go up and down the stairs; the third is the robot while the fourth is the one with the graphics ruined);
- the third load contains the last two areas (the city and the final area where the president must be saved).
To jump directly to the second load, you need to write SUEDEHEAD on the first level title screen. At the title screen of the second load you must write DISAPPOINTED to jump directly to the third load.
It was also possible to make the game easier simply by flying with the use of another trick.
During a normal level with horizontal scrolling, keep the [F], [G], [H], [J] keys pressed simultaneously while pushing the joystick left and right. To stop flying, keep the same keys pressed and move the joystick to the top left and top right.
Who had the additional cartridges that allowed the use of POKE, could also use this trick to get infinite energy, after resetting the cartridge:
POKE 44416.0
SYS32768
The RoboCop bug was corrected only in 2015 by fans.
