RoboCop

Riding the wave of popularity of the film of the same name, Data East released the arcade beat-'em-up RoboCop in 1988, in which the player controls the titular cyborg police officer while cleaning Detroit's streets of gangs. The game faithfully replicated key scenes from the film – from a shootout in a drug lab to the final confrontation with hired assassins – and tried to convey to players the feeling of the main character's relentless, ponderous strength, which almost nothing can stop.

Compared to typical beat-'em-ups of the time, RoboCop was slower and more methodical: the character moved deliberately, but wielded a powerful pistol that could also be used at range, setting the game apart from purely melee-focused titles like Double Dragon, where the player had to rely mainly on fists. The levels combined hand-to-hand combat with shootouts and referenced specific locations and characters from the source film, such as the gang's drug den or the factory hall, which was especially appreciated by fans who followed just how closely the machine mimicked the film.

The game became one of a string of successful movie-licensed titles from the late eighties and helped Data East strengthen its position in the market for adaptations of pop culture brands, to which the company was devoting itself ever more intensively at the time and on which it gradually built its name. It is still remembered today as a decently crafted rendition of the film in arcade-action form, one that sticks to the spirit of the source material even where that complicates the gameplay, and as a reminder of an era when movie licenses were among the surest draws in the arcades.

Why play it: It offers a faithful and pleasantly ponderous adaptation of the film RoboCop into arcade action.