RoboCop 3

While the film and most game versions of RoboCop 3 had already appeared in 1991 and 1992, the Mega Drive version arrived considerably later – at the end of 1993, a gap that at the time of release positioned it more as a catch-up port than part of the license's initial wave. It was developed by Eden Entertainment Software and this time brought to market by publisher Flying Edge, rather than directly by Ocean Software, which had been behind the earlier computer and NES versions.

This time gap and the change of publisher were also reflected in the finished game. Instead of the five distinct gameplay styles of Digital Image Design's Amiga version, or Probe Software's two-part combination of shooting gallery and platformer on NES, the Mega Drive version offers a more unified side-scrolling platformer that makes use of the sixteen-bit console's power – smoother scrolling, more colors on screen at once, and an adjusted level pace matching how action platformers on the Mega Drive had already evolved by 1993 compared to 1991 and 1992. Eden Entertainment Software essentially designed the game from scratch, two years removed from the film's premiere and without any direct continuity with the older conversions by Digital Image Design or Probe Software.

For the series, it's the last major version of RoboCop 3, and at the same time a demonstration of how differently the same license could turn out when a completely new team, working from a different brief for a different publisher, took it over two years later, outside the original network of Ocean Software studios. By its release year, competing sixteen-bit action platformers were already on the market, so Eden Entertainment Software had to measure the game against far more mature competition than the first 1991 versions had faced.

Why play it: The Mega Drive version of RoboCop 3 is for players curious what the license looked like after two years in the hands of a new studio and publisher – a late, more technically accomplished epilogue to the original wave of games from 1991 and 1992.