Though they tried, Paul Verhoeven’s enigmatic masterpiece could never be effectively reprocessed; like a photocopy, each subsequent incarnation shed a vital layer of detail. Once a troubled embodiment of man-versus-machine, Robocop was cheapened to little more than a walking gun cabinet by the time of his nadir – a sanitized cartoon series. Luckily for us, metaphysical dilemmas and satirized corporate politics weren’t quite so essential for video games, the series enjoying a long, welcoming stay amidst the undemanding scrolling shoot-em-up genre. Now, however, as Titus release their bid to recharge the franchise, the action genre has accelerated beyond Robocop’s clumping pace; Gungrave and Shinobi are examples of the new orthodox.

This makes a Robocop FPS both logical and timely. Barring Digital Image Design’s Amiga interpretation of Robocop 3 (actually rather good), the allure it offers – to dispense justice via a thousand HUD-targeted rounds of ammunition - has previously been available only through sprite-rendered bonus stages. With the franchise barely sustained by the cheap yet suitably gritty Prime Directives mini-series, now is surely the time to give fans the game they desire.

Far from desirable, this new Robocop is disastrous.

Neither flawed success nor valiant failure, this unpleasant surprise demonstrates a comprehensive lack of respect for the series and its fans. Worse still, the game doesn’t even function as nondescript FPS, ignoring the decisions made by successful titles and beating its own path to failure.

Offering no illusions of potential, Robocop gets cracking right away in its bid to offend. The opening FMV is an abomination, portraying the supercop himself as some kind of lumbering imbecile who vomits dialogue in tones only lobotomies can provide. Overstated attempts at satire come off as though they were deferred through a child while it’s immediately apparent that a sub-TV production is about to unfold. Intros and the like do, of course, often serve as offal around an otherwise successful game; here, however, they serve up the prospect of a bitter pill to swallow – Robocop’s fallen, and he ‘aint getting up.

The game proper systematically confirms this in a flood of inadequacies. It may be surprising for some to hear that the character’s dawdling pace is not one of them - Halo, remember, offers a perfectly tuned game with an engine locked at 30 frames per second. This isn’t the problem; just about everything else is. An early example: while it may be conceivable that Robocop’s mechanical stride sounds like someone taking continuous photographs of your inner ear, this isn’t a particularly pleasant sound over prolonged exposure. It is, in fact, right up there with babies crying and Victoria Beckham.

Given the comparative simplicity of the task, it would at least be safe to assume that, were the game around it to fail, Robocop’s distinctive HUD would add some credibility, some salvation to the proceedings. Defying belief, even that opportunity has been wasted; the HUD is a mere approximation of the real thing, a fudged attempt which conveys no authenticity whatsoever. Functionally, it’s equally rubbish. This game, if nothing else, should have a lock-on system which enables precision firing and fast target-switching. Without this, Robocop’s appeal as an FPS engine is lost. To cut a swathe through a bevy of gun-toting opponents, manoeuvring effortlessly into the right positions for each head-shot – that’s the experience this licence demands. Though the scenarios are set up, the game’s twitchy analogue aim renders them awkward and unsatisfying. Those looking to exploit that single inch of exposed forehead to blow the hostage-taker’s skull apart won’t find such pleasures here.

The entirely episodic levels are disappointing but forgivable; a good story would have been a quantum leap forwards for a Robocop title, but also a luxury. It would have been nice, however, if the handful of levels here were anything other than obstructive, repetitive, long-winded and banal. Sufficiently textured, in all fairness, the environments still warrant derisory howls at their design. It never feels as if progress is being made until a level abruptly ends, such is the amount of random wandering each of them entails. Pointless alleyways serve purely to waste your time and deplete your energy, while power-ups are situated in irritatingly random locations where they’re seldom necessary.

Enemy AI is unsurprisingly non-existent – they stand, shoot, get shot. They also spit out the same clichéd patterns of speech as everyone else – cartoon-like insults with quotes from the movie crow-barred in between. Should you be required to arrest a suspect (they turn blue when shot, you press a button) they’ll have doubtlessly already annoyed you enough to warrant a shot to the face instead. Don’t expect to be shooting them with a thunderous, beautifully rendered replica of the Auto-9 either – that, along with the other weapons on offer, is predictably weak.

The harrowing inventory of Robocop’s blunders simply extends into the horizon – they’d fill a review three times this long. Rather than induce tears, however, it’s more pertinent to simply turn away and snub this deplorable mess. An opportunity wasted is bad enough, but the Robocop franchise, worthy as it once was, needed a solid, stylish FPS. What Titus have provided is a soulless plundering of that franchise, a game which wouldn’t even pass as an amateur Quake mod - as careless a mishap as modern gaming has ever seen.