Today's release for the Analogue Pocket and MiSTerFPGA platforms is the next entry on the DECO-16 platform. RoboCop 2 is a side-scrolling run-and-gun built on Data East's 16-bit custom hardware, licensed from Orion Pictures' 1990 sequel to the original RoboCop film.
Kuhga / Vapor Trail (1989)Crude Buster / Two Crude (1990)Dark Seal / Gate of Doom (1990)The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy (1990)Super Burger Time (1990)Death Brade / Mutant Fighter (1991)Tatakae Genshijin: Joe & Mac / Caveman Ninja (1991)Robocop 2 (1991)Thunder Zone / Desert Assault (1991)Wolf Fang: Kuhga 2001 / Rohga (1991)Tumble Pop (1991)Dark Seal II / Wizard Fire (1992)Funky Jet (1992)Gun Ball / Nitro Ball (1992)Diet Go Go (1992)The Great Ragtime Show / Boogie Wings (1992)
Data East was no stranger to the franchise. Three years earlier the company shipped the original RoboCop arcade game on its DECO MEC-M1 hardware, a major chart-topping hit. The 1991 sequel is the eighth title on the family lineup above and the second time Data East worked with the property.
This post covers a technical overview of RoboCop 2 on DECO-16, the work the board required, and the game itself.
Licensing:
RoboCop 2 is distributed through the Coin-Op Collection licensing portal, which serves both MiSTerFPGA and Pocket from the same dashboard.
Pocket patrons need to register their device and generate a key before launching the core. Step-by-step instructions and the FAQ are available on the Help page. More information can be found by clicking here and here.
Overview:
RoboCop 2 runs on Data East's DECO-16 hardware (PCB DE-0349), driven by a Motorola MC68000 (DECO Custom 59) at 14 MHz with no second processor on the main bus. The sound system is the standard DECO-16 audio stack, a HuC6280 (DECO Custom 45) at 4.0275 MHz driving a YM2203, a YM2151, and two OKI M6295 samplers, with mono audio output.
The video system outputs 320x240 at 57.999 Hz in a horizontal orientation. Graphics are rendered by a pair of DECO 55 tilemap generators driving four playfields between them alongside a DECO 52 sprite engine, with the layer ordering selected at runtime through a software priority register. The board carries a DECO 75 protection device on the I/O bus, the same protection family standing up since Edward Randy in a different configuration, with the board's interrupts driven by a programmable DECO controller in the same arrangement.
Development Challenges:
RoboCop 2 is the first DECO-16 board to use a software-driven layer compositor rather than a fixed priority chain. The game writes a small priority register that the compositor reads each frame, and the value selects one of several layer-stacking modes.
Two of the bits matter: one swaps the order of the foreground and background tile chips, and the other turns one of the DECO 55 chips into a single combined 8 bits per pixel playfield, with the chip's two planes merged into one wider color stream rather than drawn as separate layers. The earlier DECO-16 boards all use a fixed priority order written into the hardware. RoboCop 2 is the only one in the family where the game can rearrange the stack at runtime and where one of the tilemap chips can be rendered as a single 8bpp surface.
The board's protection is handled by a DECO 75 device on the I/O bus. The DECO 75 is the same chip family Edward Randy already standing up as a DECO 66, with a different internal lookup configuration and a different set of read-data transforms. The implementation that drives Edward Randy's protection device extends to the DECO 75 directly, with the address routing and the read-data transforms adjusted for the RoboCop 2 configuration.
Core Options:
The MiSTer core includes video settings for aspect ratio, vertical scaling and cropping, scandoubler effects, and H/V positioning and sync adjustments.
Audio settings provide separate OPN FM, OPN PSG, OPM, and two M6295 PCM toggles, each with its own volume control, covering the full sound section. Arcade dip switches are directly accessible from the OSD. Game settings include per-player auto-fire with adjustable rates, mapping options for Player 1 and Player 2, and a synced mapping mode that mirrors Player 1's layout to Player 2.
Cheats are accessible from the OSD. Stage select is new for this release and was written specifically for the core rather than carried over from an existing database. It places the player on any of the game's seven named stages, with Default starting on the Prologue, and then releases control after roughly a minute so normal stage progression still advances from the chosen point. The remaining cheats cover infinite credits, infinite time, per-player infinite lives, infinite energy, and infinite ammo, and a per-player Weapon Select that switches the active firearm between the Auto-9, Cobra Assault Cannon, Bazooka, and Gatling Gun.
The Pocket core provides auto-fire with per-button targeting and adjustable rates. Its cheat set is stage select, infinite time, infinite lives, infinite energy, infinite ammo, and the same per-weapon select. Arcade dip switches available on Pocket are No. of Lives, Stage Time, Continue Mode, and Attract Mode Sound.
History, Gameplay, and Regional Information:
RoboCop 2 was developed and published by Data East, reaching Japanese arcades in March 1991 as a licensed tie-in to the Orion Pictures film released the previous summer. The arcade team was led by project leader Mentaiko, with Tohru Kikuchi designing, Takaaki Inoue on main programming, and a soundtrack scored by Tatsuya Kiuchi and Tomoyoshi Sato of Data East's in-house sound team Gamadelic. Kiuchi had already scored Crude Buster the previous year, and Sato's RoboCop 2 work would be picked up again on the closing DECO-16 release Boogie Wings the following year. The only person who carried over from the 1988 RoboCop arcade game was graphic leader Tomoo Adachi.
The gameplay is a run-and-gun with belt-scrolling movement and one or two players at once. The player walks Murphy through the city block by block, holding direction to move and using two fire buttons that point his shot left or right independently of facing, so RoboCop can walk backward while shooting. The Auto-9 pistol has unlimited ammo, and pickup weapons that drop through the stages, the Cobra Assault Cannon, the Bazooka, and the Gatling Gun, each carry a fixed number of shots before the loadout cycles back to the Auto-9. A close-range punch and throw covers anything that gets within reach.
The eight stages follow the film. RoboCop sweeps Detroit's streets and an arcade hall, traces a Nuke drug deal through a slum hideout, fights up the Cain organization's highway pursuit in a first-person rail-shooter segment, raids the Nuke manufacturing plant, climbs OCP Headquarters past an ED-209 mid-boss, runs a city-streets shooting gallery, and ends in the multi-arena final battle against Cain, who has been transferred into the RoboCop 2 mech and has to be defeated four times in a row. Player 2 is a blue-chromed second RoboCop rather than Anne Lewis from the film.
RoboCop 2 did not match the original. The 1988 RoboCop had been a major arcade hit, peaking at second on Game Machine's January 1989 chart of the highest-grossing table arcade units in Japan. The 1991 sequel placed twenty-fourth on the same chart in its April 1991 issue, a clear step down. Western press treated it the same way, with The One scoring the arcade game as "an uninspired follow-up to the original arcade smash." It has settled into the catalogue as a competent but minor Data East tie-in, remembered mostly by enthusiasts of the platform.
The core supports three sets, the European-Asian version, the United States versions, and the Japanese version. The Japanese version is the most content-complete of the three, with a playable prologue that recreates RoboCop's first-film raid on Dick Jones at OCP, including the ED-209 fight from the 1987 film. That prologue is present in the European-Asian and United States ROMs but cannot be reached in normal play.
For this release the prologue has been restored across all three regional builds and translated into English where it was Japanese-only, so the full opening that the Japanese players got in 1991 is now available on every supported set. The other documented regional differences, the United States build's "Winners Don't Use Drugs" FBI screen and the Japanese build's "Hit Button" input prompts, are preserved as they shipped.
Updates:
After RoboCop 2, nine DECO-16 titles still remain. Super Burger Time, Mutant Fighter, Caveman Ninja, Desert Assault, Rohga, Wizard Fire, Funky Jet, Nitro Ball, and Diet Go Go will release over the next few weeks as beta.
Disclaimer: All product names, trademarks, and registered trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. "Analogue", "Analogue Pocket", "MiSTer", "MiSTerFPGA", "OpenFPGA", "Data East", "NEC", "Hudson Soft", "Motorola", "Yamaha", "OKI", "Orion Pictures", "RoboCop", and all derivative works are trademarks, registered trademarks, or copyrighted materials of their respective holders. Use of these names does not imply endorsement or association with this post. All rights reserved to their respective owners. This post is for educational and research purposes only.