It’s probably a forgone conclusion that in a RoboCop game, you’re going to fight ED-209. RoboCop: Rogue City does throw a bit of a curveball by having you partake in friendly competition with the little walker, but it’s not long before it’s time to get violent.
In the 1987 movie, ED-209 was the first real threat to protagonist Alex Murphy. Murphy was only able to escape by leading the attack robot to its greatest weakness: stairs. Unfortunately for us, stairs are not an option in the fight. To win this time, you’re going to need to confront it head-on. I’m going to be honest with you, it isn’t easy. This was the first time I saw the Game Over screen.
At the beginning of the fight, your handler, Ulysses, will run off to find ED-209’s manual to try and locate a weakness. He returns before long to tell you that the robot’s main point of failure is the speaker cover that faces you. If you look at ED’s top as a head, the cover will be found where its mouth would be. A small diagram will appear on screen to clarify its location.
At the start of the battle, the speaker cover is the only way to hurt the boss. Thankfully, you’ll be beating on it while ED-209 is comparatively docile. Hitting it enough times will crack the canopy that protects ED’s innards. Once that is open, you can either continue to beat on the speaker cover, or now fire at ED’s exposed insides.
That’s simple enough, but figuring out how to hurt ED is the easy part.
Getting a leg up
There are a number of helpful items scattered around the battleground that may turn things in your favor. You’re going to want to locate them. The most important is the OCP Recovery Charges that will allow you to repair after ED smacks you around a bit. There are, by my count, five of them in the environment. The first is on the bar counter near where you start the fight, two are on a crate near the middle of the warehouse, and the last two are on a desk on the far side.
Near the last two mentioned OCP Recovery Charges is a 50cal Rifle. This can be useful to do major damage to ED-209, but honestly, I found that the default Auto9 worked better at whittling down his health.
The best strategy I found in this fight is to focus fire. It’s tempting to try and put solid objects between you and ED, but it has a habit of shooting around or through them. However, if you stand your ground and focus your shots on its weak points, you’ll find it easier to control the fight. After taking a certain amount of damage, ED-209 will sometimes stand up and roar or become dazed for a short while, which gives you more of a window to feed him some rounds.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that at the very end of the fight, I found the damage I was causing it was beginning to slow to the point where I wasn’t certain if I was making contact. I’m not sure if this was a bug, but it can be worked around by shooting ED in the knees or if all else fails, you can hurl explosive items at the machine to finish it off.
Be warned, this isn’t the last time you’ll be fighting ED-209, but you’ll be better equipped in later fights. While the first encounter gave me trouble, the other battles were much less of an issue.
