Game: Robocop versus The Terminator - Sega Genesis, SNES (1993)
Movie: Robocop (1987) and Terminator (1984)
The Movie: The only common theme between these two movies is that they both feature human-machine hybrid guys who kill things. RoboCop is the good one - a cop who's turned into a pile of meat by a gang wielding shotguns. He is rushed to a hospital and declared dead. Not in the "Officer Murphy is in a better place now, little Jimmy" kind of way, either - his body is barely recognizable. Luckily, Murphy lives in the future, a wonderful time when scientists can rebuild you into the long metallic arm of the law, RoboCop.
Unlike RoboCop, the Terminator films understand that, ultimately, machines can't be trusted, and they'll eventually rebel and attempt to destroy us all, not become our saviors. The Terminator is an unstoppable killing machine that looks human and is sent back through time by the future's evil overlords to kill the mother of the future leader of humanity's last rebel forces. In other words, he's supposed to kill some kid's mom. Also, he cuts out his own eye, mainly just to be gross.
The Game: It's worth pointing out that both Terminator and RoboCop got games prior to this, which featured Kyle Reese shooting through an army of Arnold Schwarzeneggers and RoboCop punching dogs in the face, respectively. But RoboCop versus The Terminator is a little truer to its source material. You play RoboCop, because he's the good man-meets-machine thing. But what really sets RoboCop apart from the thugs and Terminators he fights in the game is his pistol, which rips anyone shot by it into at least two pieces, followed by bloody disintegration. Nice.
Instead of RoboCop shooting the big crime boss out of a window, or crushing the Terminator with a gigantic machine designed to tear off the arms of the factory's careless employees, the end of RoboCop Versus The Terminator is a fight with a big blue cyborg. It can only be defeated through a careful strategy of ducking and shooting and moving sideways at opportune moments. He's almost as tough as the girl Terminator in the third Terminator movie... but not quite.
