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RICO Review


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922340388_RICOlogo.png.7b5d6ed58bf18d35ede2c1cf44bb7886.pngPlenty of games try to capture the excitement of a buddy-cop action flick, but few do it by focusing solely on the door-kicking action and gun fights like this one. RICO from developer Ground Shatter and publisher Rising Star Games puts you in the shoes of a loose-cannon cop, either solo or with a friend, where procedurally generated buildings are packed with criminals in need of merciless justice. Quick, arcade-style action and local or online co-op don't do much to fix RICO's rough gameplay elements, though.
 
In the town of San Amaro, crime runs rampant, especially due to the slow nature of prosecuting organized crime. That's where you come in: as a member of the RICO elite police task force, you have just 24 hours to take down a criminal empire, which means working your way through the lower ranks until you reach the kingpin himself. Unfortunately that's about all you can expect as far as storytelling is concerned, as there's no other cutscenes or story elements outside of the opening cutscene, but to be fair RICO is a fast-paced arcade-style FPS, and you've got no time to waste if you want to defeat the crime boss.
 
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Either solo or with a buddy (both local split-screen and online), your goal is to sweep through one criminal warehouse after another by kicking down doors and shooting anyone you see inside (when you've only got 24 hours to finish a case, due process takes a backseat). Essentially RICO focuses entirely on the satisfaction of breaching and entering rooms with tactical efficiency—you'll even be treated to a slow-down sequence when you first enter, giving you a chance to quickly pick off each enemy in the room before they can react. You'll also have to collect evidence and make a speedy escape before you're overwhelmed by reinforcements, and later missions will add further challenges such as taking out a high-ranking target, destroying criminal servers, and frantically defusing bombs before they explode.
 
It's undeniably satisfying to sweep through rooms as either a one-man or two-man wrecking crew, but the problem with RICO is that it doesn't offer more than this one thrill over and over. Every level is procedurally generated to add variety and as you begin a case you'll be given a branching path to reach the boss, so you can plot your path to some degree, but the game is still mindlessly repetitive and some of the extra challenges make the game more frustrating than rewarding. Defusing bombs is easily the biggest problem, as you're given a short countdown to find every bomb in the area as soon as you find one. Given the randomly generated level design, this more often than not means you're given a nearly impossible challenge to break through enemy lines to reach the bombs (and why are so many criminals just standing in a room with a ticking time bomb anyway?). Roguelike mechanics sometimes mean you're simply dealt a bad hand, but in RICO the balance is too often tipped toward frustrating challenges rather than rewarding ones.
 
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The other basic elements of the game don't do much to make up for the tedium of each playthrough. The controls are flat out clumsy—even with a good bit of fiddling with the aiming sensitivity settings it's hard to find a happy balance between either wildly too loose or molasses slow. You basically have little choice but to rely upon spray 'n' pray shooting. The guns themselves aren't terribly inspired either thanks to a limited variety to purchase/upgrade and a lack of a satisfying sense of weight or snappy aiming. The fact that reinforcements can spawn from seemingly anywhere is discouraging, especially when you're frantically trying to find a bomb. The destructible environments—most of all the doors that you kick down—are novel at first but too often a flying bit of timber will obscure your view for a clean headshot. Even the game's UI is a little obnoxious given its black and white color scheme that makes it hard to see what item you're actually highlighting.
 
It's unfortunate, then, that RICO is based entirely around replaying the same basic playthrough over and over when so many of its gameplay details feel lacking. If you're willing to put up with some repetitive, unpolished gameplay though, you have full cases with different difficulty levels, daily challenges, and of course the option of going solo, with a friend, or playing online. But RICO never quite finds the right addictive formula to keep you coming back for more.
 
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The presentation isn't much more polished than the rest of the game. The cel-shaded design is certainly stylish when you first start up the game, but the cracks soon appear. Environments are repetitive and lacking in interesting details, the criminals themselves are much the same with only a handful of different looks, and even details like headshots aren't given much visual flair, to the point that sometimes it's hard to tell if you've even landed a headshot. There's virtually no background music and the sound effects can be oddly balanced at times—too often you'll hear a thug screaming at you from three rooms away. Sadly the audio and visuals do nothing to buoy the repetitive game design.

 

RICO focuses on one element of FPS gameplay—breaching and entering rooms full of bad guys—but unfortunately doesn't even manage to do that particularly well. It's all too easy for a procedurally generated Roguelike game to fall into tiring repetition unless the core action of the game is polished enough to be engaging and satisfying no matter how often you do it. That's just not the case with RICO. Kicking down doors and bursting into a room guns a-blazing is fun for a moment, but RICO's rough design isn't able to sustain the excitement for even one playthrough.
 
Rating: 5 out of 10 Kicked Doors
 
Review copy provided by publisher
 
RICO will be available on the Switch eShop on March 14th for $19.99.
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