RICO Review

I’m sure everyone has had the action hero fantasy of being a renegade cop with nothing to lose, bashing down the door to a room full of gangsters and coming out relatively unscathed. This is what RICO, from developer Ground Shatter and published by Rising Star Games, is all about.

RICO puts you in the shoes of 4 members of a special task force set to eliminate gang violence by using any means necessary, which usually involves lots of guns and a high body count. It’s by no means a realistic game, but delivers some great balls-to-the-wall gunplay that will definitely spark some “90’s action hero” feelings.

The game itself is a first person shooter with some roguelike elements. Players are given a series of missions that are randomly generated in hopes of taking down the gang in control of your city, you can choose whatever path and order you want to take in this goal as you take on high members of the gang and generally be a nuisance.

While the mission layout and enemy placements are randomized, the objectives themselves are fairly repetitive. Find the drugs, destroy equipment, clear all the rooms and assassinate the boss. Rinse and repeat, and you have everything you’d expect from RICO’s mission structure.

Normally this would be a bad thing, but RICO’s Roguelike elements keep things fresh and offers the right difficulty to make sure that things don’t get stale. I believe this is also thanks to its core gameplay element, kicking down doors to begin an assault on your opponents.

This isn’t a new mechanic to the shooter genre by any means, but there is something right with the way RICO handles it, its extremely satisfying to kick down the door and watching the slow-mo along Max Payne/Matrix bullet time kick in as you clear the room. This is made even more satisfying when you throw co-op into the mix in both online and split-screen.

Both versions of co-op play is really where the game shines, as players can work together to clear goals faster, bash down doors at the same time, and bring different strategies to the table. The game doesn’t always force you to work together but provides benefits, such as the slow-mo door-kick mentioned above, in co-op, both players need to be ready at the door for the kick down, giving the slow-motion shootout that the fans want to see.

Completing missions will earn you merits, which acts as your currency to unlock new guns, new attachments, as well as health and revive kits as these do not replenish between missions. Unlocking the items in the armory only affects your current run, if you die and have to start your campaign over, you’ll be starting from the beginning. I understand with the Roguelike design that things will not stay with you, however it always feels like you don’t have enough merits to do what you want after every level which always disappointed me.

Meanwhile, completing missions will also earn you XP, which unlocks special permanent perks for your characters, which you can only bring 3 into the round. These stats includes stronger melee, longer slow-mo, or better hip-fire with certain weapons. While most of these are small bonuses, they do give little improvements that help clear out wave of enemies.

RICO uses a cel-shade graphic style similar to that of the Borderlands series, and while it’s nothing too impressive to look at, it’s the use of colour that makes it stand out, this is especially true when it comes to the blood effects which splashes an almost comic like style that feels very rewarding.

RICO is the shooter you pick up when you’re having a stressful day and just want to take down a drug-cartel for a quick 30 minutes, but it’s even better when you have friends around to join you in that task. It’s quick, it’s bloody, it’s easy to pick up and it’s extremely fun.