Narcos: Rise of the Cartels Review

TV shows, especially live-action ones, tend to translate into games about as well as a dog’s bark translates into Swahili. With few exceptions, licensed games are generally destined to bulk out the bargain bins of retailers mere weeks after their release; quickly forgotten by the wider gaming audience and all but the most devoted of franchise fans. It’s because of this trend that my expectations were —oh, let’s say— shin-high upon booting up Narcos: Rise of the Cartels, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t blow past my expectations and reach all the way to, well… my hips —maybe my belly-button at a push.

Based on the similarly titled Netflix series, Narcos, this turn-based strategy adaptation follows the plot of the show’s first season. Set in Colombia during the 1980s, it chronicles the efforts of both real-life law enforcement and equally real criminals as they work to either stamp out or grow the drugs business respectively. Admittedly I haven’t watched Narcos, it hardly makes a difference though because the game doesn’t so much tell the show’s story or even try to expand on it for that matter. Instead, it loosely draws upon the show’s events and themes to form the context and ideas for levels. The main characters and high profile targets are therefore lifted from the show (mainly by virtue of having been real people) and levels are based on locations from the show: drug hideouts, grand mansions, grimy streets and nightclubs being some examples. Of course, it goes without saying that the central premise of “cops vs criminals” is shared by both the game and its source material —you can’t exactly lose that in translation.

In lieu of a substantial story, Rise of the Cartels offers something the Netflix series can’t: gameplay. Namely, an assortment of XCOM-esque turn-based strategy levels spread across two campaigns, in which players control a squad of either law enforcers or criminals as they complete objectives and shoot at the enemy (sometimes the objective IS to shoot at the enemy, which is convenient). Unlike similar tactical turn-based games, only one unit can be ordered around per turn, for both you and the AI opponent. This unusual choice can —depending on your level of experience with turn-based strategy games— either be seen as a welcome simplification or a needless, tedious dumbing down. As someone who has only ever briefly dabbled in games like XCOM, and not with much success, this “single-unit per turn” approach combined with the limited number of unit types (five in all) helped ease me into the genre and might even convince me to re-download that copy of XCOM 2. With that said, it does limit the strategic options and makes coordinating multiple units a time-consuming chore —a fast-forward button would have been greatly appreciated.

Skill points and cash are earned on missions and spent in-between them. Skill points allow you to level up each squad member and choose from a set of class-specific abilities to aid in combat; cash lets you hire new squad members and enter “high risk” side missions that are more challenging but offer higher rewards. The option to hire more teammates is crucial because perma-death is always active in Rise of the Cartels, which means that any deceased characters will remain that way permanently upon the completion of any given mission. This initially added a sense of tension to every level, although that soon wore off when the consequences —or lack thereof— of death became apparent. I was pretty dreadful at the game and still never found myself short of cash to replace my dead comrades, and I definitely never got attached to any specific character in a way that would incentivise keeping them safe.

Each main mission features a new location and is unlocked after the completion of a set amount of side missions: these re-use old locations, albeit with a different objective, enemy layout and starting zone. It’s not as unbearable as replaying the exact same levels would have been, but seeing the environments again and again can get a little old, even with a different context. A short cutscene bookends every main mission too: these provide a real-time reflection of the turn-based gameplay. While certainly a nice idea, they don’t impart any real plot details and only end up highlighting how slow and clunky the gameplay feels in comparison.

There’s a certain amount of leeway granted to videogames in their portrayal of stories and the amount of violence within them. Games tend to rely on violence to provide the “conflict” of gameplay and can therefore justify dramatically higher body counts than any other form of fiction —the amount of killing in any given shooter feels absurd if you ever stop to think about it. With that said, it feels hard to overlook the fact that this game —from start to finish— features police officers indiscriminately killing criminals without even the slightest attempt to arrest, detain or else pacify them. Yes, I understand that this level of violence is completely normal for the genre and probably necessary to make the game enjoyable; I’m in no way condemning this game. Given the specific context of police violence however, it just feels a little ill-considered and worth a quick mention.

Overall, Narcos: Rise of the Cartels provides a fun, but noticeably simplified drug-themed take on the turn-based strategy genre —think “baby’s first XCOM” and you’re on the right lines. Its flaws are unavoidable but will only be unforgivable for those accustomed to other games in the genre; if that’s you, consider saying “no” to Rise of the Cartels. For myself and many others out there, it offers a more entry-level turn-based experience that is worth the relatively modest price of admission.