Narcos: Rise of the Cartels

Review

The 1980s was something special to me as I was growing up and reaching my early teens, experiencing my first kiss, the right to legally watch the almighty Harrison Ford in the Return of The Jedi, and fabulous music with Witney Houston, Michael Jackson, George Michael and Elton John to mention a few. But who was a bad guy of the 80’s? Well, there was one from Colombia, and they called him El Patron, a man who was making 70 million a day (230 million today) by producing and distributing white gold, now known as cocaine. Netflix has produced a fantastic series about this era and now you can experience both sides, in Narcos: Rise of The Cartels!   

Narcos: Rise of The Cartels is a turn-based strategy game developed by kuju and published by Curve Digital on the 20^th November 2019 on Steam.

The game consists of 8 main DEA missions with side quests, as well as 9 main Narcos missions which also have several side quests. However, you’ll not be able to start your first game playing the Narcos; you will need to successfully clear one main DEA mission to unlock the Narcos campaign.

Whether you play the DEA or the Narcos, you’ll start the game in the war room where you’ll have a few options to choose from. The map will show you which missions are available, as well as the rooster, which is where you can purchase and upgrade units. There is also the Intel Board and Game Options.

The map will have rhombus shapes with a lock icon on them, representing the main missions. At the top of your screen, you’ll have a gauge which, at the start, has a couple of segments; as you progress through the game, there will be more segments. These segments signify how many sides you must complete to unlock a main mission. These side quests have different tasks, which could be to retrieve intel, escort an asset to safety, or kill one or more important people, with many more to choose from. All side quests will have a certain level of difficulty, from easy to hard, and will have a reward in the form of dollars if you complete them. Some missions will be free to access, while others will cost you money to play, but the reward will be significantly greater.

On your first mission, the rooster option will not be accessible as you must win a side quest first to unlock it. There you’ll be able to purchase new units or upgrade your current roosters with skill points which you’ll earn by completing a mission. Any units that have been wounded during your last battle can be healed here too, but it will cost you money to do so.

The gameplay is a bit different to what you’d expect, and I must admit that at first, I was not too keen about only being able to move one unit per turn, unlike other similar games where you can move all your units each turn. But it grew on me as I quickly realised that is all about placing one or more of your units strategically to eliminate all enemies swiftly and minimise your lost. You still have movement points, action points and counteraction points. Each time you move a unit, it will earn half a counteraction point. The maximum counterpoints a unit can have is two. But when you own one or two counterpoints and an enemy unit moves within the vision of your character which has one or two counterpoints, it will automatically be able to shoot at the enemy. But in this game, you control the shot; as the enemy moves across the screen, you’ll move your cross using your mouse and hopefully hit him. The other aspect that you need to be careful of is how much ammunition you’ll already use with any of your characters. It will also take one turn to reload your gun.  So you might find that the unit you use with the counterpoint might be out of ammo on your next turn, and you’ll therefore need to select another unit to finish the kill. That will depend on how well you have strategically placed the other units on the map. Are they close by and loaded? This can become quite challenging at times, especially if the mission has turn restrictions to complete one or more tasks.

There are not many different types of units on both sides, and I do feel that the DEA grenade launcher is probably too powerful as it inflicts great damage from a distance, even having only one shell per turn with the next turn to reload. On the other hand, I think the character progression is pretty good and each class has its own skills.

Graphically, the game looks great, and I thoroughly enjoyed the original Netflix soundtrack. I also like that the Steve Murphy and Pablo Escobar voice overs are from the original actors (not sure about the other ones). I can see what the developers are trying to do, and I like it, but it will take players a while to become accustomed to the one-unit-per-turn aspect.