RICO is simple, moreish fun in arcade FPS form; a literal corridor shooter that makes every gunfight a glorious exchange of bullets as you fight your way to the words ‘Room cleared’ over and over again. It’s great fun in single-player, but when you head into each randomised set of rooms in co-op, you’ll shoot your way into an interactive buddy cop movie right there in the palm of your hands. Loading times and the occasional bit of pop-in aside, this is another fine addition to the console’s growing list of first-person shooters.
Good first person shooter. Even though the frame rate is fine, and black fog is following you everywhere, the gameplay is fun, and good for a fun night with friend by using local couch multiplayer.
Good gunplay and I really like the procedurally generated areas with differing objectives, which ensure never the same area twice. A huge turnoff for me is that there is much more ammo lying around than health and it's quite easy to be gunned down playing solo; not helped at all but the games's "save" system - which doesn't seem to be present. I completed a case and moved on to the next one, only to be gunned down and having to start completely over every single time. There needs to be a checkpoint system and a way to save in between cases. The graphics are so-so, but they honestly don't need that much spit and polish for this style of game, so I had tempered expectations going in. A drawback to the graphics is that it is difficult or nigh impossible to see an enemy clear across a well-lit room.
Overall, fun game with very frustrating difficulty curve.
Overall, Rico has quite a bit in terms of randomized levels and tasks to complete in its roguelike first-person shooter setting. However, the game trips over itself when random placements hinder level progression. These instances become more frustrating as level difficulty ramps up. Still, there’s a lot of potential with Rico. I wouldn’t mind revisiting the game after a patch or two. As it stands, its a nice addition to the online multiplayer shooter library on Nintendo Switch.
RICO won’t blow your mind with a gripping story, complicated characters and a questionable love triangle. What does do is provide a grab ‘n’ go title that’s fun to blast through with a friend on and offline with enough to keep you going for a decent amount of time.
I like the graphics, what with the cel shading and the environments look nice. Unfortunately, after several hours with the game, I think I’ve seen every asset RICO is capable of showing me.
RICO‘s biggest strength really is just that it’s a shooter that gives players lots of opportunities to shoot things. Running through levels and gunning down baddies works well enough but that’s really all there is to the game. Even just playing for one or two hours at a time reveals the unshakable sense of repetition in everything you are doing, seeing, and hearing. The game works best in short sessions as a way to blow off steam because, let’s be honest, shooting enemies in video games is pretty fun almost regardless of everything else; the only question is if there is anything else to keep you playing after you satiate your digital blood lust. Unfortunately, RICO likely won’t give that extra motivation for most gamers.
Having "unlimited replay value" means nothing when it results in such a grind, and I can't help but think that Rico would have been so much better if it was over and done in a couple of hours, but that bombastic action really had a chance to fly thanks to carefully designed levels arranged to help boost that experience.
Let me start by stating the biggest flaws of this game so you can decide for yourself.
First thing is the depth of this game is about as deep the blowup pool you had as a kid and you really need the mind of a kid to keep playing this game after you have completed each mode.
Second is the framerate being varying, the most stable's at the beginning of the case mode and at the end it will chug which is bad when there are alot of enemies.
There's also problems with rendering in which some rooms don't render and the render distance is sometimes abysmal.
The guns are uninteresting and bland, so are the skins.
It is fun to play in splitscreen and is only available in docked mode with better results when it comes to framerate.
Artstyle is kinda bland and doesn't work better with the design of the bland rooms.
The good thing about it is the gameplay, kick open a door or slide right through it, shoot the bad guys, take the evidence and get the hell out.
But it seriously needs more content and updates to the structure.
The game has a critical flaw where the render fog (in this case black fog) makes seeing across rooms and corridors incredibly challenging. This combined with poor framerates makes for an experience that simply isn't fun when it should be. Additionally, the timed challenges like bomb defusing create frantic situations where you find yourself frantically trying to find the bombs in the low render distance.
I would gladly sacrifice the semi-destructible environments for increased render distance. If it weren't for these problems I would easily recommend this game.
SummaryTwo cops, one case and only 24 hours to bust the bad guys! Become a loose cannon police detective and face off with criminal gangs in this procedurally-generated action movie FPS. Join forces with a friend and take down those crooks, buddy-cop style.