To note, a copy of Rico was provided by the game’s publisher for review. All images are from the game’s Press Kit. At the time of writing I couldn’t upload my own from the Switch.

Welcome to San Amaro

One of the genres the Nintendo Switches is missing is first person shooters. Games like Away: Journey to the Unexpected have tried to fill the gap in the market but still haven’t manage to scratch the FPS itch for Switch owners. RICO by Ground Shatter games aims to do that with its arcade ‘buddy-cop’ co-op mechanics. After seeing Age of Boredom play the game on Youtube, I couldn’t wait to team up with him and take out the USA’s toughest thugs.

The Story

You play as one of four elite agents in the RICO crime unit. A division of the law that has been formed to tackle the worst gangs in San Amaro, America’s crime capital (think of it like Gotham). You and your partner have 24 hours to solve a case and take down each of San Amaro’s gangs one by one. However, death is not an option in RICO and there are no second attempts, so you and your partner will have to work smart and fast to take out the gang lords.

The Gameplay

RICO is an FPS with a little bit of a twist. The game also has some rouge-like elements to it that make each case you attempt unique. Each case has a varied number of levels which you need to progress through to reach the gang’s final boss. Each level is randomly generated, meaning every map, enemy and even weapon will be different from your last case.

By progressing through the levels your character will unlock merits, which can be use to buy and upgrade weapons and armour. Depending on the character you pick, you will be assigned a basic weapon. I usually pick Travis Walker so start off with a pistol. I like the random allocation of weapons later into the cases though, because it means you always have to use weapons you may not be familiar with. In my opinion, the best weapon to use is the shotgun, as rooms are usually narrow and enemies clump together, making them easy to mow down. However, not every case has the shotgun, so the game forces you to experiment with other weapons.

The only constant that is kept from cases are skills you unlock to modify your character. Each character can use four different skills, which you can mix and match. This is great because it gives you the ability to differentiate between the characters, as other than having different weapons, they all feel similar. New skills include better reload times, more max ammo and health restoration. In total there are 11 skills to unlock, which I think could be increased to make characters feel even more unique.

The gunplay in RICO is impressive. It’s definitely more along the arcade style of FPS than something like Call of Duty but nevertheless, I found the gunplay thrilling and addictive. Especially when you have an upgraded gun with a nice sight, extended mag and a flashlight attached. Enemies literally stand no chance when you burst into a room doing a power slide with your shotgun pumping! Plus, when you enter the room there is a substantial time slow-down which lets you locate enemies and take shots before they even know what is happening. It could be argued that the enemies have no idea what is happening because of their pretty basic AI, which has them shoot, run at you and kneel down (and thats pretty much it). However, I still think there was nothing more satisfying in the game then kicking in a door and going to town on the bad guys.

Even more so when I was teamed up with Age of Boredom. Working together in the game is so seamless, we were even playing without a mic because of the game’s simple but handy ping system. It felt like we were the Avengers bursting into a room, him power sliding in with an AK47 and me popping shots with my shotgun- all in slow motion. For an indie game, I thought the online experience was pretty top notch. It was easy for us to team up (which isn’t always the case with online games on the Switch) and I appreciated that we were actually in the game together and not just ghosts in each other’s game.

As well as the rogue-like cases, there are also a number of other modes to play in RICO. There’s quick play, which loads a quick random map to play through. Plus, there are daily challenge maps with online leaderboards. You can choose from the easy, medium or hard daily and compete with other users for the top score on the Switch and other platforms. Each daily is randomly generated so you never know what map, character or weapons you’re going to get. The dailies are a real hook for RICO. Since I’ve had the game I’ve been completing them and trying to earn that top spot on the leaderboard. So far the highest I’ve reached is 4th (damn you Black Red Gaming!). In addition, there’s also Lockdown which is a sort of hoard mode and Kill House, as well as a local co-op mode for you guys that like playing together on your couch.

Art and Music

The art style of RICO is very bright and colourful adopting a shell shaded look and is very reminiscent of the old Ubisoft game XIII . I’d also describe the art style as functional, it does its job well but is nothing spectacular. Enemy’s character models soon get repetitive and the environments lack variation. However, I don’t think the lack of variety takes anything away from the game. Guns look good and the reload animations are fast and stylish. Plus, I love that the environments are all destructible, so if an enemy is hiding behind a thin wall you can shoot them through it. There’s even an opening cutscene with a surprisingly good voice over that gives you the overview of the game’s story.

The game is lacking in music but I think the sound design it pretty decent. Guns sound loud and varied. From our multiplayer game, you could tell I was firing a shotgun and Age a AK47, just from hearing each other across the map. I think it’s also cool that footsteps crunch on debris on the floor, so if you listen carefully you can hear people trying to sneak up on you from behind.

Problems

The biggest problem with the game is that you can tell it was designed for two players and not one. This makes the game extremely hard in the later levels because all the maps and the obstacles in them are designed for two people. One such obstacles is disarming bombs throughout that map. It is so difficult for one person to do as the task has a time limit. This means as a single player you have to rush through the level trying to find these bombs. If you don’t disarm them in time, it is game over. Therefore, caution is thrown to the wind as you dive head first into fire fights to try and find all the bombs. I don’t like this because it means the aim of the game is directed away from fun arcade shooting, to a rushed easter egg hunt in a map full of angry mobsters.

The performance of RICO has been good for me but bare in mind I have only been playing in docked mode. I did have some slowdown whilst playing online but it was nothing too serious. It was usually when Age and I entered a big room together, there was a lot of slow down then everything moved extremely fast, taking the game back to normal.

My final problem and the only thing I’d consider ‘bad’ about the game is its menus; they’re so cumbersome to use. Every time you want to progress in the menu you have to hit the ‘continue’ button. However, there is not a quick key to just continue, you have to scroll through all of the menus and weapon select and even level select to hit continue. You have to use the D-Pad which makes this entire process extremely slow and even more frustrating. I wish the menus were a little bit cleaner and easier to navigate. Maybe having a curser like in Destiny would help, instead of pressing the D-Pad 20 times!

Summary

RICO fills the FPS gap that the Nintendo Switch is missing. It’s gunplay is satisfying and fun, whilst its rogue-like mechanics make the game addictive. After every failed run I had that feeling ‘ok just one more’, which I rarely get with other games. The art-style is colourful, the guns look and sound great and the game is a blast to play with a friend online or on your couch.

Alone though, its a slightly different story. It’s obvious to see that levels are designed for two people, making the later levels extremely hard to do on your own. If I was rating my online experience alone, I think my rating would be higher than what it is. Therefore, if you’re going to spend the $19.99 asking price on RICO, I’d suggest you get a friend to buy a copy too.

That’s why I give RICO by Ground Shatter Games my rating of

Are you going to be picking up RICO? Do you think the Switch is lacking FPS games? Let me know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter or Discord.

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