Narcos: Rise of the Cartels Critic Reviews

Fans of the series will appreciate to rediscover the characters and universe of Narcos, as the game will remind them of the events and places of the first season. The graphics are good, provided that you don't get too close and don't mind about strange camera angles. The targeting can sometimes be problematic, but the strategic aspect and the third person real-time actions are quite effective. We liked being able to switch sides between Narcos and D.E.A but, unfortunately, the game is too repetitive.

In the end, Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is a game with good production values, let down by a tactical layer that doesn’t seem to have been fully thought-through. There are impressively few flaws here, but the ones it does have are so key to the nature of the game that they end up dragging down the whole experience. Like Pablo Escobar’s intrinsic arrogance which led to his downfall, so does Narcos’ rather basic assumptions ruin what could have been a very exciting tie-in game.

The concept behind Narcos: Rise of The Cartels is interesting, but the game seems to have been done with superficiality and little care. The unpleasant impression is that it is a title made only to take advantage of the license of the Netflix TV series.

It does not rely on a solid contour such as that of the Netflix series to lighten the weight of these problems on the player, who instead sees himself launched into the fray with banal justifications without bite.

If you are a fan of the Netflix's series, the game should suit you for a few hours before all of its flaws eventually spoil the party. Narcos : Rise of the Cartels lacks depth and is not a very interesting tactical game.

Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is a strategic turn-based combat game that simply doesn’t work. Despite a high-sounding name, the managerial part and the strategic depth are lacking; moreover, the variants to the classic X-Com gameplay are strange and poorly designed.

Your enjoyment of Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is going to be heavily based on whether you can accept its strategy game conceit. If you're good with the idea of only being able to control one unit at a time per turn, then you might be fine so long as you're also willing to accept the inherent lack of strategy that goes along with the very limited objective set. If you want your strategy games to be a little more traditional, where every unit can do something on a turn, then you'll hate this game to the point that even the counteract mechanic can't make things interesting. In short, Narcos is a hard sell for fans of the series, let alone strategy game fans, unless you can find it for a very deep discount.

A mediocre XCOM-like in the form of a deeply worrying depiction of militarised police.

Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is not a broken game, nor is it ugly or offensive. But it is joyless. It feels cold, like a corporate cash grab, and suffers from a fundamental misunderstanding of its target audience. There are interesting elements and attractive qualities, but the game overall fails to deliver much of anything to anyone in particular.

Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is a bad advertisement for the Netflix's TV-show.

The game presents some interesting innovation in the genre, a level design that should match, but is weighed down by a movement system that only allows one unit to be controlled for each turn.

This anemic game is not worthy of the amazing TV show it is based on.

Bland, boring, and uninspired, Narcos: Rise of the Cartels isn't quite the tie-in product that fans of Netflix's series would want to see. It's bogged down by flawed fundamentals, a repetitive campaign, and unengaging gameplay.

Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is the perfect example of one decision ruining any chance a game had of being reasonable. An X-COM style real-time tactics game where you can only use one character per turn, which limits tactical options and essentially grinds the game to a halt as soon as you take to the field. Compounded by moronic AI in repetitive missions that are made so easy the squad-building and permadeath is rendered pointless. The game has a few interesting aspects, such as a unique third-person shooter twist on overwatch mechanics found in other games. All in all, this isn't the way to experience Narcos - watch the show instead.

Narcos: Rise of the Cartels succeeds completely at just one thing: It makes me interested in watching the Netflix series. The game had a lot of potential, and at least superficially it looked like something that may be better than the standard advertorial we’ve come to expect from this kind of tie-in game. Unfortunately, the end result is a cautionary tale about how one poor design decision can ruin just about everything else a game has going for it.