Narcos: Rise of the Cartels
Welcome to Colombia, 1980’s – the fires of El Patrón’s empire have been lit, its influence spanning borders, and expansion unabated. Influence and corruption is rife; cops, guards, politicians and those in between are falling into the pocket of the Medellín Cartel, and after years of production, America is finally taking notice.
Narcos: Rise of the Cartels tells the story of the hit Netflix TV series, of the rise and fall of El Patrón. Choose your side and ally with the DEA or conversely side with the Narcos. Explore recognisable locations from the show and take a role in pivotal world-altering events and battles that will define and shift the war on drugs.
Form your team from a variety of class-specific roles, join leading characters, upgrade your skills and take part in brutal turn-based combat, where your actions will have consequence.
Plata o Plomo?
- BASED ON THE HIT NETFLIX TV SERIES
- Authenticity is at the core of the Narcos experience and highly recognisable and iconic characters from the TV show are available to control and play, such as El Mexicano, Murphy, Peña, Primo and more. Every ‘leader’ character offers unique gameplay abilities and perks to help turn the tide of battle.
- FAST-PACED STRATEGY COMBAT
- Narcos: Rise of the Cartels takes turn-based strategy combat to a whole new level with units possessing the ability to move individually one after another or multiple times within one turn, meaning the pace always being ramped up. Plan your moves wisely but be cautious as there are always consequences to your actions.
- EVERY WAR HAS TWO SIDES
- Featuring two unique campaigns, Narcos: Rise of the Cartels allows you to see the war from both sides. Choose to side with the DEA and fight alongside Steve Murphy to bring down the drug empire, or choose to side with the Narcos in order to help found, grow and expand the empire under the watchful eye of El Patrón.
- COUNTERACT AND KILL-SHOT
- Innovative gameplay mechanics keep the turn-based genre fresh by allowing you to take third-person control of your units in order to engage enemies directly, giving you the opportunity to deal critical damage at optimum moments.
Steam User 2
This game is decent and the Netflix that it’s based on is very good. It is a shame that it has been delisted.
Steam User 2
An amazing addition to the world of turn-based tactics games. When you thought turn-based tactics games were well defined on what they should be, Narcos introduced something new. However, this game does have issues with the newly introduced concept.
Familiar TBT game elements:
Have a cover system, full cover and half cover.
Two action points, one for movement and one for skills or action.
Different classes and skills.
The infamous hit chance on every turn-based tactics game one of my characters missed a 95% shot and got himself killed.
How this game differs from other TBT games:
Two different storylines are available.
No in mission save. Only auto-save is available.
You and AI can only move one of your characters instead of the whole team.
Have a killshot system. If you deal with critical damage, you have the option to finish the enemy off with killshot (does not consume ammo)
New overwatch system: During the enemy turn, “Counteract” can trigger if they are in your line of sight and weapon range. This allows you to attack a moving enemy. And to Counteract, you will need Counteract Points, which can be earned from kills and certain skills. Counteract is kinda a quick-time event.
Your character can spend one action point in the mission to recover 1 hp. Each character only has HP.
Have a unit bonus (surviving squad for the mission) and global bonus (anyone you have hired) to level up
Weapon damage is fixed for each weapon, but some traits and skills allow you to fire more bullets for each attack, thus increasing the damage dealt.
The good:
The game visual looks great. The cut scenes and voice-over are also done really well. Some of the cut scenes might come from the TV series (maybe some of the missions are from the TV series based on the live action cut scenes?).
Relaxing scores and in-game sound effects.
Can play as DEA or cartel. Both are linear and easy to follow.
Auto save only after finishing a mission, and there is no in-mission save. If you do not plan ahead of time, it is highly likely that your character(s) will die. This feature won’t be new-player (to Turn-based Tactic games) friendly. You can always return to the main menu and retry the mission.
Good skill design and selection system. The skill characters get when they level up can really help out a mission and sometimes be life-saving.
Good map design and character design. Although the maps are limited, each map is well-designed and goes quite well with the classes available in the game. Some classes will shine on certain types of maps. Make sure you bring one of each class in your squad. You never know when some skills or their huge amount of health might come in handy
The mix:
AI behavior: Still in a completely offensive or entirely defensive stage of AI.
If you move one character closer to them, they will rush you one by one. They will not pursue you if you fall back, even if you are a lone wolf. In a way, this makes sense. AI wants you to go to their position, while they can use Counteract to damage you first. But once you unlock the grenade launcher class, you can hit the enemies quite far away. However, AI would still be defensive and let their soldiers be blown up without taking action.
There are also instances where I rush someone to damage the nearest enemy; instead of fighting back/healing/retreating to cover, AI would abandon that cannon fodder and move somebody else far away.
Minor issue: The lines characters speak sometimes do not match the lines shown on screen.
The bad:
Like what others have mentioned, there are a lot of turns just used for healing and reloading.
There are missions where the enemy gets reinforcements. They are triggered when you complete certain objectives. The drop zone can be behind your back, which means your characters can be already out of ammo or injured, and now they are being flanked.
There are places on the map where enemies can hit you, but you cannot hit back.
Some missions have turns limited objectives. This would work if you can move your whole team like other turn-based tactics games. When you can only move one character, killing enemies, reloading, and healing become quite challenging and annoying. AI will always rush you as if their lives do not matter, but you do not want to lose your squad members. The fight becomes a bit unfair.
A few bugs encountered:
The mouse cursor would disappear after completing a Narcos story mission. You won’t lose your progress, but you do have to force quit the game. Not sure if it is because I run the game on Windowed mode.
The squad screen would show incorrect squad members before a mission. Removing squad members and re-adding him would resolve the issue.
Enemy can move on top of a cover, and you won’t be able to damage the enemy.
Overall, I quite enjoyed playing Narcos: Rise of the Cartels. I liked the idea of moving only one character at a time. But the new system should be better implemented or balanced before your turn and the enemy turn.
Try it out!
Steam User 3
So for the Steam Deck it says Verified,
However to get this game running and working I had to select Proton 6.3-8 in settings Properties and then compatibility.
Wasted time figuring that out so hopefully this helps others for a quick fix.
Gameplay I'm hooked :)
Steam User 1
No neutral option, so this will focus on the types of people that could be looking to play this:
If you are a turn-based strategy connoisseur, you will probably not like this one. At the start it may be different and refreshing, but it is all a facade for very bland and generic game design. Mission structure to unlock the next main mission is incredibly repetitive and not very strategic the deeper you progress into the game. Overall, it relies more on learning to exploit the map design, dumb AI and simple game mechanics to your advantage along with those random BS moments that could ruin your entire mission, especially in the early game when your squad is not very strong and lack resources to replace dead units or upgrade their skills. Once you learn how to exploit, you become a bulldozer which may also not be fun or challenging.
If you are an achievement hunter, completionist or combing through your backlog of games, definitely give this one a try. At first it may be hard or frustrating, which will tell you at that point whether you should move on to another game, but if you stick with it to build an overpowered squad, then it becomes pretty fun being able to exploit the game mechanics to focus on unlocking achievements. This was where the real strategy came in, which sadly is more of an emergent gameplay experience rather than intended design choice.
If you are a casual gamer who tends to try new games without finishing them, give this a shot. It will give you at least an hour or two of fun before becoming boring or it may become your next addiction.
Steam User 2
I was worried about the quality of this game after seeing so many negative reviews, but glad I purchased it on sale. I've only played it for a short while, but I really like this game. It reminds me a lot of board games (turn based nature) where you really have to plan your moves in advance. Great game, really recommend it to anyone who also loves the strategy of turn based games.
Steam User 2
Si te gusta XCOM2, de seguro vas a disfrutar este juego. La dinamica del juego es muy similar pero ambientada en los bajos fondos del mundo real.
Steam User 2
---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☑ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10