In recent years the sheer number of entries within our interactive form of entertainment that try to capture and imitate the spirit of the action flicks from the 1980's is frankly astonishing. From wild cards like Thunder Wolves to a well established and truly respected franchise such as Far Cry, everyone seems to be taking a turn in being a "badass", 80's Style!
We've seen the movies after all, it does not seem that hard, just mix a couple of characters with a total and utter disregard for human life, make everything in the world either flammable or explosive, write a few one liners that sound offensive and really cool at the same time, shove as many cool guns as you can into the game and call it a day, those seem to be the minimum requirements when it comes to emulating the 80's over the top action flicks.
Sure, you can go a bit further like Blood Dragon, but masterpieces like that are hard to come by on a daily basis, taking the core elements and getting them right, just like Thunder Wolves did, seems somewhat more reasonable and actually achievable when it comes to low budget titles and smaller developers.
Narco Terror is the latest entry in the market to go for that 80's mood that we described, unfortunately, it never achieves the intense, fast and blood pumping action required for this style to work. At the end of the day it just comes off as being extremely derivative, lazy and uninspired overall.
All the action takes place in South America and the plot is totally and utterly superfluous and ridiculous, just as it should be.
Unfortunately, like any good modern shooter it still seems capable of bothering you from time to time with intrusive cutscenes that honestly don't add a whole lot and just feel out of place. In a game where the (bald) protagonist starts off by punching the window of a helicopter to get some information, any kind of attempt to give some depth to the plot is pretty much wasted, at least the devs could have tried to make the cutscenes amusing in some way, but alas, no such luck.
Also much in vogue lately are twin stick shooters, Narco Terror is one of those. It seems like the folks from Rubicon have trouble grasping the concept behind that mechanic though, when you introduce to them the "archaic" keyboard/mouse combo, it simply does not work, clearly a lazy and rushed out PC port that pales when compared to other titles with the same gameplay mechanic - Hotline Miami and Gatling Gears just to give two quick examples.
It's not all bad though, the local co-op while simplistic, can be entertaining, there's nothing quite like you and a friend just wreaking havoc throughout South America to turn a mediocre game into something more enjoyable.
Another cool feature is the scoring system that rewards the player for chain killing enemies, explosions and a few other interactions with the environment, for those interested in score attacking and speed running the game, this is something of enormous importance, almost vital.
There is also a very basic weapon upgrade system in place that does not add that much to the final experience simply because it's way to simplistic and just feels like an after thought.
Visually the game is acceptable, a few frame rate issues were detected, but nothing too serious that would harm the gameplay experience. The explosions in particular look really spectacular and are a joy to cause, in a game with so many of them it's critical to make them look good and powerful.
Sound-wise the game is pretty blend, nothing stands out, the music is forgettable and the voice work while cheesy it's not funny or crazy enough for a game with this sort of style.
Unfortunately Narco Terror is just not a very good game overall, for the price (10€) there are some much better alternatives out there. It's only recommended for twin stick shooter die hard fans or maybe some 80's action flick aficionado and even then just wait for a price drop.
Year of Release: 2013
Platform(s): PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Developer(s): Rubicon
Publisher(s): Deepsilver
NRLB would like to thank Deepsilver for providing a review copy
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