Narcos: Rise of the Cartels Reviews
The hit Netflix show becomes a fun, if functional, turn-based strategy.
A mediocre XCOM-like in the form of a deeply worrying depiction of militarised police.
Turning the Netflix series into an XCOM clone is a bold choice, but the dumbed down tactical options and lack of polish are destined to disappoint fans of both franchises.
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.
Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is a decently executed turn-based strategy title. Sure, sometimes it's a bit too easy, but when the enemy moves efficiently it become a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Just be warned that you'll grow attached to your squadmates, and hate if you lose them. This is for you, Ruiz!
Narcos is a simple "tactics" game, which some fans of the Netflix series will enjoy because of an interesting use of the official license. After a few hours it gets repetitive, because of its lack of different maps.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
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.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is the perfect example of one decision ruining any chance a game had of being reasonable.
Licensed games still get a bad rap these days and Narcos: Rise of the Cartels probably won’t convince the naysayers. But buried beneath the murky graphics and presentation is a pretty decent and entertaining turn-by-turn tactical game.
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.
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.
Review in French | Read full review
The successful Netflix series becomes a video game. However, the final result is certainly not the best.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Narcos: Rise of the Cartels was shaping up to be a fascinating advert for Netflix's hit series, but the overall quid pro quo bend of strategy ultimately makes it the shallowest of tie-ins. This is one Search Bloc party that you can count me out for.
Considering how integral the back-and-forth tussle between El Patron and DEA is to the show, recreating such a violent game of chess in 'tactics' form seems like a match made in heaven. But even with some welcome gameplay twists – namely those real-time Kill Shots and Counteractions – the slow nature of its single-unit turn mechanic and the totally unremarkable AI makes this generous offering of missions far less exciting than it should be. As a genre, a turn-based tactics setup really suits the cat and mouse nature of this real-life-inspired cartel war; it's just a shame certain elements let it down.
Narcos: Rise of the Cartels doesn't really offer anything new in the turn-based genre, but it's still a polished good time.
An inadequate tie-in game for the Netflix series Narcos that pales in comparison to its source material.
Overall, Narcos: Rise of the Cartels offers some unique strategy mechanics to help distract you from the game's slow nature.
Without sounding cynical, ‘Narcos: Rise of the Cartels’ suffers from the same curse that looms over most video games that derive from TV shows and movies.
Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is a bad advertisement for the Netflix's TV-show.
Review in Italian | Read full review
While making a few adjustments to a tried-and-true formula, Narcos: Rise of the Cartel is a surprisingly enjoyable tactical strategy game that does its job well with the Narcos license.