RICO is Still Kind of a Mess

Oliver Giles

February 14, 2024

Game: RICO

Available On: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC

First released in 2019 by developer Rising Star Games, RICO was an interesting indie dev take on the tactical shooter genre, popularized by series like Tom Clancey’s Rainbow Six and SWAT. With a cell-shaded art style reminiscent of comic books and cult-classic FPS game XIII and a low price tag of just $20, there was a lot of promise.

RICO proved to have solid gameplay and good replayability through its use of co-op multiplayer and a Daily Challenge mode introduced in late 2019.

However, on console, the game struggled with performance issues, leading to framerate stutter and crashes, particularly on the Nintendo Switch.

Almost six years after the game’s first release, these problems have been patched; however, the game still has a few issues that drag it down quite a bit.

Firstly, the controls are pretty poor overall, and the game offers no native button-remap support for the console. 

Another big issue is how guns handle. I have played the game a decent amount on both Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch, and the aiming is incredibly inconsistent. With the Xbox version in particular, there is no different sensitivity setting for general rotation and ADS aiming, so it feels too unresponsive while looking around and all over the place while you’re aiming. 

The problem is even worse on Switch, where the Joycons, in general, make FPS games a chore sometimes to begin with. Here, the same sensitivity issues come into play, but now, with the added downside of inconsistent input delay. And, for most of the Switch’s FPS library, playing with motion controls isn’t any better, as it lacks the precise aiming sensitivity of other systems like the Wii.

I do not normally use aim assist for controller-based shooters, but this is one game that could have used it.

In addition to this, there are some other issues here and there that take away from the experience for me. While I understand that indie titles are often limited in what they can achieve by budget and developer team size, that isn’t an excuse for a bad soundtrack. Many independent games have great sound design and enjoyable music, but RICO falls short on both accounts, with stock-sounding gun effects and a lackluster, single-song soundtrack.

There are also quite a few guns that don't make sense, such as the starting SA .40 being chambered in 9mm or the revolver not packing the same punch that its stats claim.

Overall, the game isn’t horrible and might be worth picking up on sale for $1.99, but the console versions still have quite a few issues to this day, and for that price, you would be better off waiting for something like Rainbow Six Vegas to go on sale. With a sequel released in 2022, the critically and commercially panned RICO: London, it seems that patches and issue fixes with the original game have stopped entirely.