An In-depth Look at Narcoterror @ E3 2012

Organized Chaos

Game play in this title better resembles organized chaos than it does a tightly-constructed game, but that is OK, because it works! At least part of the reason why it works -- and works well -- has to do with the fact that the three elements of game play here present as a loosely based homage to each of the games upon which they are modeled. Specifically the ground-mode for the game is an interpretation of a sort of fusion of the classic arcade titles Contra and Commando...

As you navigate the area you are presented with targets to take out that can be helped along by the ubiquitous exploding barrels that exist as both a cliche and rite of passage in the game, which has you shooting your way through jungle paths and villages, where in addition to taking out the bad guys you must also set free the villagers and other innocents that the cartel has imprisoned for reasons not yet clear to you...

In the second mode of play you have located one of the helipads and have now obtained a chopper, and you will be using that to rescue the prisoners that you set free previously during the ground-pounding mode! That's right, this is the section of the game and play mode that functions as an homage to the classic 80's title Choplifter! As you maneuver towards your target you must avoid the heat-seeking missiles and fire from the ground, reach the now free prisoners, and pick them up in the chopper!

The distinctive side-scrolling style of play and your efforts to get the prisoners to safety as you avoid or evade the missiles is rewarded with points and bonus points which will be very important to you momentarily when we discuss that element of the game, but for now just remember that the idea is to pick up the prisoners and get them to safety!

Back on the ground briefly for some more combat action and then you encounter the plane that triggers the third and final mode (well, not final because you more or less rotate between the three modes) in which you pilot a plane from the overhead God's-eye-view, that very much resembles the classic Capcom arcade title 1942, complete with rapid whip-like reversals and a very tight control scheme that will be familiar to veteran arcade gamers to be sure!

The plane is present so that you can travel from the island that you are on to the next island, and presumably the resistance that you face in the form of fire from the ground and the helicopters that attack you is there in order to make your journey to the next island more interesting... Grin...

Ironically the plane that you are flying is a civilian single-engine type of the sort that is commonly used for smuggling narcotics -- as in tightly wrapped kilos of cocaine -- but for some odd reason happens to be equipped with wing-mounted machineguns, which turns out to be very fortunate for you since you need to use them to shoot down the helicopters and other targets of opportunity that appear ahead of you, all the while avoiding incoming anti-aircraft fire of a sort and density usually reserved for the coast of France in 1945 but still...

Speaking of Narcoterror

The controls for the game are based upon a dual-stick approach and offer an intuitive and quickly mastered style, while the HUD overlay that represents all of the usual data for games like this one may take a bit more effort in getting used to and making useful the information conveyed there. Clearly the controller of choice here is the standard dual-stick gamepad, which is not a problem for gamers on Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 platforms -- two of the three that the game will release upon when it arrives on XBLA and PSN later this year -- though considering that the third platform for the title is Windows PC, one has to assume that most PC gamers will have a gamepad handy, as we cannot imagine trying to play this one using the mouse and keyboard!

We suspect that the title of this game -- Narcoterror -- will have radically different meaning for gamers depending upon where they live -- for instance in the New England region it probably lands right on target as far as its intended sentiment is concerned, with most gamers accepting it for what it is -- a game about bad guys from a drug cartel who have captured the daughter of the protagonist, creating a one-man-versus-all showdown situation in which you, the hero, must rescue your daughter before the bad guys realize their mistake and end up killing her just to tie up the loose end that she so clearly represents.

If you happen to be a gamer who lives along the border between the USA and Mexico, and particularly in California or Texas, the word may have some extra negative connotations, especially considering that the sort of violence that is depicted in the game actually takes place there if not on a daily basis, than at least with enough frequency to make the story in the game far more believable for you than it is for gamers elsewhere in the country, which is food for thought...

In the end Narcoterror manages to take the best elements from the classics to which it pays homage, and integrate them within its own original feel and game play style so that the transitions really are seamless -- in fact if it lacked those elements it probably would not be as fun as it is -- and this is a fun game!