Both outrageously barebones AND fun shooter. Really nails delivering arcade, speedrunning-ideal gunplay with an excellent roguelike mode. Pricepoint feels high, but very replayable and co-op ideal.

Matrix Rico-dead.

That title being a tip lifted verbatim from one of the loading screens. Nothing, I think, could sum up the game's 'lofty goals 'and self-awareness better.

If Halo has its 'thirty seconds of fun' combat loop, Rico has a five second one. Five seconds of kicking in a door to trigger bullet time, sliding in - barreling into multiple enemies as you go - whilst concurrently headshotting the others from across the room and landing a baton on the last straggler. Five thrilling seconds.

Rico is both outrageously barebones and fun. It's a conversation I would constantly have with myself as my brain furiously attempted to catalogue my experience. The cell-shaded presentation is badly dated, animations are clunky, and there's funky physics and constant clipping - but it's fun. The AI is braindead shooting gallery fodder - but it's fun. The melee is finicky - but it's fun. The menus are a pain - BUT IT'S FUN.

What Rico really nails is delivering arcade, speedrunning-ideal gunplay that both really flows and through that induces a state of flow. It drops immediate FPS challenges on your lap like uncovering a room's worth of enemies to dispatch quickly before bullet time wears off, makes that a joy, and then doesn't shy from sticking to showing you that same good time over and over again. That particular moment feels like a masterstroke. Where we're usually familiar with bullet time available in scripted Call of Duty moments or at the touch of a button in Max Payne, there's something about the repetitive room entry of levels that just mechanically fits. It preserves bullet time as a unique opportunity when entering a room, but by dint of that, it's also delivered much more than most games would allow. The slide, also, is more satisfying than anything seen in Far Cry or even Bulletstorm.

Who needs a steam cooker?

For what I've said of its presentation, it's not without some spectacle. Bullets break up doors and send office equipment and goons alike flying with wonderfully exaggerated physics. Shooting explosive barrels and fire extinguishers leaves great impressions on the walls. I love elements of the UI like the 'room cleared' notice and accompanying 'ding!' that satisfyingly tail ends a firefight. The map is extremely intuitive. The voice acting from enemies is charmingly hokey, with straight-to-video-esque calmly spoken exclamations of 'police.' Like the intro cutscene, it's a nice reminder that Rico is well aware of how ridiculous it is.

The biggest revelation for me was that Rico is a welcome FPS challenge. Its 'Cases' mode is roguelike in nature, allowing you to select from a web of procedurally generated levels leading to the big bad. Points are awarded for the objectives completed - be it clearing all the rooms, assassinating a tough target, picking up stacks of cash, destroying assets, collecting evidence, defusing bombs, etc - and can be spent on weapons and grenades or most likely health and revivers. Completion of objectives triggers the arrival of reinforcements - a nice incentive for you to leave early and weigh up health/survival against lost points. Crucially, health is persistent between levels, so the challenge becomes a marathon and not the sprint through individual levels. I was hoping the final level would have more ceremony, but I can't deny the thrill of the journey of gaining new weapons and making good progress. It all works beautifully and is deathly hard. Some on the forums have complained that the random placement of bombs can make certain level seeds impossible. Whilst I haven't encountered this, it's understandably frustrating when this could sabotage a good run.

Not what I meant when I said I wanted a 'sliding door.'

'Lockdown', the wave survival mode, on the other hand, feels undercooked. Without the structure of room clearing and objectives, the presentation and gunplay feel too exposed. Whilst Rico could have benefitted from more modes that ventured outside its loop, this simply feels too conventional compared to 'Cases.' 'Operations' allows worry-free room-clearing outside of 'Cases' and the 'Daily' challenge sets a common level seed for competition on leaderboards.

There are definitely bigger criticisms to level at Rico. Try as I might, joining an online party for co-op just doesn't appear to work. You'll need a friend in tow, someone on the forums or be willing to play split screen if you want to play this optimally in co-op. Whilst I can tolerate the quirks of same-faced goons round every corner and finding a dozen guys in a small bathroom, content just feels too slim. The procedural generation of maps feels functional in terms of preventing absolute learning of maps, but when there are only four kinds of environment with often very similar basic layouts (see: the apartments lobby) and nothing hugely idiosyncratic about any one of them, it doesn't help assuage the sheer level of repetition you'll be exposed to in gameplay. The addition of some music in-game, perhaps at least in moments like reinforcements arriving or all objectives being completed, might have added some welcome personality that we see in the store page trailers.

My initial doubts with Rico quickly fell away and it turned into something I really couldn't put down. It's a perfect pure shot of shooter that does few things, but does them extremely well. I could see myself returning to this endlessly for short bursts of undiluted fun. If its price point was only slightly lower to negate its repetitious nature, it would be the easiest recommendation in the world. As it stands, it's still the kind of greatly replayable FPS that genre fans will surely lap up.