Chili Con Carnage

Proper funny not 'game funny', says Paul

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You're right; it IS a stupid name for a game. But if you can get past that it's honestly a far better game than the name suggests. An action adventure with the emphasis firmly on the action, Chili Con Carnage (CCC) sees you take on the role of Ram, a young man who, having just witnessed his Dad's murder via by the classic 'combine harvester through office wall' method, quite naturally embarks on a gun fuelled quest for vengeance through Mexico as soon as the funeral is over. Yet if all that sounds serious in any way (combine harvester withstanding) remember that daft name and you'll realise that the game has its tongue firmly inserted in its cheek, in fact CCC is genuinely funny at times, proper funny too not just 'game funny' which all too often is a completely different thing.

Screenshots and gameplay videos you may have seen up to now do an unfair job of making CCC look like something of a Mexican themed GTA rip off and while the graphical style does look heavily Rockstar influenced the game underneath couldn't be further removed from the open-ended sandbox style of GTA and its clones. On the surface a fairly standard third person shooter, CCC is split up into fairly small, typically very linear levels each populated with a large cast of stereotypical Mexican bad guys, the general aim of each level is to get from one end to the other killing everyone in the way and completing any mission specific objectives that may apply. So far so very standard. The fun comes in realising that there's two ways to play the game, one of which makes CCC a fairly routine shooter with little to distinguish from the pack it other than its humorous Mexican theme, the other makes it an addictive, fun, crazy and downright enjoyable romp that will keep you coming back and replaying levels time and time again.

Let me explain. CCC makes me think of that Antonio Banderas film 'Desperado', I remember watching that for the first time years ago and being blown away by the sheer 'coolness' of the fight scenes. The action had style, it had flair, damn it, it was like a ballet. With guns! Never one to simply stand in the doorway and efficiently shoot people the easy way Antonio Banderas' character would leap around the room, bounce off walls, and slide along bar tops all the while guns blazing, dealing death with such picturesque grace that it became a thing of beauty as well as destruction. CCC lets you play the Antonio way and that's where all the fun is to be found! Knowing this full well the game rewards your sense of style with points meaning that while shooting a bad guy from fifty yards is fine you get far more points by letting him and his friends get closer before running past them, back flipping off a nearby wall, taking each of them out in beautiful slow motion with perfectly placed headshots before your feet hit the ground, upon landing you deliver a final swift elbow to the face of a straggler who's arrived a little late before blowing the smoke off your guns with a wry smile. Now which sounds like more fun to you?

Once you've got to grips with the slightly cack-handed controls (perhaps it's just me but shoot would feel far more natural on the circle button than the square) pulling off such cinematic carnage is delightfully easy with Ram more than happy to flip himself off walls and dive around in slow motion at the slightest opportunity. The auto-aim does take a little bit of the skill out of things but also keeps the fun level high so you can't really complain. Along the way there are plenty of pickups to be found ranging from the standard weapons and extra health to special moves which can be used just the once but are always worth the wait. You can also pick up 'rewinds' which are a kind of checkpoint system, if you die mid level and you've picked up some rewind credits you can literally rewind time a little and try that bit again. There are also numerous vehicles littered around the levels for you to jump into and use as tools of destruction in any number of fun ways, from simply crushing bad guys beneath the wheels right up to accelerating towards silos surrounded by enemies at full throttle before jumping from the driver's door and watching in slow motion as it ploughs into the silo causing an explosion that takes everything else with it. With every kill your combo multiplier increases meaning the more kills you can string together the higher your score gets, helpfully you have a few seconds between kills to bag the next one before the combo ends so with the next enemy always just round the corner a bit of practice means its possible to keep the combo going for a long while racking up huge scores.

As you can see, getting to the end of each level is really only half the challenge and far less than half the fun, getting there having pulled off as many outlandish moves as possible earns you far more points and ultimately turns CCC into more of a high score setter than most similar arcade shooters tend to be. With so many creative ways of dispatching the bad guys to earn more and more points and levels taking only twenty odd minutes to play through you'll find yourself going back and repeating them just to improve your score or try out new things far more often than you would normally expect. In between some levels the game offers you mini challenges, these are skipable if you just want to get on with the main game, but by now you've surely realised that such a hurried attitude is kind of missing the point a little. These challenges serve as a way for the game to train you in some of the more advanced techniques with each one requiring you to perform a set task (for example, get 5 slow motion headshot kills within a time limit or get your combo multiplier up to 25 without it ending) and rewards you with huge points scores and unlocks new multiplayer content as well.

Talk about a perfect link, there are two multiplayer modes one wireless and one requiring players to pass a single PSP around, interestingly neither of which involves you shooting your co-gamers rather they play out more like multiplayer Tetris with players sending killed enemies over to their competitors game (rather than Tetris's blocks obviously...) which is a novel twist on multiplayer shooters and is to be applauded as such even if the omission of a more standard deathmatch mode is a bit disappointing.

There is a lot to recommend in Chili Con Carnage, its bright, bold and not just in a graphical sense (in fact I've not even mentioned the graphics, they're nice in that slightly sub-PS2 way that PSP games often tend to have) and it lets you have a huge amount of fun with it if you get into the spirit of the thing. There are faults too of course, it doesn't really offer much new after the first few levels other than changes of scenery and some bigger weapons and the slow motion action can get a bit old hat after a while, but they never detract much from the game as a whole and ultimately if you play it the way that it's clearly meant to be played, as opposed to just blasting through the levels as fast as possible, then you'll be rewarded with one of the best action games on the PSP. Just don't let that title put you off!

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By Paul Newcombe