Chili Con Carnage First Look Preview

Life can take some odd turns, and the developers of Chili Con Carnage can testify to that. Now known as Deadline Games, the Danish company started out as a TV production company before making the switch to game development in 1996. After several years of making niche PC titles as part of a Swedish publishing company, a management takeover in 2001 resulted in Deadline Games once again flying solo, with the intention of developing games for the burgeoning console market. In 2005, seemingly out of the blue, a GTA-esque game with a unique and fun gun-slinging combat system arrived in the shape of Total Overdose. As a first attempt at console development it was a creditable effort, and they’ve taken what they learnt on Total Overdose and tried to apply it to Chili Con Carnage for the PSP.

Though it shares some significant similarities with Total Overdose, such as the combat system and Mexican setting, Chili Con Carnage is an attempt to make something different; a game that truly works on the PSP rather than made to fit it. As such, they’ve done away with the ill advised free roaming city approach and focussed on making a linear shooter with short, fun levels, whilst maintaining the inventive combat that made Total Overdose a success. They’ve even drafted in Junichi Yamada, formerly of Amusement Vision (Super Monkey Ball, F-Zero GX), as Lead Level Designer to help realise this vision.

So what of this fun, inventive combat system? Using a third-person perspective the basics are very much akin to Max Payne, with the ability to dive around whilst shooting and pull-off a variety of insane moves. Where Chili Con Carnage diverges significantly, however, is its ‘beat ’em up’ attitude to building up combos. The theory goes that each level is designed in such a way that you can, if you are very good and work very hard, go through each level with one giant unending combo. Each level is relatively short, and there are numerous ways of maintaining your combo. The first of those is, unsurprisingly, killing enemies, and there are a number of fun ways to do away with those that stand in your way. To add insult to injury, you can even catch their sombreros for a further bonus – it’s that kind of a game.

This light-hearted attitude is apparent from the very start, with a storyline right out of Nacho Libre absurdity. Indeed, I doubt the game will see a release in Mexico, since it takes great joy in poking fun at the stereotypes of the nation. Let’s take some of the special moves, or Loco Moves as they are known in the game, as examples.

Loco Moves, which can be picked up as power-ups, are designed to be both destructive and entertaining, and many sport a slightly Mexican theme. For example, you can throw a Piñata that will attract your enemies – because apparently Mexicans can’t resist flocking around a Piñata when it appears – which will blow up in their faces. Others include El Toro, where your character turns into a rampaging bull, or El Gimpo, where you turn into a mad Mexican wrestler. The tongue is, as they say, firmly in the cheek; in fact it’s super-glued to the cheek and rendered pink for comic effect. As you might imagine, the boss battles share this light-hearted approach and an early boss battle has you fighting against a giant old woman who releases exploding chickens at you – yes, it’s that kind of a game.

Deadline Games hasn’t skimped on the game modes either, with two single-player and two multiplayer modes to play. El Gringo Loco, the main campaign mode, will encompass nineteen missions as well as optional challenge missions for obtaining bonuses and Loco Moves. Another single-player mode, El Macho, is something of an arcade mode. with the simple aim being to rack up the highest score possible, and it should be great for those holes of time you might need filling.

The two multiplayer modes will feature both online and offline varieties. Macho, the offline variant, allows up to four players to compete in a high-score competition passing the PSP around taking turns. Whether this will work remains to be seen, since any multiplayer where you spend any time inactive isn’t always ideal – we’ll just to have to wait and see. The online mode, titled Fiesta, takes a quite ingenious – on paper at least – approach by mixing action shooter with a Tetris-esque mechanic, whereby downed enemies will appear in your opponent’s arena in the hope that they’ll be overwhelmed and defeated.

For all its beauty, the PSP hasn’t worked out quite as well as many would have hoped. The reasons for this are many, but one of them is that not enough games have been made with the needs of handheld gaming in mind. Early indications show that Chili Con Carnage is a concerted effort to reverse this trend, whilst holding true to the things that the PSP does well. There’s plenty of fun and invention going into the gameplay, and if nothing else the light-hearted attitude should serve the game well.