Chili Con Carnage Hands-on Preview

To say third-person action games on the PSP have been disappointing is probably making light of the current situation facing the handheld. Games like Syphon Filter and Killzone Liberation have shown that the genre isn’t dead and buried on the Sony handheld, but these games are few and far between. The PSP’s design simply doesn’t suit today’s complex action games, or so I thought. Eidos and Deadline Games have stepped up to the plate with Chili Con Carnage, an action game that practically defies the platform it’s running on.

As you hopefully already know due to reading all of our previous coverage of Chili, it’s from the guys that brought us Total Overdose back in 2005. The spicy, Mexican flavoured GTA-alike didn’t go down well with critics despite packing some of the most entertaining gun fights since Neo blasted up some security guards and stone pillars in The Matrix. It wasn’t all it could have been though, mainly due to its fun-halting free-roaming city that linked missions. Thankfully, this has been sorted out for this pseudo sequel.

Chili Con Carnage features a similar story and familiar characters from Total Overdose (Ram returns as the main character, and his father is once again murdered early on in the game), but it’s not a sequel – think of it more as the game it should have been the first time around. Gone are the free-roaming sections, leaving a truckload of bite-sized levels (in comparison to Total Overdose) and the thrilling action. This includes the combo system and slow motion dives that made an appearance in Total Overdose, but on the PSP it seems to fit like a glove, seeming tailor made for the handheld.

Had Chili Con Carnage been a straightforward shooter with a Mexican twist I’d be excited, but no more so than I am for numerous other PSP games due this year. It’s the combo system that sets Chili apart, and it’s what could well give the game a rather hardcore following. Not content with simple combos, in Chili it’s possible to combo throughout an entire mission, making the gameplay about as satisfying as a handheld third-person shooter can be.

A combo meter and score multiplayer are shown on the right hand side of the screen and these increase with every enemy you shoot – certain sections will be devoid of enemies, though, so you’ll have to target chickens in order to keep the combo meter above zero. The points scored as you progress can also be improved by performing stylish kills or by wearing hats that fallen enemies drop – this is harder than it sounds as you need to catch them before they hit the floor. Loco Moves are awarded as your kill counter rises, with an enemy-destroying dual-wield mode being the prize for reaching level 15.

Loco Moves will be familiar to players of Total Overdose, and they function in largely the same way here. They’re Mexican themed (very little in Chili isn’t) and when used can be devastating. The Golden Gun gives Ram the ability to take out enemies in one shot, El Gimpo unleashes a giant man in a gimp mask, and El Mariachi sees Ram whip out an oversized weapon disguised as a guitar case. There are many more Loco Moves, but they’re best discovered as you play through, and certain moves are also best used in specific environments, so it’s worth experimenting.

With an impressive target lock-on system that can be used to target enemies or objects in the environment, the single-analogue control system didn’t pose any problems during my time with the game. It’ll certainly take a few minutes to figure out how to shoot your desired target, but it becomes second nature very quickly indeed. Driving isn’t quite as prominent now that the free-roaming aspect from Total Overdose has been removed, but it still plays a part during the missions and seems to have benefited from some improvements made to the driving model.

From a presentation perspective Chil Con Carnage really excels. While the game might look a tad rougher than the PlayStation 2 version of Total Overdose, Deadline Games has managed to put more enemies on screen at any one time and retain the explosive nature of the original game. Even at this early stage in 2007, I’d be surprised if another PSP action game released this year manages to be anywhere near as explosive. Also worthy of a mention is the game’s Mexican-themed soundtrack, and the awesome way the music rises in intensity as your combo increases.

And there’s even more to Chili Con Carnage than I’ve mentioned here. For a start there are numerous multiplayer modes, a brilliant use of high scores and numerous extra single-player missions. After Total Overdose I felt a little disappointed that Deadline’s next effort wasn’t for next-gen consoles, but after playing Chili Con Carnage, all is forgiven. Due out at some point in Q1 2007, this has the potential to be the handheld’s first killer app of 2007.