Written by: John Perkowski


Well the PSP is starting off the new year with some very solid titles. With the recent release of Ratchet and Clank the PSP is kicking off the new year with a bang. Now comes Chili Con Carnage offering some unique gameplay to its unique name.

The game is a complete reworking of the Total Overdose storyline. Young Ramiro Cruz goes to visit his father for his birthday, when a harvester manages to smash its way through the window carving his father into chunks. Seeking revenge, he gathers intel from his uncle Marco and goes on a killing spree against the drug kingpin who ordered the attack.The plot is simple, but it's filled with ridiculous over the top moments that only add to the gameplay instead of taking away from it. That harvester crashing through the window? That's not even the worst part; I won't spoil it here, but you will come up against all sorts of crazy bad guys from a giant bull to men in Chicken Suits. Oh yes, this game isn't about a serious storyline, it's all about fun.

At its core, the game is a simple third person shooter, somewhat in the vein of Max Payne. But don't let that fool you. Ramiro is far more of a lunatic than Max ever was. Ram leaps around stages with the gymnastics capabilities of the Prince of Persia, pulling off moves just designed to look cool. Sure it's cool to shoot a guy, but why just shoot him when you can springboard off a wall, spin around in the air, and nail a pitch perfect headshot, catching his fallen sombrero on your head before his fallen body hits the ground? The game is all about racking up these kinds of crazy kills in a combo string. The more combo kills in zany fashions you get, the better your score. No, it's not about completing a level; it's about completing it with the best score possible. Run out of bad guys? There are convenient chickens lain about each level, which when shot keep your meter filled. Theoretically, if you're good enough, you can play through a whole level in one continuous combo.

Of course Ram doesn't just combo bad guys. Power-ups are dropped in each level to give Ram the edge up. Need to score kills fast? Use the Golden Gun. Make a mistake? Hit the Rewind powerup and try again. Guns not big enough? Use the El Mariachi cases and mow down hordes of bad guys like your in a Robert Rodriguez flick. Ram has also gained some new abilities since the first game, most notably the ability to shoot while driving and move the aim cursor when doing the side wall walk. The game may not be terribly in depth, but it's fun and addictive from beginning to end.

The soundtrack is perfect for this kind of game and reacts to how good you are playing. When you first start out, it's dead quiet. Shoot a few bad guys with style and the beat starts. Get really good, and the song kicks into full gear. Now you have a mix of great artists like Molotov and Control Machete to combo out too. And like alternative rocks songs of the Tony Hawk franchise, these only add to the gameplay instead of detracting from it. The voice actors seal the deal for the game as well. Most of the return from the previous game reprising the roles they brought to life. They keep the dialogue just cheesy enough to be enjoyable without approaching self-parody. And in a game that is borderline offensive at some points, that is a great trick. It never goes too far into painting the situations as anything but comical, and makes the game enjoyable.

Those who were fortunate enough to play the prequal will find a lot has changed here. Gone is the open ended free-romaing city vaguely reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto. Everything here is mission based, and this is good and bad. This fits the portable format well, since it's all about the action, but the exploration part of the first game is lost. This was the roughest part of the original game, so its no loss on the PSP. However, should they make another console version, they should definitely bring this back.

The game isn't perfect though and it has a lot of problems that make it annoying to play sometimes. Of course everyone gripes about the lack of a second analog stick, but I think we just got spoiled by the dual analog function. Still, the game makes you rely on an autolock feature, which often chooses its targets somewhat haphazardly. Ram makes up for this by having infinite shootdodge, so it can be worked around but its still an aggravation. What is much more annoying is what the game places target priorities on. When no enemies are around and your looking to preserve your combo meter, the game will prioritize useless targets to focus on (aka barrels and scarecrows) as opposed to the more useful items that extend your combo bar (aka Chickens, Turkeys, toilets, ect). Since you can't point the camera directly at these items without holding down a button and sacrificing the ability to move, it can get frustrating.

The camera itself can also be an enemy, especially when surrounded by targets. It doesn't spin around fast enough when surrounded, so the enemies may sometimes get a cheap freebie death. Of course, the infinite shootdodge again counters this somewhat, but it's still a pain. Using vehicles can be hit or miss too. Since the vehicle button is mapped to the same function as shootdodge, I have bounced off more car doors than I have driven cars. This wastes combo meter time and becomes a chore. In short, the game could have used a bit more tweaking, or at least the reassigning of some functions to a different button. As it is, the game comes with two default control schemes, and you can define your own. the ability to use the face buttons the move, the analog to move the cursor, the triggers to shoot and dodge, and the digital assigned to everything else would have made this a more enjoyable experience. This biggest crime though is length, you could beat this game in five hours tops. The meger multiplayer options do nothing as there is only LAN play, no Internet play.

Still, this is an awesome pickup for any PSP owner. A great rental and a solid buy. Try it now.