Chilli Con Carnage review (PSP)

Chilli Con Carnage is a rehash of the PS2 2005 shoot 'em up, Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico. With little else to sell the game, it relied on utterly outrageous acrobatics and over-the-top stereotypes, stringing together the endless barrage of bullets you sent and received.

CCC is essentially the same: You've got one crazy and shallow storyline, a vast array of weapons and more energy than a five-year-old on a sugar high. However, with this rendition of what is basically the same concept, any depth has been stripped away to leave you with a very basic, but far superior game.

You Gotta Be Kitten!

On a day much like many others except the celebration of your Father's birthday, you – Ramiro (Ram) – visit him in his government offices, box full of kittens in hand, ready to usher in another year of great father-son relationships. However, straight after his face lights up with a smile only cute kittens can induce, his face then gets crushed alongside the rest of his body after a maniacal wrong-doer crashes through the building. A distraught Ram puts his mourning aside for a moment and vows to avenge his father's death. And that's exactly what he does.

Hot on the tail of those responsible, CCC takes you to places ranging from big cargo ships to a kick-arse lesbian body building mansion. The actual variety in levels is quite impressive, but once you arrive you're really only there for one thing: to kill everyone. Fortunately, this happens to be a surprisingly enjoyable affair.

Maximum Pain

Much like Total Overdose, you've got the ability to jump around or "shoot dodge" much like our perennially constipated Max Payne. In addition to the usual four-directional leaping, Ram can also run up and propel himself off walls for even more stylish executions.

All of these deadly displays of acrobatics are logged and rewarded by a combo-meter which not only maintains the duration of the wacky power-ups, but also makes for some interesting challenges with friends. The greater the stunt and the more people you kill during, the greater the points. Although it's not an absolute necessity to keep your points ranked high, the combo system really entices the player into attempting.

Although, in all honesty, there aren't really many struggles in CCC. As you progress through the game, the only increase in difficulty comes about through numbers. There is the odd boss fight thrown in for good measure, but for the most part, it's just the same thing, different place.

This isn't to say it's boring. Surprisingly, despite the action remaining identical throughout, the only times I decided to stop playing were as a result of repeated dying. You're given a healthy array of weapons to help prevent it from happening, though, I must just be crap. Nonetheless, Ram gets his hands on everything from high calibre handguns to grenade launchers, and flipping around, launching rockets at a jump jet piloted by a drug baron is something you rarely get to do in games.

Chaos Control

Nonetheless, despite all of the gun fun, CCC is set back a little by cumbersome controls. While an auto-target system has been implemented for the lowly foes, manual aiming is the only way to kill certain bosses, but since the PSP is limited to one analog stick, you have to find a tiny opening through which to take your shot, and the pressure often results in a sloppy aim.

However the action is top notch, and the graphics equally fit the bill. Although character models are a bit jagged, they're at least consistent and, oddly enough, look perfectly suited. Perhaps the most impressive element of CCC's visuals, though, is how well the slow motion is handled. Everything from gun fire to explosions and the enemies caught in the blast look fantastic with some enviable textures and some rather contorted but perfectly fitting models. The graphical style is, in a word, eccentric, but it works so well that any obvious inaccuracy gets blown away amongst the action.

Spicy

The audio is just as delectable. Much like Total Overdose, there's a heavy reliance on stereotypes, but this serves only to amuse. Some of the dialogue and sounds are genuinely laugh out loud funny, and to hear big-hatted Mexicans blurt them out before you shoot them in the head in slow motion brings a lot of joy.

And that's exactly what makes CCC so good. After playing Portable Ops the other week, it's great playing a game that doesn't really demand too much of you, and that's nothing but a plus point. There's no variation in game play, and I'm not too sure about using a mass of people to increase difficulty, but as a whole, the game is just too fun and addictive to allow the faults any right of passage.