Chilli Con Carnage
Posted: August 20th, 2007, 14:00
I installed this on my PSP over the weekend, and ended up playing about 5 or 6 hours of it. The basic premise is that you're a son trying to avenge the murder of your father.
Visually, it is not a world away from stuff like GTA:SA, and you control the character from the thrid-person view too.
In the game, you start off each level with a pistol, and can collect other items such as Uzis, M4s, grenade launchers etc as you go through it. The gameplay itself is centred around scoring points by killing baddies through a variety of melee moves and shots combined with jumping off walls and boxes in a matrixesque fashion. You get more points for using a wider variety of moves and combinations, and they're multiplied by the number of kills you get in a row, so it's in your interests to keep going and rack up the kills as much as possible. Good combos mean that the baddies drop stuff like health boosts, and if you can catch their falling hat on your head in the process, it adds to the score.
In addition, there are other bonuses which you can collect. One is a reverse power, which lets you go back through about 20 secs of play and do it again. This is handy since there is no save function within the levels. There are also powerups which let you do various things. One lets you charge like a rampaging bull and kill people by headbutting them which is fun.
On top of the story levels, there are a variety of challenges to complete too. These include tasks such as killing people with a certain move, and doing combos to beat a given target score. If you complete the challenges, you get upgrades such as more HP and a longer clock time for combos.
Overall, the game is very silly, and very enjoyable. The controls are very simple, and the story and action are light-hearted enough to make it fun. There have been a couple of bits which have frustrated me for a while (one boss level in particular), but once you figure out the trick to them, then they're ok. I'd say it's definitely worth a blast, although the novelty may wear off after a while. I'm still only part-way through the game just now, so can't properly say if it develops well through the story.
Visually, it is not a world away from stuff like GTA:SA, and you control the character from the thrid-person view too.
In the game, you start off each level with a pistol, and can collect other items such as Uzis, M4s, grenade launchers etc as you go through it. The gameplay itself is centred around scoring points by killing baddies through a variety of melee moves and shots combined with jumping off walls and boxes in a matrixesque fashion. You get more points for using a wider variety of moves and combinations, and they're multiplied by the number of kills you get in a row, so it's in your interests to keep going and rack up the kills as much as possible. Good combos mean that the baddies drop stuff like health boosts, and if you can catch their falling hat on your head in the process, it adds to the score.
In addition, there are other bonuses which you can collect. One is a reverse power, which lets you go back through about 20 secs of play and do it again. This is handy since there is no save function within the levels. There are also powerups which let you do various things. One lets you charge like a rampaging bull and kill people by headbutting them which is fun.
On top of the story levels, there are a variety of challenges to complete too. These include tasks such as killing people with a certain move, and doing combos to beat a given target score. If you complete the challenges, you get upgrades such as more HP and a longer clock time for combos.
Overall, the game is very silly, and very enjoyable. The controls are very simple, and the story and action are light-hearted enough to make it fun. There have been a couple of bits which have frustrated me for a while (one boss level in particular), but once you figure out the trick to them, then they're ok. I'd say it's definitely worth a blast, although the novelty may wear off after a while. I'm still only part-way through the game just now, so can't properly say if it develops well through the story.