Chili Con Carnage

Posted June 2, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

Chili Con Carnage can best be compared with outrageous B-movies like El Mariachi and Desperado; over-the-top action, non-stop shooting and explosions, a flimsy storyline filled with laughable dialogues but in the end glued together in oh so enjoyable pulp. Only too bad that Salma Hayek didn’t pass by to rejoice us with a table dance like that in From Dusk Till Dawn. But enough about the big white screen, how does this game play on the black handheld?

You’re Ramirez, who’s father (and a bunch of helpless kittens) was shredded to pieces, who goes out to look for the guilty to turn them into chicken food. This you learn from a stupid but quite funny intro movie that immediately sets the tone for the rest of the game; at no given moment does this game take itsel seriously and you’ll know it. Chickens, furtilizer, tractor fights, ridiculous opponents and even more stupid missions; no Mexican cliché gets passed and although the comedy isn’t always as good, you’ll quickly learn to appreciate this original and refreshing approach.

The gameplay is as simple as the storyline: you can shoot, walk and jump like Neo and slow down time so that your most important mission will be to kill everyone as spectacularly as possible. You get all sorts of weapons for this; exploding crates and other explosive materials, a series of vehicles on which you can jump and of course ram enemies, rattling guitar cases, Mexican wrestlers that suddenly appear to trash the enemies and lots more. The bad guys are equally funny as the ways you can get rid of them and that makes it all even more interesting to do as many combo kills as possible; the more and spectacular you kill them, the more points and unlockable you gather.

Next to that combo-system you won’t find more depth in the game than in an average episode of The Bold and the Beautiful, and the difficulty lays in the first place in getting around the camera and the controls. Subtlety is far to be found, but that what Chili Con Carnage is all about: hilarious and worryless shooting fun with fat links every three seconds. That your guy will be jumping and shooting like a chicken without a head is something we gladly take along.

The game isn’t long though. The storyline is finished in a handful of hours but there’s enough “challenges” left that you can finish in a certain timeframe or with a certain amount of opponents. For those the like such things there’s a lot more to be had. There are also some multiplayer options with one where you play against each other and need to get the highest possible score while in the meantime bullying each other with power-ups.

Graphically the game is a lust for the eye with lots of colorful and varied surroundings, oppents and objects. Also the special effects are hair sharp and the action remains rock solid shooting, no matter how much is going on on your screen. The actors do their best to recreate that over-the-top atmosphere with the voicing and also the soundtrack is limited to the suiting music that makes the action even more exciting.

The conclusion is simple: Chili Con Carnage is a good and funny game for those that love action, action and… more action! With beautiful, atmospheric graphics and good sound the only downpoints are the relatively short lifespan and somewhat chaotic controls

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