Eidos Interactive and Deadline Games' Chili Con Carnage is a third person shooter with lots of action and a goofy storyline. It has a relatively low M.S.R.P. of $29.99 and more than enough game play that players will get their money's worth. "Carnage" is partly based on the 2005 cross-platform release Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico. The storyline has been revamped and the graphics reduced, but the same hero and the same fast paced game play is included. For PSP gamers looking for a shooter that is easy to pick up and play, "Carnage" will fit the bill.

The hero in "Carnage" is Ramiro Cruz, who is heartily referred to as Ram. The story begins on a beautiful and sunny day. Ram goes to visit his father, who is a Policia Federal agent. His dad has been working on a big drug case; trying to get close to Cesar Morales and his drug cartel. Unfortunately for Ram's daddy, Cesar had him killed. Following, Ram goes on a rampage to take the cartel down and exact his revenge on Cesar.

"Carnage" has both single- and multiplayer gaming options. The former consists of the story mode and an arcade mode. The story mode has nineteen missions and several challenges assorted throughout. The missions have Ram on one goal or another, which usually involves getting from point A to point B, blowing targets up, and shooting a lot of bad guys, a few of whom are dressed in chicken suits. The challenges really test the player's skills and control. They require Ram to perform special takedown moves, score a certain amount of points, maintain combo-chains, and more.

While playing missions and challenges, players have to gain high scores to unlock bonus stages, additional characters, and trophies that can be used in the non-story modes. The arcade mode has a single purpose: kill as many bad guys as possible while maintaining a combo-chain. After killing a bad guy, a combo timer starts and another bad guy must be killed to add to the combo counter and restart the combo timer. The higher the combo counter, the bigger the point multiplier. The bigger the multiplier, the more points you can get.

For multiplayer gaming options, there are two modes. The first is an offline game called "Hangman". Two players, using the same PSP console, can compete against each other. They take turns and try to acquire the highest score. As long as the player obtains a higher score than the other player, the round continues. When a player achieves a score lower than the other player's previous score, they lose the round. The game ends when one of the players gets H-A-N-G-M-A-N. The other multiplayer option is "Fiesta", which allows two or more players to compete via ad-hoc wireless in a nontraditional free-for-all style match. Players are bombarded with computer controlled bad guys in their own stages. When a bad guy is killed, they will appear in the other players' stages, making it tougher for them to survive.

In general, the game play is pretty straightforward, but may take a little work to perfect. A big part of the game is the special takedown moves. Ram has the capability to "shootdodge", which is basically jumping to avoid being shot. During a shootdodge, time will slow and Ram has the ability to spin, turn, flip, rotate, aim, and shoot bad guys. The more difficult the kill, the more points acquired. The shootdodge replaces a strafe capability, which I was not very happy with. The problem I had with shootdodge is the camera control. It is not as easy to jump while controlling the camera to aim and shoot a bad guy in some cases as it would be to sidestep while still aimed in the same vicinity. Sometimes having a strafe capability would have really helped when you are trying to stay alive versus score the big points.

On that note, common to many PSP shooters, the analog joystick is difficult to achieve precision. Fortunately, there is an auto-aim capability that helps with the problem. Another somewhat difficult aspect to the game play is the vehicle control. In Ram's adventures, he will be able to drive trucks, forklifts, and other vehicles to move him quickly from place to place and run over bad guys. The problem is that the game was clearly not made to control automotive vehicles and it feels somewhat haphazard in combination of driving the vehicle and controlling the camera view.

One nifty aspect to "Carnage" is the rewind feature. As previously mentioned, the game play is pretty fast. Sometimes you will find yourself surrounded by more guys than you can handle or while trying to maintain high combo-chain the timer runs out. The rewind feature allows the game to rollback time and replay the final moments before Ram died, lost the challenge, or whatever. It is neat because it gives a second chance to try out another tactic. Rewinds are limited and acquired as special items.

Overall, Chili Con Carnage is a fun game. It is easy to pick up and play, which is something I really enjoyed about it. The game's fast paced action with the shootdodge provides a game that is more than a mere button masher, although at times it feels like it as the missions have little variety in objective. Still, "Carnage" provides a fun game that has a humorous aspect and it comes with a fairly low M.S.R.P.