PSP Month: Chili Con Carnage

Game: Chili Con Carnage
Console: Sony Playstation Portable
Developer: Deadline Games
Release Date: 16th February 2007

If you've ever played Total Overdose, you'll know exactly what to expect from Chili Con Carnage; a very similar game by the same developer. With a Mexican theme, third person shooter gameplay and lots of kills to chain together, the game takes a whacky and sometimes fun approach. There are 7 missions in total, each split into a few parts but the overall gameplay is a little too monotonous as players work their way through the levels shooting everything they can with auto-targeting.

There's some humour to the game's overall story and it's obvious that it's not to be taken particularly seriously; the gameplay seems to be the main attraction. That said, I found the gameplay to be pretty bland and not varied enough to warrant 7 missions. Sure there are combos that players can string together, jumping and shooting enemies but the auto targeting takes away any challenge from the game.

Graphically the game is pretty average, and more to the point uninteresting save for its Mexican theme which quickly gets old. Levels are laid out in a fairly linear style, even if a little exploration is necessary to find the next goal. Music and voice acting is mainly comedic as is to be expected with this kind of game. 

Overall Chili Con Carnage is too short to be considered a full gaming experience, too long to be interesting as a niche concept style game, trying to be funnier than it is, with a boring gameplay style and lacklustre combo and shooting options. Without auto aiming it could be at least fun to try and hit the enemies but instead players will find themselves spamming the shoot button as enemies appear. 

Rating: 44/100

Grade: E

PSP Month: Pursuit Force

Game: Pursuit Force
Console: Sony Playstation Portable
Developer: Bigbig Studios
Release Date: 7th March 2006

Pursuit Force is a fairly unique action game for the PSP allowing players to take on the role of a special forces police agent, attempting to shut down five of the most dangerous gangs in the city. There are 6 missions per gang, for a total of 30 with later missions unlocked through ranking up in earlier ones. Gameplay missions mostly consist of chasing other vehicles on a boat, motorcycle or in a car, jumping from vehicle to vehicle and shooting gang members in order to neutralise them.

There's not a lot of difference between gameplay in boats and cars, although they handle a little differently. Gameplay is significantly more fun in cars than boats. Missions get a little longer as the game goes on, but there are no checkpoints, so failure means starting from the beginning. This is an issue as things are pretty hard from thestart, so with later missions it can be frustrating to say the least. The story behind missions are also limited by the gameplay and usually reduced to 'This gang is attacking something or someone, you've got to help".

Graphically the game isn't bad on the PSP but it's nowhere near the level of the best games for the console. The HUD is a little cluttered with the lawfulness meter in the bottom right, car and player health in the bottom left, a map in the top left, subtitles at the top, an objective counter in the top right, weapon and ammo info at the side and various targeting symbols on screen. The voice acting isn't bad and there's some humour in some of the missions.

Overall Pursuit Force is a lot of the same thing, and the game only really gets harder as it goes on, rather than any more interesting. It's a good concept for a game and the gameplay itself works well, there's just not enough variety to keep players pushing on through the difficulty wall, and not enough story to keep players interested in progressing.

Rating: 60/100
Grade: D

PSP Month: Playstation Network Collection: Power Pack

Game: Playstation Network Collection: Power Pack
Console: Sony Playstation Portable
Developer: Sony
Release Date: 24th October 2008

The PSN Collection: Power Pack is a three game compilation of Playstation Network games released for the Playstation Portable and features Beats, flOw and Syphon Filter: Combat Ops. I'll be reviewing this as a collection since the individual games are mostly gimmicky or short. It's an interesting choice of titles too; a rhythm game, a relaxed indie "life simulation" and a shooter, but maybe they were going for variety?

Beats

As a fan of rhythm games, I was pretty sure I'd like Beats. It allows players to import music from their Memory Stick Pro Duo and creates beatmaps based on the pulse for players to tap along with. The songs which come as standard with Beats are all pretty lifeless and don't show the game off in the best possible light, but if you're a fan of energetic electronic music then you're in luck. I chose to import The Prodigy's song "Wild Frontier" and finally I could feel the beatmap working alongside the song to create steps in time with the beat.

The play area has 3 "landing pads" for steps, and players press the corresponding button when the symbol is in the centre of the landing pad. In addition to this, when a step is performed on the left or right pad, the d-pad must be held in the corresponding direction to register the step. This isn't too complex, but anyone who's played regular rhythm games like Dance Dance Revolution or Rhythm Heaven will likely find themselves forgetting to press left and right every once in a while.

Graphically the game has a basic interface, but a large choice of backgrounds and themes against which to play. It's an interesting experience and some songs work better than others; it's a matter of luck really. It'd be tough to listen to an album this way, but I can't see myself wanting to play more than 5 songs in a row in the Beats format. 

Overall it's not bad for a bitesize rhythm game, and the near infinite choice for songs is nice though the game will only allow 127 to be accessed at once. The powerup bar and subsequent Fever mode are a nice touch also, but I feel like Beats is missing a real unique selling point which distinguishes it from other beatmap based rhythm games like Audiosurf and Dance Factory.

Score: 6/10

flOw

flOw is a very simple game with deep ocean style visuals where players control a creature and "eat" other creatures to become larger and more detailed. Each screen is pretty small, but players can move up and down to dive deeper and find new things to eat and merge with. Every now and then it's possible to lose some of your creature, but this isn't a particularly competitive game and it's easy to get any progress back.

There's very little to do in flOw aside from swimming around and consuming everything in sight. While it might be fun to watch your creature grow for a minute or two, when there's literally nothing else to do in the entire game, it can get old quickly. As beautiful as the concept and execution is, when there's not a lot of gameplay it can be difficult to enjoy a game.

Overall flOw is mind-numbingly boring, and should only be played as a bedtime wind-down. Apparently the game can save your "progress" but there's no end goal, and nothing to achieve so it seems pretty pointless to me. As relaxing as this type of game is, it needs to bring a little more to the party to compete with any of the other titles on the PSP.

Score: 3/10

Syphon Filter: Combat Ops

Perhaps the most disappointing of the three games in terms of content, Syphon Filter: Combat Ops is essentially a map designer add-on for Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, allowing players to create and share their own multiplayer maps. Since my PSP has some connectivity issues with my Wi-Fi, I wasn't able to verify whether you're able to play these maps, but I doubt there'd be anyone online to play with even if I had been able to.

Graphically it looks okay, and fans of Syphon Filter might have a little fun designing some maps, but it's a very poor inclusion on a multi-game collection which purports to be a "power" pack of video games.

Score: 1/10

Overall

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this Playstation Network collection was; if it was to collect together the best that PSN had to offer, at least from Sony's game selection then why are there only three games, and why are they all such average or boring games? There's variety in the type of games included but I can't see anyone truly enjoying this UMD for very long at all. With other collections like EA Replay, Gradius Collection, Metal Slug,  Power Stone, Namco and more on the PSP this is a very weak showing.

Rating: 30/100
Grade: E