As you don't have a second analog stick, you're unable to control the camera like you would in a console action game, meaning that you're almost always firing in the direction that you're moving. The weakest point of the game however is its control scheme. Being as the enemies don't offer a whole lot of variety in their tactics, the battles only really change depending upon what weapons they're carrying. You'll find that you're performing the same "jump, lock-on and nail a headshot" move over and over and over again. While all this is great, it does get a little repetitive after a while. The bull special where you run head-first into enemies is hilarious, and the pi¿ata move is, well, filled with candy. The Tornado move where you spin in a circle with Uzis firing in opposite directions is borrowed directly from Hard Boiled. Likewise, the special kills that you can pick up are both fantastic and funny. Clearing out a room while leaping left and right and mixing in some wall jumps here or there is great fun. On top of this, you're able to use objects to perform flips and score additional points. When someone is in your sights and you dive in any direction, the game slows to a crawl to allow you to hone in your shots and put a bullet in his head, sometimes multiple times per leap. The game's greatest strength is the variety of ways that you're able to kill a man.
While it would have been nice to see the collection stuff return, this setup does work pretty well on the PSP and arguably allows for more level variety. Instead, the game's progression is broken up into a number of individual missions that you can take on one by one. While Chili Con Carnage features the same basic action setup as its predecessor, Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico, one important thing to note about the sequel is that it's not an open-world game like the first was. In this way, Chili Con Carnage manages to stand out amongst a "me too" collection of action games and offers a ride that rarely slows down. Focusing on Hollywood-esque kills where you'll flip off a wall, spin around and nail a couple headshots all in one foul swoop, the last thing the game does is take itself seriously. Read that story and how Jesusita de la Torre became the first of the "chili queens" at Texas Monthly.Chili Con Carnage may have a completely absurd name, but it fits perfectly well with the game's over-the-top style and themes. It seems both sides agreed to set that matter aside until they had seized Texas.)Īnd from there is born a love story, when a wealthy young Louisiana Creole fell for a teenager from a prominent San Antonio family.
(The Spanish and Anglo contingents had different plans-the former wanted Texas as part of a free Mexico, while the latter preferred annexation to the U.S., or perhaps an independent republic as envisioned by Aaron Burr. Were it not for the fact that the (partially) American side lost in ignominious fashion, movies would have been made about the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition of 1812 to 1813.Įncouraged by the near-success of the 1811 Casas Revolt in San Antonio, and with covert support from Washington, D.C., Spanish Texan revolutionaries traveled to Louisiana and enlisted Anglo and Louisiana Creole soldiers of fortune in a joint “Republican Army of the North” to sever Texas from Madrid for good. Far fewer people remember the troubles of 18, even though the latter of those conflicts featured the bloodiest battle ever fought on Texas soil, and, according to San Antonio tradition, produced the first Chili Queen. Most of that, save for the two post-San Jacinto Mexican incursions, is well known. It was another in the long line of wars fought over Texas. So how do you define chili con carne in order to find its origin? An article at Texas Monthly gives some of the conflicting origin stories, including one that goes back as far as an uprising in 1813. A stew of meat and chili peppers had been around long before that. But that date is an function of the name chili con carne existing in published sources. Most historians date its origin to 1880, with the rise of the "chili queens" that sold the dish to the public in outdoor stands. Chili con carne is the crowning achievement of San Antonio cuisine. An article earlier this summer hinted that the defining factor in the development of Texas chili is chili powder, but the ingredient that makes chili a Tex-Mex dish is cumin, a spice imported from the Old World.