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Introduction I must admit, before I wrote this review, I read the preview by Falcon, and I said to myself, "Well, this game kinda reminds me Max Pain, probably a cool game then." For those of you who aren't familiar with Max Pain, we'll just say that it's a 3rd body shooting game, kind of a "film nuar" sort of thing. I mention this because during the game, some comparisons just came up, and I will share these comparisons with you.  El-Matador has a very user-friendly main interface Plot Our hero is a Mexican DEA officer, sent to Colombia in order to assist the local police in dealing with the drug cartels flooding the country. When someone tells you "You are here as an observer, you're not suppose to get mixed up with anything" on the beginning of your tour in Colombia, all you can do is smile under your beard (I did…) cause this is most probably bull and you're about to kick the underworld's ass, on your way to create a world with no drugs. All this happens after a missile takes out all the cops around you, and leaves you to do what you do best: KICK ASS! 
They Killed I-G-L-A!!! System Requirements Minimum requirements: Windows XP operating system GHz Pentium 3 / AMD Athlon Processor 512 MB RAM Video Card: 128 MB DirectX9 compatible graphics card with pixel & vertex shader support (nVidia GeForce 4, ATI Radeon 8500( Sound Blaster compatible sound card 2.5 GB Hard Disk Space DVD-ROM DirectX 9 Recommended Requirements Operating System: Windows XP 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 / AMD Athlon Processor 1024 MB RAM Video Card: 256 MB DirectX9 compatible graphics card with pixel & vertex shader 2.0 support (nVidia GeForce 6, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro) Sound Card: Sound Blaster® Audigy® / Sound Blaster® X-Fi sound card 2.5 GB Hard Disk Space DVD-ROM DirectX9.0c 
This is how the screen looks when there's an explosion. Graphics In the matter of graphics, I have nothing but good things to say. This game is equipped with all the graphical options one can imagine, including the high definition anisotropic filter (X16) and even controlling the level of blood splashed from bodies. The textural environment was rich and very well done. The objects and details in the visible environment were really precise, and some of them really responded kind of neatly to whatever silly stuff I did (for you Matrix fans, I refer to the scene when Neo and Trinity are fighting a whole army in the entrance to the building where Morpheus is kept, and pieces of marble are flying all over. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about – go watch the movie. NOW!) Furthermore, I conducted a little experiment abusing all sorts of glass revealed that the physical details in this game and the effects of gravitation are very realistic. 
It's fun to see computer animated characters actually moving their mouths. Many times during this game, I found myself just checking out various details and asking myself whether they were real very well photographed objects or just amazing graphics. Obviously, the second theory is the correct one, and so we start comparing this game with Max Pain – thus we conclude that this is one of the most significant upgrade in this game. Actually, forget Max Pain – during the transition between the preview and the real game, there is a feeling of a significant graphical improvement. The developers of this game have improved several problematic issues and to that we say – well done! The scenes between levels presented the peak of graphical abilities of this game, and I don't know why, but I was really happy to see the characters actually moved their mouths. Something else – I was personally really impressed with the authenticity of the structures and environments in the game: the houses, camps, shipyards – all of it looks so real and authentic, which the keyword here. 
Max Graphics: check it out – even the enemy is tattooed! Sound In regards to the sound, I think the guys in CENEGA should invest a bit more. Even though the game is equipped with all the wonders of modern technologies and allows control of the different layers of the sound system, the music can just kill ya! In the beginning it seems normal because you start off in a night club, and the upbeat trans-like music seems fitting, but later on, when you move on to later stages and the music is still the same monotones trans, you kinda get sick of it. My ears are still hurting, and I finished the game yesterday… In addition, the music does not add to the suspense of the game. When you walk about there's a sort of calm music, and when you're shot at the music becomes all upbeat and crazy (so you can actually sit with a sniper riffle and take out all those guys with no change in the music). Gameplay and Controlling the Game Now I'll fulfill my promise for the comparison between Max Pain and El-Matador. The El-Matador engine is suspiciously similar to the Max Pain engine. It's so similar that our cop even has the same mental problem jumping from elevated surfaces, just like old Max. Like Max Pain, there is an option for engaging "bullet-time", slow side-jumps which gives a relative advantage over the bots, but while in Max Pain there's a somewhat dark atmosphere backed up by a suitable melancholy music, here the colorful music makes bullet-time seem out of place. 
Amazing cut-scenes. Did I mention that? The character of the hero is relatively shallow, not like in Max Pain where the plot revolves around the hero; here we have a Rambo sort of figure in another routine day at work, chasing drug-lords in missions with expected endings. The Bots in the game enjoy a weapon arsenal including grenades, machine-guns, MK-47's, guns and what not. Even so, they are very limited in their movement. They know how to throw grenades with disturbing efficiency; they have a problem with dodging grenades, and they don't seem to care when you throw a grenade right at them – they just unaware of it. Each Bot is also limited to one type of movement, so if you take out the first line of charging Bots, they'll just hold their position and do what they do best – shoot around the corner or shoot and duck. You can even close your distance on them without them changes their course of action, which shows a low level of AI. I'm so disappointed with the Bots, because they are so well positioned, but because they' aren’t so smart – they are not as effective as they can be. In other words, I missed the option to make this game a bit harder. 
Pictures while loading the game look super-realistic. If I mentioned the Bots, I must mention the cops accompanying you. In each mission, you are escorted by cops who are good only for two things: leading the way and supplying after dying. Most of the fighting you'll have to do by yourselves – with the exception of maybe on cop on the fifth stage (with the Nazi) who fights and survives pretty well. Your character also has access to countless weapons (cool!), I preferred the Mini-gun most of all. For those of you who prefer a game which requires some level of thought and puzzle-solving – this isn't the game for you. This game is pretty much simply shoot and run, without wasting time on opening a problematic door or finding a way to pass barriers. The game interface is really limited in regards to the specific controls. You can change the keys but you can't control the camera or perform special tricks like the bots do, like shooting over walls and stuff (not really fair). Maybe it's possible to do those things through the game consol, but not everyone likes memorizing consol commands. 
The bug we found (fixed). Summary El-Matador is a beautiful and carefully designed game. If you haven't played Max Pain, it might even be recommended; but if you have, you won't find anything new except amazing graphics. The game had three significant bugs. The first one, which was also the most annoying one, was that on some stage the camera detached from your back, and I saw myself as a spectator in a network game. The second bug was that the consol wouldn't close even after I exited the game and I had to shut it down using the task manager. The third bug which might relate to the heaviness of this game were these annoying lags when confronting multiple enemies. I was working on a system which met all of the game's requirements… According to CENEGA, all these bugs were fixed, so guys won't suffer from them. This game is very much enjoyable and full with non-stop action, but I wouldn't play it again after playing it once. It lacks the magic which makes you want to play it again. Grades: Graphics: 10 Plot: 7 Music: 6 Gameplay: 8 AI: 7 Overall Grade: 8 
Read more about El-Matador: EM home page Written by Roy E
Edited by Ezra E
Translated by Roy C
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