El Matador's gameplay is pretty simple; shoot the bad guys before they shoot you. In our beta build of the game we found that the many enemies could be pretty challenging even when set on easy mode (there are four settings which include the ultra tough Nightmare) mainly because they have a tendency to hit their targets (mainly you). There are some opportunities for you to have some AI teammates of your own to help you out in certain situations.


Weapons in El Matador are fairly standard; pistols (including dual handgun action) machine guns, sniper rifles, grenades and more are present for your DEA agent to whip out some death to the very deserving drug lords. Third person games always have a hit-or-miss tendency in terms of targeting enemies but in our beta build we found the targeting system to be quite good for the most part. Hitting the shift key activates another similarity with Max Payne; the slow-motion mode. Yes, you can kill enemies with some fancy moves when this feature is used and it makes for some easy killing among multiple enemies. It's not infinite, however; your slow motion moves will run out after a brief amount of time and you have to wait for it to recharge before using the mode again.