50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

 So yeah, yeah. I know. A video game about 50 Cent in the middle east sounds like a recipe for disaster and it should be.

I'm here to say, this game is actually pretty fun. First and foremost, I'm no fan of 50 cent. I'd heard back in the spring, that this game was surprisingly good. There was no way I would spend $50 or $60 to find out. So when I found it for $5 in the Target clearance bin, I decided to give it a shot...

So the game takes place in some fictitious middle eastern country (resembling Iraq), where 50 cent puts on a concert. At the end of the concert, the promoter can't pay the $10 million he owes the rapper. 50 and his his friend (you get to choose who your partner is during the game), threaten the promoter's life if he doesn't pay up. The promoter has some ancient skull that is encrusted with diamonds and offers it as payment. 50 accepts and on their way to the airport, their convoy is ambushed and the skull is stolen. You spend the rest of the game trying to get back that skull.

I'm not saying the story is any good, but it's amusing to say the least. The game plays a lot, actually almost identical to Gears of War. There's the one button cover system with plenty of places to take cover. The action is very well paced and there's tons of un-lockables and collectibles in scattered throughout the game. Each level is broken up into a series of episodes. In each episode there's 5 hidden posters, 5 hidden "targets" and plenty of crates with rapper jewelry and cash that you can use to buy weapons from the local weapons smuggler or unlock new melee attacks or taunts. As bad as the enemy AI are, your partner AI is actually pretty good, and for the most part watches your back and is usually in the right place when you need him. You will need him by the way. There's barriers that requires teamwork between you and your partner.

The game allows you to open up for Live co-op action and although I haven't tried that out yet, I can see where this would add to the fun.

Most of the game is played in 3rd person, but there's 2 driving levels and one helicopter level which are a well done as well.

Graphically the game looks average. Besides the occasional hiccup and drop in frame rate the game plays pretty smooth. The controls are decent. I'm not a big fan of 3rd person shooters, but I found this game easier to get used to than Gears of War which I played for only a couple of hours before getting frustrated.

I think you could have put any skin on this game and it may have done better than it did. The fact that it starts 50 cent is a huge turn off, for the most part. Probably the reason I didn't bite on buying this when I saw it at the $25 price point a couple of months ago.

On the down side, there quite a bit of repetition. There's a ton of expletives as well, which gets a little old after a while. Switching between weapons can be a drag in a firefight, and reloading usually takes a lot longer than it should. As I mentioned before, the enemy AI is pretty horrible for the most part, but there's plenty of bad guys to shoot at you so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. For less than the price of a rental, I got a game that I feel is a pretty solid title. It took me around 7 or 8 hours to play through the campaign on Normal difficulty. It would be nice to see Swordfish Studios and THQ put out a serious game and see how well that would do...