50 Does It Right!
50 Cent: Blood On The Sand is your basic third person shooter with a few interesting elements added to it.
Story
In 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand you play as ,guess who, 50 Cent. You also have a side kick from the G-Unit crew, consisting of Tony Yayo, Loyd Banks, and DJ Whoo Kid that serve as our co-op partner in the game. The story starts off as fifty is finishing a benefit concert in a nameless middle eastern nation. He then goes to collect his money when he figures out that the dude doesn't have it to compensate the guy gives fifty a diamond encrusted skull. From there he gets his skull stolen and basically he is trying to get it back. One thing about this game is if your looking for story you are going to be disappointed, but the story is so over the top it fits the game well.
Gameplay
50 Cent: Blood On The Sand is a competent-but-repetitive gears of war clone, but the different weapons you acquire through out the game and the points system keep it interesting. There is no run or sprint feature in the game witch surprised me but you don't really need seeing that most of the environment your in aren't that big so you do not need to do that much running. There is also this thing called Gangsta fire that is basically slo-mo and is really useless except for the achievement. The AI in the game is not that smart Even playing on the hardest difficulty they still basically never tried any tactics besides get into cover pop up, shoot, duck, rinse repeat. So if you have played through your fair share of third person shooters then I recommend playing on hard (the hardest difficulty).The level design was pretty linear, basically just get from point A to point B and shoot dudes, but what made it so much fun is the arcadey feel to the game. As you run through the level you rack up points that at the end of the level will either get you a bronze, silver, or gold medal. And what makes it so arcadey is you rack up points by killing dudes or blowing up stuff and from a variety of other things. There is a combo meter that from what I can tell caps off at 5 kills in a row, that may seem low but you rarely get that high. Also from time to time when enemies show up you will get a challenge that shows up on the left side of your screen saying like kill X amount of foot soldiers or grenadiers (etc.) in X amount of time these will get you a good amount of points. Another thing is throughout levels there are 5 posters to pick up and 5 targets to shoot, the posters are almost always easy to find and not very strategically placed on the other hand the targets are very nicely placed and just a joy to hunt for while playing through the game. My favorite place a target has showed up in was it actually being a hub cap on a car. This games cover system is a bit lacking. You can't really move from side to side while in cover you kinda lunge from side to side so some times it is hard to get in a certain spot in a piece of cover. The shooting feels really nice and rewarding. The controls feel tight and were never frustrating. Whenever I failed at the game I never found myself blaming it on the controls. One part of the game where I felt the controls were terrible is the vehicle sections of the game, the controls were just to sloppy and floaty. Then there is the co-op witch is basically like drop in dropout and feels nice and serves its purpose, but besides that and the leader boards he is no other multilayer. The last thing I want to touch on in this section is the weapons. You get your basic shotgun, assault rifle, sniper, and rocket launcher. You have you variations of them like auto shoty grenade launcher and so on so forth. The weapons are mapped to your d-pad like in gears. The weapons all feel nice and I found my self on several occasions seeing that that you can play through the game with just one set of weapons, but found that certain situations cater to certain weapons and figuring out the best weapons for each situation was a fun part of playing the game for me.
Also the weapons are purchased through a pay phone in which you call up "Ray" who sells them to you (LOL).
Sound
All the voice acting for the G-unit crew in the game is done by the G-unit crew witch is nice but there not the greatest voice actors. Most of the lines for the different member of the crew are all the same. Also all of fifty's lines never directly address a specific member of the crew he just says like "Hey man get over here" instead of "Hey Loyd get over here". One thing that is pretty funny about the voice acting is that every line said by the crew is started with "Yo Fity" or "Hey Fity" witch is funny in some of the situations. All of the music in the game is done by none other than fifty cent witch really is not a surprise an fits the game well. The sound effects pretty much sound like your standard sound effects most assault rifle sound the same and so on so forth with the other weapons. Basically the sound effects aren't going to really immerse you in the game, so yeah. The graphics in the game are pretty much the same standard as the sound, average. The cut scenes do not use the in game engine and are pretty bad. Facial animation is very lacking and i could never really tell the emotion they were trying to convey.
Final thoughts
Basically this game is a sub par third person shooter. But the interesting points system, collectibles, and over the top atmosphere makes for a fun and satisfying experience. And i would be more than happy to see another 50 cent game if they make it like this one but improve on some of its flaws. I give this game a solid rental, because there is just not enough there to justify a purchase, and a 4 out of 5. One last thing that i have to say is that im surprised that there is no competitive multiplayer.
