50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

Let me just start off by saying that 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is not a great game. It is not a game you should run out and buy for the shamefully high price of $60. It is also not a game you should buy for the more reasonable, yet still too high, $30. However, it is a big dumb thrill ride that is a hell of a lot more fun than I would like to admit.

If you had to describe 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand in comparison to another game, and you easily could, they would be Gears of War, Army of Two, and Sega’s overlooked arcade shooter from last year, The Club. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand uses the pop-and-shoot and co-op mechanics of Gears of War and Army of Two along with the tandem co-op moves of the later. When playing co-op, which is oddly only online with no option for split screen play, Player 1 takes the role of “Fiddy” while Player 2 tags along as one of three members of G-Unit. If you go it alone your trusty “homie” will be controlled by AI. The friendly AI was surprisingly smart as it only got in my way twice and took out quite a few enemies on his own, which is far more than I can say for Dom from Gears of War. One of my biggest issues with the game is how its control style attempts to be like Gears of War yet horridly fails in comparison. Basically the walking physics feel too soft, there is no run option so you’ll be at a brisk walk the entire time, and the rolling commands didn’t always respond in the direction I wanted them to. Also, the cover system can be hit and miss sometimes as some objects just randomly refuse to allow you to take cover on them. But most frustrating of all is the fact that you can still be shot in the head while in cover. The vast majority of my deaths occurred while I was ducked behind cover. It is for this reason I ran through most of the game charging through enemies which was quite easy due to the games regenerating health system.

But what makes 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand so damn fun is its arcade like pace and scoring system. When you kill an enemy you receive points and a red bar appears at the top of the screen. If you kill another enemy before the bar depletes your score and combo time increase. Various other factors like how the enemy was dispatched figure into you score as well. This dynamic is what pushed me through the terrible story and makes the game as fun as it is. In general I am not a fan of bullet time in games. It was fun in Max Payne the first time around, but after that bullet time just felt old and gimmicky. But after playing this game for about two hours I thought, “Man this game needs bullet time.” About five or so minutes later my finger accidentally grazed the Y Button which thrust me into “Gangsta Fire”, the game’s version of bullet time. It is only in games as ridiculous and arcadey as this one can bullet time work anymore and it only makes the experience better. The game is also laden with mini-objectives that will pop up in battle. Each of these scenarios asks you to preform a certain task within a certain amount of time for a power up reward. These objectives are usually "Kill [Number] [Enemy Class] within [Amount of Time]" but will sometimes vary. You are given several grenades for completing each task, but more importantly your handgun ammunition will become explosive. This means that your handgun instantly becomes a one-hit-kill weapon of death and destruction. Unfortunately this makes upgrading to the more powerful handguns pointless seeing that any handgun no matter its power rating has the same power rating once the bonus is applied.

Kamra Pasha is credited as the writer of the game’s story and for that he should be drug out into the street and shot in the face. But to be fair so should the writers of Gears of War. This story is stupid to no end, but no worse than that of the critically acclaimed Gears series and it doesn’t attempt to be authentic in anyway unlike the previously mentioned series. Essentially, “Fiddy” and G-Unit perform a concert in an unspecified Middle Eastern locale; the concert promoter gives them a human skull covered in diamonds which is then stolen from our hero. Now while most people would head back home and lick their wounds, that ain’t the G thing to do so “Fiddy” decides to go on a swath of destruction across the country killing everything between him and his skull. Conflict resolution anyone? Now to the stories credit you are NOT fighting terrorists. I like this decision seeing that it keeps the story from descending into some kind of “Hell yeah, America!” debauchery. However all of the Middle Eastern gang members you go up against look like the stereotypical image of a “terrorist”, so I guarantee you that many will fail to discern the two. So I suppose in the end Pasha shouldn’t be publically executed, but if he goes anywhere near a more narrative driven franchise I will need to retract my previous statement.

As far as the weapons are concerned take some advice from me and don’t buy anything until you can afford the most powerful rocket launcher and the second highest class machine gun. I know going with the Silver medal winner might seem odd, but its accuracy is higher than the top of the line model and that makes more difference in the long run than a little more stopping power. As far as the pistols and shotguns are concerned you can skip them entirely, but you’re going to wind up with plenty of cash so if you want you can buy them later. You may also purchase advanced taunt packages to enrage your enemies and different close range kills.

The close range kills occur when you get close to an enemy and press the action button. (B on Xbox 360, and circle on PS3) You then enter a quick time event that shows “Fiddy” punching/kicking/stabbing/