50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand was first announced by Sierra on 27 March 2008. It was developed by Swordfish Studios and published by THQ under the genre of third-person shooter. It has an ESRB rating of M for mature and was released on 20 February 2009 in Europe and February 24 2009 to the rest of the world. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is a third-person shooting video game that serves as the sequel to 50 Cent: Bulletproof. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand focuses on rapper 50 Cent in a fictional plot that takes place in a fictional Middle Eastern country where 50 Cent and G-Unit perform a rap concert. As payment, they received a priceless diamond covered human skull instead of the money they were promised. The skull eventually gets stolen by gangsters and the duo set out on a mission to retrieve it. In addition to the confines of the warzone, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand also includes vehicle missions such as a driver-and-turret-gunner Humvee road chase and a helicopter-borne Minigun shootout with additional boss battles against helicopters as well. There is also an additional feature called “Shop” that can be activated during the game by placing a call on payphones hidden on each level. Players can use cash in this feature to buy new weapons, upgrade their old weapons and learn hand-to-hand combat moves called “Counter-Kills”. There are five high-value Target enemies, crates of gold bars which are broken open to earn money, as well as collectable like Posters on each level. Players earn points by killing, which later on help them to earn Bronze, Silver, and Gold G-Unit Badges to unlock better Weapons, Counter-Kills and Taunts in the “Shop”.
Reviews
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is a game with fast-paced gameplay, tight controls, and arcade-style scoring system, all of which form a solid base for the simplistic yet fun action. There is also a lot of 50 Cent and G-Unit ‘flavour’ added into it, including vulgar dialogue, ridiculous one-liners and a whole lot of licensed music of which are meant to keep players entertained while the action begins to die down. In his mission, 50 Cent and his chosen G-Unit Companion (Tony Yayo, Lloyd Banks, or DJ Whoo Kid) traverse a war-torn urban Middle Eastern landscape, shooting anything that moves while pursuing one criminal figure after another. Although most of the locales kind of blur together in a blend of gunfire and earth tones, they are impressively detailed and do a passable job of setting the stage for the explosive action. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is better off as a multiplayer co-op game with a well-implemented drop-in/ drop-out Cooperative mode as a solid addition. Although the run-and-gun gameplay is not particularly inspired, the scoring system makes up to keep you engaged.
“With a licensed game like Blood on the Sand, the expectation is that the game is going to look bad and play worse. But this is a game backed by 50 Cent, so you know that quality is going to be a high priority (please disregard the existence of 50 Cent: Bulletproof). Though there are many visual shortcomings (mediocre animations, textures that forget to load in, Fiddy’s wide-eyed gaze that makes him look perpetually terrified, an inconsistent framerate on PS3), this isn’t a bad-looking game at all. The character models for Fiddy and crew are spot-on, there are some nice explosions and some of the environments look good. Of equal surprise is that 50 Cent delivers a commendable performance. It’s amazing that he’s able to tap into these emotions as if these true-life events had just occurred. “Eat s*** and die!” Shakespeare, thy work has been outdone.” (IGN, 2009)
