50 Cent: Blood on the Sand - review

I think it is fair to say that I am not 50 Cent's number one fan. At the risk of sounding like an embarrassing Dad who says that  they like music in an attempt to seem younger than they are (or should act), I quite like some rap music but Fiddy is, frankly, not my cup of tea.  Or mother-fucking tea, as Mr Cent would have it.

Fiddy regrets offering to be a 'Phone a Friend'

When the second game to feature Mr Cent, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, came out a couple of years ago, it reviewed quite well, with a lot of 'guilty pleasure' reviews (the 360 version is showing 71% on Metacritic, a respectable score) and I picked it up about a year after its release.  I only started playing it last month though and....

...it was actually quite good.  The game is a third-person (though there are a couple of vehicle levels), cover-based, co-op (either with a human or CPU player) shooter and the basic mechanic is sound.  When playing on your own, you have dubious pleasure of playing as Fiddy, with the CPU playing as one of three members of G-Unit.  As well as offering back-up, they fawn over Fiddy, praising him for particularly tricky actions (read: shooting people), which can get irritating (guys, get a room).

Oh Fiddy, you're so fine, you're so fine, you blow my mind, hey Fiddy, hey Fiddy

Fiddy and friends swap profanities with gay abandon - it was the sweariest game I'd ever played, a title it only held for a short time as I started playing Mafia II (which REALLY has swearing) afterwards.  Whereas the Mafia II swearing seems authentically gangster like, Fiddy's potty mouth is pretty ridiculous.  For example, shouting 'fire in the hole' is a  quick phrase, shouted out  to let others know something is about to explode.  Shouting 'Fire in the motherfucking hole, bitches' kind of defeats the object - you'd get your bling blown off.

The plot, such as it is, revolves around Fiddy having performed a concert in an unnamed hellhole in the Middle East, for which he was not paid his $10m fee (which seems a lot to me - maybe Fiddy is using the game as a way to jack up his asking price). In lieu of payment, he is given (as you are) a diamond-encrusted skull, originally inhabited by the favourite wife of an olden days king. This skull is subsequently stolen and Fiddy spends the rest of the game trying to track it down. I'm not sure why he is so attached to the skull - he'd barely owned 5 minutes before it was stolen and presumably there are other failed states willing to pay his gig asking price. You wonder why he didn't just give it up as a bad lot and jet back to LA and his solid gold (I assume) mansion.

One previous owner

Anyway, the rest of the, pretty short, game is spent looking for the skull  while killing lots of people, with a few two-dimensional characters popping up in cut scenes explaining the plot (Omid Djalilli did you really need the money that badly?).  There are 9 missions, most of which are broken down into several chapters and the game can be completed in 6-7 hours.  You get a score for each chapter, so there is the prospect of replaying chapters to increase your score (not that I bothered with this).

Why do bosses attack with helicopters in the area where they store their RPG ammunition?

One of the things it most strongly reminded me of, was Elvis Presley's movie career (this may be the world's first comparison between these two artists). They don't get shown much on TV these days, but when I was growing up they'd often be shown during the daytime or in the early evening on BBC2. In all of them, Elvis would be Elvis - he might be a prison inmate, a nightclub singer, a GI, a roustabout, he night have different name but he would *be* Elvis.  Fiddy is playing 'Fiddy' here but the character you're playing isn't really Curtis Jackson aka 50 Cent - it's the gangsta he wishes he could be.  Fiddy (the real one) famously got shot 9 times in 2000 and this is used as an aspect of his gangsta credentials but surely it's not getting shot 9 times that makes you a successful gangsta?  I do not think that the real Fiddy would stand much of a chance against the terrorists, private military contractors or soldiers in Blood on the Sand - one of the pleasures of the game is the innate absurdity of this pampered star taking on the persona of John Rambo and the genuine enjoyment you can hear in his voice from the deluded pleasure he takes from the 'role'.

There is a debate in videogames about whether they can be art.  This is not the game that decides that argument.  However, it is an enjoyable, solid game that doesn't outstay its welcome. Worth picking up if you see it for under a tenner.  But don't take it too seriously.