Review: 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

Ladies and gentlemen of the games industry: stop working on your current project. There is no longer any reason to continue making video games. Gaming perfection has been achieved, and it's name is Fifty Cent: Blood on the Sand. From the elegant and subtle story to the delicate and nuanced gameplay, Fifty has created a masterpiece that will surely be heralded along side the Beatles White Album, Of Mice and Men and Citizen Kane. I think Vince Gilligan has his next TV adaptation.

If you don't have an emotional boner right now, you must be dead.

This magnum opus starts as Fifty concludes a concert in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. The thing most people don't notice here is that during the performance, Fifty has grenades, handgun clips and rifles equipped; all while wearing a hat with his name on it. In my heart of hearts, I believe this to be a hidden message about the violence on the streets. Fifty himself can put an end to such violence through such songs like the games theme track, "Ni**a, my gun go off!!!" But I digress, back to the story...

The concert promoter - who reminds one of Alec Guinness' performance in the 1949 film "Kind Hearts and Coronets" - can't come up with the money to pay Fifty, a hefty sum of $10 million. But I think we'd all agree that price is fair to see the G-Unit do it's thang, am I right? So to appease a now very angry Fifty Cent, the promoter gives him a skull covered in diamonds. This is apparently worth $10 million and Mr. Cent happily goes on his way to his next performance.

If the game stopped there, I would have been satisfied. But we're just getting started!!!11one!

Upon leaving the venue, terrorists gangsters ambush Fifty's car and some "trick bitch" makes off with the skull. Now your goal is to retrieve the skull at all costs...by killing thousands and thousands of "gangsters". Blap blap!

Just sit back and behold the best voice acting and motion capture ever laid to a game disc. Note the subtle hints of emotion in all the characters. It will take your breath away.

The rest of the story plays out from there. It would be a sin to give away any spoiler after this point, but as a little teaser, you can look forward to the pensive refrain "Where my skull?" throughout this golden experience.

The presentation sings like nothing I've ever seen before. The beautiful selection of Fifty Cent B-Sides really transports the player into the harsh but realistic world of murdering thousands of people to get a skull back that wasn't yours to begin with. And they play so well against one of the finest additions to this game: the taunt button. By clicking down on the right thumbstick, Fifty will issue a taunt to his adversaries after dispatching them. With lines like, "Oh, you fucked up now, bitch!" Taunts can be upgraded to be more vulgar as you amass a fortune of stolen jewels and cash. You can also repeatedly hammer the taunt button to make Fifty go on a cursing frenzy, which is an obvious shout out to his homies with Tourettes.

Just look at his realistic muscles

It's hard to describe the gameplay in conventional gaming terms - "artful" is a word that comes to mind. "Uncharted clone" definitely does not come to mind.

Just like Uncharted, this is a third person, cover based shooter. And thankfully shooting people is all you'll be doing - don't expect any boring exploration or puzzle solving here, Fifty "don't got time for that shit." But even though this is a cover based shooter, the fact that you don't even need to use the cover mechanic is what I love most about the experience. You can blissfully run through an environment, guns blazing without any thought whatsover, and I believe this was done intentionally. Fifty doesn't want to bog the player down with "thinking" and "deductive reasoning", he wants you to achieve a level of meditation and zen-like focus through the art of carelessly firing hundreds of rounds of ammunition at terrorists.

There was a moment in my experience with this game where I believe my focus was so deep that I think I saw the face of God. And that was the moment that I killed a sniper from 300 yards away with a handgun. No - excuse me - two handguns. I challenge you to name one single other game that gives the player a reward like that: play Blood on the Sand, and see the face of God.

Then mercilessly hammer the taunt button.