The action's framed by the flimsiest of tales, but it's worth recounting for its sheer lunacy; having performed to a heaving stadium in an anonymous Middle Eastern country, 50 takes his payment in the form of a crystal-studded skull, which is duly thieved by a mysterious woman. 'B***h got ma skull' says a downbeat Fiddy, delivering a performance as passionate as that which marked his acting skills out in Get Rich or Die Tryin'.
What follows is a breathless pursuit through a nation whereby everyone seems to be a gun-toting terrorist, and everyone wants to take down poor Fiddy. Good job he's packing heat and is in the company of the G-Unit, who provide ample support through a Gears of War-flavoured campaign of duck and cover shooting. It's quite possible to take offence to the mindless gratuity of the violence, and the choice of such a charged location as the backdrop for this adolescent fantasy is questionable to say the least. But 50's world is as ridiculous as Marcus Fenix's, and like Gears of War there's a giddy pleasure to be had in the excessiveness of the whole spectacle.
Epic's game is one obvious touchstone in the game's shooter moments; employing a close third-person view on the player, 50 can snap into cover at the touch of a button. The system's solidly implemented and reliable, causing few of the headaches that some cover-based games can inspire, and the shooting proves no slouch either. Weapons are divided into four classes: pistols, heavy and light sidearms and explosives, all mapped to the d-pad, and all providing a hefty kick as they lay into the veritable bullet sponges that make up the nameless opposing forces. They handle reliably as well, which is a good thing given that, for a cover-based game, Blood on the Sand moves at a wicked pace.
Propelling the game along at such speed is the scoring system, superficially similar to the one that powered Bizarre's underrated shooter The Club. Chain kills in quick succession and a combo starts, with multipliers enabled by pulling off headshots, using explosives or killing with melee attacks – which are a brutal bunch of close-quarter quick-time events, enabled with a single button press but showing some quite grisly hyper-violence.
Factor in a bullet time mode - aptly dubbed Gangster Fire - that's made occasionally available and it becomes clear that 50's got quite a toolset to go to work with. Perhaps our favourite part of 50's arsenal, however, are his verbal taunts. Like both the weapons and melees, they're fully upgradeable, and they're ranked by profanity - so why celebrate tossing a grenade with a simple 'fire in the hole' when you can go for the more satisfying 'muthaf%£#!ng fire in the hole, b****es'?
The vanilla shooting is further enlivened by frequent scenarios, whereby a task is dished out – normally no more taxing than being given a set amount of people to down – and a strict timer counts down, with successful completion met by a flurry of points.
While the points system helps elevate the otherwise unremarkable shooting into something more gratifying, it also gives Blood on the Sand a tangible old school flavour. Stages are strewn with cardboard boxes to be smashed and the loot within to be taken, and it seems the only thing missing is the presence of some oversized and overcooked chickens to serve as health power-ups. Regardless, when the action's in flow it's as direct as it gets, the screen a dizzying mix of explosions and bullet-fire monitored by the rapidly escalating score counter. Indeed, the only time any strategy comes into play is when Fiddy recruits the girls at a local strip joint and sends them in to distract the enemy.
Unfortunately, while the action's old school, so is the game's repetitive nature, with fatigue setting in well before the 10 levels are up. Though it's infrequently broken up by basic driving sections and a few spells behind a helicopter's chain gun, the wave upon wave of enemies in the standard shooter levels soon becomes tiresome, the rhythm of levels as repetitive as the monotonous beat that drives Fiddy's songs (and if you take that statement as sacrilege to 50 Cent's back catalogue, you'll perhaps take solace in the fact that Blood on the Sand contains a sizeable amount of it as its soundtrack, as well as containing nine music videos to unlock).
There's still the pull of co-op when the solo thrills expire, which is available throughout the game in a drop-in, drop-out basis. Though there's fun to be had in chasing kills in order to claim the highest score, the other co-operative elements are rudimentary, reduced to simple tasks such as working together to open up shuttered off areas and giving each other legs up to out-of-reach platforms, and sadly the mode is strictly online. More's the pity, as Blood on the Sand is the kind of knowing and breezy entertainment that's best enjoyed with friends.
Verdict
Swordfish Studios has taken a knowing and often wry eye to the swagger of the 50 Cent juggernaut, and in the process created a near-perfect popcorn game. Its gunplay is solid and backed up by a plethora of neat ideas, its co-op is strong and there's an undercurrent of savvy humour that helps to negate the heavy posturing and more dubious elements of the paper thin plot. Ultimately, the pattern of play becomes too familiar too quickly, but while it lasts Blood on the Sand is a smile-inducing blast.
