50 Cent was almost like a textbook marketing success when he landed on the music scene earlier this decade. You couldn’t turn around without hearing his music, or the stories about how he was shot nine times and lived to tell about it. His first two records collectively sold more than 20 million copies. At the height of his success, he even had a video game, the extremely lousy 50 Cent Bulletproof (which he allegedly turned down the lead role in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to do). However, with a long time between albums being spent working on side projects and making ridiculously large sums of money on bottled water, 50’s popularity has since declined a little, and now he’s trying to bring it back together. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is the rapper’s second foray into the area of interactive entertainment, and is a heck of a lot better than his previous outing.

That still doesn’t necessarily guarantee that Blood on the Sand is actually a good game, though. If you view the game in a serious light, then it comes across as being utterly ridiculous. However, if you take it as some sort of self-parody of 50 Cent’s previously heavily marketed hard-edged image, then it actually comes across as being somewhat clever, and quite funny. The story begins with 50 and his G-Unit homies (Tony Yayo, Lloyd Banks and DJ Whoo Kid) finishing up a tour of an unnamed Middle Eastern country. One thing you quickly learn about 50 and his boys is that they’re all about getting paid, and funnily enough, the tour operator can’t come up with the money to pay the rappers, so he gives them a priceless diamond encrusted skull instead. As you’d expect, the skull gets stolen, and 50 and his homies have to kill a bunch of miscreants in order to recover their super bling. What little story is there is easily dismissed, though the poorly delivered dialogue can be hilarious at times. This is highlighted in one particular situation where you’re careening down an alleyway in a hummer, being fired upon by a number of terrorists, and your homies tell you to “Hit da ramp, Fiddy”.

When you strip away the fancy rapper coating and ridiculous story, Blood on the Sand is really just a straight up third person shooter that has no shame in pulling mechanics from other successful games, like Gears of War and Army of Two. That means you’ve got the fancy cover mechanics, blind fire and situations which require 50 and his G-Unit counterpart to work together to progress. It even copies the “radioed-in orders” cutscenes from Epic’s game. Gunplay mechanics are actually quite pleasing – the action is smooth, the control is tight, each weapon feels like it packs a punch and is satisfying to fire, and enemies don’t take a ridiculous number of bullets to go down. 50’s armoury is quite diverse, however the extreme accuracy of some of the early weapons means you never really have to spend your cash on unlocking better weapons later in the game, but the extra firepower is always nice to have.

Blood on the Sand differentiates itself from other mainline third person shooters by just being so damn over the top about everything. While the game mainly requires players to just go from A to B and kill any thugs that get in your way, it has a combo system which rewards you for making stylish and brutal kills with a multiplier that increases your score as you kill enemies in succession. If that’s not enough, Blood on the Sand also features an in-game taunt button, which awards players with bonus points for dissing their opponents after riddling them with bullets. Unfortunately, most of the taunts are lame and forced. Players can also get up close and personal with their opponents with the counterkill system, where 50 can get an insta-kill on an opponent if the player correctly presses the B button at pre-determined intervals. These close encounter kills can be particularly brutal, and elevate 50’s perceived levels of strength up to superhuman status. Players can purchase more counterkills and taunts at the weapons shop. Perhaps the most ridiculous and over the top factor in the game is that every damn boss fight involves 50 taking on a fully armed military gunship singlehandedly.

Variety is not one of Blood on the Sand’s strong points. Each of the game’s nine missions involve running through a linear course of near-identical looking environments and fighting enemies that look all too similar. They try to spice things up once in a while by having players hunt down posters and targets, or giving them mini-challenges, such as killing the incoming reinforcements or collecting large amounts of cash in a specified amount of time, but it’s all really just too repetitive. A few vehicle sequences are thrown in too, but they’re largely forgettable. Gold, silver and bronze badges are awarded at the end of each chapter for achieving a certain score, which is fairly easily done given that Blood on the Sand is quite easy, even on its top difficulty level. The game may provide a cover system, but players seldom need to use it since 50 is a veritable bullet sponge, and can shrug off most of what the opposition can throw at him. A second player can join the action and control 50’s selected G-Unit companion, either locally or through Xbox Live. It makes the game even easier, but the quality of the net code is actually surprisingly good.

Blood in the Sand’s visual presentation is a little mixed. Character models and animation range from above average to quite good, but the variety of enemy designs is sorely lacking. Environments are heavily detailed and provide a good sense of atmosphere, but they too are prone to looking a little too similar. The game’s HUD can seem a little crowded at times, especially when its keeping track of 50’s life and ammo, your current timed objective, the main objective marker and your combo meter all at once. The frame rate is silky smooth, and rarely skips a beat. On the audio front, Blood on the Sand packs in over forty tracks, including songs from 50 Cent’s back catalogue like In Da Club, and 18 new recordings exclusive to the game. The game does seem to cycle through only a handful of the tracks on the disc, so make sure you tweak the jukebox if you want a bit of variety. Voice acting performances from 50 and the G-Unit are pretty lazy; they seem like they have other places to be.

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is a thoroughly amusing gaming experience. The scenario and action are ridiculous, but it’s oddly engrossing and you can have a lot of fun with it. The gameplay is built on a fairly solid third person shooter foundation, but sadly there’s not enough variety (one can have too many one on one fights with a helicopter, evidently) and it’s just too easy to sustain your long term interest. At the risk of sounding a little cliché, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is a perfect rental; quick, disposable weekend entertainment that’s best enjoyed with a few friends.