Fiddy’s first outing in the video game world failed to set the world on fire. Bulletproof was subpar at best but, never one to give up, 50 cent is back at it in Blood in the Sand. This ends up being a somewhat comical effort that pits Fiddy and his G-unit cohorts against a group of middle eastern terrorists who have stolen a highly valuable crystal skull after a show promoter stiffs him at the end of a tour. Even with a change of setting and gameplay, is Fiddy even worth your time or would you just die tryin'?
Blood in the Sand is a cross between Epic’s Gears of War and Sega’s The Club. It uses a simplified cover system just like in gears, but with an emphasis on moving quickly through the environment. Combine this with a scoring system that rewards players for running and gunning adding a multiplier for every enemy killed and giving you mini mid-mission objectives that award you bonus points for completing them. There are also targets to get and posters to find that maximize your score. At the end of each area that makes up part of the level – you also get scored and assigned a ranking, just like in the club. Merging these two styles makes for some interesting play, but unfortunately it never realizes its full potential.
As you move from level to level, you and your g-unit partner (you can choose from Tony Yayo, Lloyd Banks, and DJ Whoo Kid) go from level to level in 3rd person gears of war style gameplay interspersed with vehicle driving sequences and a single on-rails shooter sequence. You can also collect money to get new weapons, taunts, and melee attacks. The best compliment I can give the gameplay is that it’s fun, but problematic.
The gameplay has an edgy unpolished feel. Sometimes you won’t be able to pull off exactly the move you want or won’t be able to maneuver or shoot around cover in the direction you want. On top of that, all of your g-unit partners play the game with very little dialog being different depending on who you pick. The opportunity was missed to have more varied gameplay where it could actually matter what partner you pick. Even more baffling is Fiddy’s melee attack which launches into a sort of quick time event cut scene where you have to pretty the B button at certain points to successfully kill an enemy. While a cool idea in its own right, the opportunity again was missed to have a god of war style mini game of button pressing for the violent over the top act of watching Mr. Cent dispatch a terrorist.
The AI for both your partner and the enemy is pretty dumb. While you can substitute your AI partner for a real friend over live, that doesn’t fix the issues with your opponents running in circles or running straight at you or make up for the fact you can’t play with a friend splitscreen playing right next to you. The game compensates the stupid enemy AI for numbers and often mobbing the player at certain scripted points.
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