•50 Cent: "Blood On The Sand" Co-op Hands-On + More New Trailers/Pictures & New Information!!!

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•50 Cent: "Blood on the Sand"



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•50 Cent: "Blood On The Sand" Co-op Hands-On
Death gotta be easy, 'cause life is hard.

January 14, 2009 - 50 Cent is one of our greatest entrepreneurs. What's the secret to his success? "I got pennies for my thoughts, now I'm rich," according to Mr. Cent. And though his thoughts might add up to hundreds of millions of pennies, even Fiddy can't do it alone. And when you play 50 Cent in his latest epic, Blood on the Sand, you won't have to go it alone either thanks to online co-op. While you play 50 Cent, your buddy plays as a member of G-Unit (Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, or DJ Whoo Kid). Together you lay scourge to the Middle East in search of a rare crystal skull.

After a few hours of play, I can assure you that Blood on the Sand finally answers the age old Zen riddle: If a gangsta yells "Die, you [expletive] [expletive]!" in the Middle East and no one is left alive, did he make a sound?

If you have to wear earmuffs anytime someone is about to drop foul language, you should probably take a pass on 50 Cent: BOTS. The dialogue is gloriously crude and, judging by the hooting and hollering crowds gathered around the desks of myself (call me Half-Dolla) and my boy Ryan Geddes (of X-Unit), the non-stop cursing is incredibly entertaining. Swearing while exploding bad guys is always more fun with a friend.



See Fiddy the Sniper in action.

Co-op is drop-in/drop-out and online only. When the host starts a session of 50 Cent, they select if co-op will be friend only, invite only or open to the public. The set-up is pretty simple and all that really matters is determining if you want to play as 50 (and be the host) or search for a game and play as one of the members of G-Unit.

The nice thing about co-op is that the members of G-Unit have taunts, just like Fiddy. But you won't hear most of them unless you're playing with someone else. No matter how many taunts are opened for 50 Cent, sooner or later, you're going to get tired of hearing the same lines. G-Unit members add a little variety to the constant swearing. Our boy Fiddy is still the king of the off-color insult, but Yayo, Lloyd Banks and that other guy do a decent job as well. It's kind of like watching a baseball game and only getting play-by-play. You need color commentary from Lloyd Banks to make the broadcast complete.

Online co-op works smoothly and I only ran into very occasional framerate hits. But there's no notable latency, which is the key. One cool thing is that if your partner performs a counter-kill move, you can watch the entire animation play out. Sometimes this leads to some weird ending animations for the enemy, but it's still cool to witness.

The AI, which isn't the strong suit of Blood on the Sand (cussing and explosions would be #1 and #2 on the strengths lists), doesn't adapt to a second human player in any special way. It treats your buddy just like he was your computer-controlled partner. This can allow for some good teamwork, as enemies are slow to react to flanking. Or you can play 50 Cent: BOTS like Half-Dolla and X-Unit -- with lots of chaos, extra explosions, and the occasional crying fits.

Should your buddy go down, the game is not over. Just head over to your friend and hit the assist button to revive them. If both of you fall, then be comforted in the knowledge that you're not the only person in the world who sucks at videogames. And don't worry, BOTS has a lot of checkpoints. Death is only a minor inconvenience.



Enjoy some counter-kills in HD.

The bulk of gameplay in BOTS plays out the same whether you are with a friend or the AI. However, there are a few vehicle sections that do feel quite different. Early on, 50 gets in a Humvee and escorts a convoy through some treacherous streets. Solo, 50 drives and the AI shoots. In co-op, the G-Unit member gets to fire. While this still leaves Fiddy with little to do other than swerve left and right, it is more satisfying having someone controlling the turret atop the Humvee. Things are a bit more fun when Fiddy and friend hop into an attack chopper, each manning a mounted machinegun. As you fly through a series of hillside outposts, it becomes a bit of a competition to see who can cause the most destruction. Pro tip: Aim for the red barrels; they explode.

It's not all expletives and gunfire. I did have a recurring issue with co-op. There are a number of sections where you and a buddy have to stand on glowing circles and hit the action button to perform a co-op move. A number of times this turned into a comedy of errors. Sometimes I'd hit the button and suddenly lock into cover against a nearby wall, or the two characters would swap places. While not disastrous, it is pretty sloppy and the biggest (and most frequent) bug I've encountered. Even though 50 Cent: BOTS ships in a month, there should be time to fix this annoying issue. Let's hope it's taken care of, because my only swearing should be in jubilation, not in frustration.

Whether single-player or co-op, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is not the second coming of videogames. The AI isn't great, the gameplay is pretty much a clone of Gears of War and it seems like a fairly short experience. But BOTS has one thing going for it -- It's a whole lot of fun.

Published by: THQ
Developed by: Swordfish Studios
Genre: Action
Plataforms: Xbox 360/PS3
Number of Players: 1-2
Release Date:
US: February 24, 2009
Europe: Q1 2009
Australia: Q1 2009
ESRB: M
MSRP: $59.99

*Xbox 360*

*PS3*

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