|
Love
him or hate him, Curtis “50Cent”
Jackson
is probably richer than you. And, like all rich people, he’s
fairly keen on getting richer. With people, and by people we mean
teenage girls, buying his records by the bucket load, there is
obviously huge scope for Fiddy to expand into other media area s and
further take advantage of people’s stupidity, sorry, loyalty.
Cinemas across the country are currently showing Get Rich Or Die
Tryin’, Fiddy’s first Feature Film that, although hardly
critically acclaimed, is going to make him a whole load of cash. Bet
you wish you’d been shot nine times now don’t you? Anyway
there’s a film so, you knew it was coming, there’s also a game.
By now you are either very excited that your idol has his own game,
or pretty angry that the PlayStation2 and Xbox probably have yet
another dodgy Third-Person Action game with less charm than a box of
rabid lepers. But not every game by a celebrity has been a tragedy -
think of Vin Diesel’s The
Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay or Tony
Hawk’s never-ending stream of skating releases - so perhaps, just
perhaps, 50Cent: Bulletproof might be alright.
As
mentioned, 50Cent: Bulletproof is a Third-Person Action game.
No surprises there then. You play as 50Cent and shortly after the
start of the game you are shot in the back, you guessed it, nine
times. From then on the premise of the game is to find out which
callous individual decided to do this to you and sort them out in
the most vicious and Gangsta way possible. At least it’s probable
this is the plot, since the story is a little disjointed, a shame
considering they managed to get Soprano’s writer Terry Winter on
board. Levels are made up of several areas with a Checkpoint at the
start of each, a tried-and-tested system, but one that suits the
game well. Unfortunately, the unnecessary Loading of the area every
time and the occasional Cut-Scene you can’t skip means that the
game can get a little frustrating on the Normal Difficulty Setting.
Since 50Cent is a Gangsta you’ll be shooting a whole load of
people in order to achieve your goals. Keeping your Targeting
Reticule in the same place, naturally, causes your accuracy to
increase, however, this is very difficult due to some interesting
AI. Instead of using cover or getting themselves into  strategic
locations, the enemy characters run around madly shooting their
weapons in your general direction. This means that achieving
accuracy is very difficult since you will be forced to fire back in
the same random fashion or run-up to them, possibly screaming, and
shoot them in the face. Fiddy does not really live-up to his
“bulletproof” name - and will die frequently if this method is
used - making 50Cent: Bulletproof a pretty dire action
experience.
Fiddy
can use cover by the use of the Square Button near a wall. However
the same Square Button doesn’t release him from Cover Mode;
instead pushing away from the wall with the Analogue Stick does.
This can make moving in-and-out of cover somewhat of a chore but
then there really isn’t any point in using cover, since the AI
insists on running about like monkeys on acid, often beyond the
point which you are covered. You can dual-wield weapons, but then
these days what game doesn’t offer that function? The other
members of G-Unit, with the exception of the girl that no one
remembers, feature in 50Cent: Bulletproof complete with ropey
AI and strangely the ability to shrug off bullets, grenades and
probably A-Bombs. Each has a different skills you‘ll need to
utilise to complete the missions but some bad AI means that they
frequently get stuck further compounding your irritation. You can
also rob felled opponents by pressing Square, but since you’ll
want as much cash as possible, you will be robbing everyone, so it
would have probably been better if you picked up the cash
automatically. But then that wouldn’t be as Gangsta, would it?
Cash is used for two main reasons; buying supplies and unlocking
50Cent related features. There doesn’t really seem to be much
point in  buying weapons from Grizz, played by Dr Dre, since you’ll
pick up more than enough hardware during the Missions. The Street
Doctor sells the vastly more useful health replenishing goods, but
the real reason for saving cash is for the unlockables. 50Cent:
Bulletproof does feature a lot of Fiddy’s music and videos,
and this is arguably the best reason to own this game.
50
Cent: Bulletproof’s graphics are reminiscent of Predator:
Concrete Jungle in that although the actual character models are
very good looking, the enemies and environments are bland, dark and
generally uninteresting. Enemy models are re-used throughout the
game without much variation and in general, are pretty boring to
look at the first time, let alone the fiftieth. Sometimes the
game’s environments are so dark it borders on impossible to see
your enemies let alone hit them. Shooting people has never been this
boring. Group this with some Invisible Walls, Polygon
Cross-Pollination and occasional loss of Frame-Rate and you start to
wonder if Fiddy programmed this game himself. Considering the amount
of space on a DVD, it seems sloppy that the Music Videos including
are as grainy as they are, as the 50Cent extras are easily the best
part of this wholly unoriginal package. The sound is probably the
best part of 50Cent: Bulletproof. The game features many
songs from 50Cent and his homies and can be listened to at any time
during play. However, if you move from one area to another, the
track you are listening to restarts meaning that you will be
listening to the first ten seconds of Candy Shop many, many
times. Although the plot is a little confusing, the Voice Acting
from most of the cast is not too bad. As you might expect, 50Cent:
Bulletproof features a lot of swearing but it does seem in
context with the nature of the game. The sound effects for the guns
are also ok, but really nothing too special.
To
put it plainly, you do not want this game unless you are a 50Cent
fan. If you are, you may be disappointed by the bad gameplay and
grainy videos. However the large amount of G-Unit unlockables do
make this a good purchase for the 50Cent hardcore, if they can
stomach playing through the Missions again and again in Arcade Mode
to get the cash need to buy them. 50Cent: Bulletproof should
never have been billed as a game. As a 50Cent DVD, it’s ok, but if
you want an Action game that is actually fun, this is the last place
you should look.
 
|
