I think it sits in that grey area between an RPG and an FPS that I’ve been looking for. It’s actually what I imagined WoW was going to be before it was released, an MMO version of the RTS Warcraft where humans control each unit in a battle and the results from those battles allow you to level your character.

The XP and bonus system is also a good way to give people an incentive to follow their leaders and also to play as a squad. At first I didn’t really like the lack of a killcam but on further thought, a killcam encourages a player to go off and play on his own, hunting down individual enemies that shot you, which really isn’t the point, it’s not a deathmatch game. The distance to the spawn point was also a gripe, but, again, if you are playing in a proper squad with medics and leaders you shouldn’t need to respawn as often as you should get resuscitated. The distance to the spawn also is a deterrent to spawn camping.

I’ve a few gripes still though:
1) The inability to throw back grenades is a pain. It makes holding a capture point redundant as a few grenades in the door will kill everyone or force everyone to run out into enemy fire.
2) Group comms need to be enabled outside of the game lobby and in the group menu itself
3) If I can cancel a reload by switching to my pistol I should be able to cancel a reload by using a melee attack also. The amount of times I’ve died in close quarters because my clip emptied and I’ve been forced to run around bunny hopping waiting for my reload animation to finish.

But overall it’s impressive. Definitely a day one buy for me I think.

First let me say, understandably, my expectations were very low for this game. Secondly I’m not a big fan of “gangsta” rappers, either their image or their music. But I’m willing to try anything with an open mind, and refuse to judge a game by it’s cover.

The first reaction of note I felt about this game was the hilariousness of the plot and dialogue. There are so many moments in the game where you are asking yourself “Why?” with utter confusion. But oddly, rather than taking from the game, it actually adds to it. Unknowingly, 50 Cent has made a game that not only seems to a satire on violent gaming but also a parody on gangsta rap itself. Rather than detail the plot myself, here is the summary of it from wiki:

The game is set in an urban warzone in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, where 50 Cent and G-Unit have been hired to play a rap concert. After the concert the promoter refuses to pay them the US $10-million in cash he promised, but relents after being threatened. However, instead of the cash they were promised, he gives them a diamond-and-pearl encrusted human skull as collateral. This is promptly stolen by a team of high-tech mercenaries. 50 Cent (with the help of a selected G-Unit partner) decides to get it back at any cost.

Don’t even try to understand it, and also, later in the game there are a number of twists that make equally as little sense. But like I said earlier, far from making this game bad, it actually makes it pretty fun to play, as you laugh your way through the cut scenes and ridiculously obscene smack talk 50 Cent uses when shooting his way through the levels.

Gameplay wise, the game is also very solid. It’s an unashamed Gears of War clone. With a pretty similar cover system and level progression. If you liked GoW you’ll slot right into playing this game. The format is pretty much a cross up between progressing along a linear line defeating baddies, to entering arena style rooms where you are given numerous options for flanking the baddies or facing them head on.

For weapons, there is the usual fare (i.e. pistols, MGs, shotguns and rocket launchers) and they handle pretty well. As you progress you earn money which allows you to buy bigger and better weapons and they don’t disappoint.

On top of this, the better you do the more you build up a bar that allows you to enter a bullet time mode. Again nothing new, but always a nice addition. I rarely used it, but on occasion it came in handy when I felt I was being overrun. It allowed me to slow everything down and quickly stand up and take out everyone in quick succession. Also, up close, instead of being able to melee you can enter into a takedown QTE where you can take out a baddie with a series of punches and jabs from 50 Cent. There is enough variety in these take-downs and enough leniency in how quickly you hit the next button to perform the next hit that these never get old for the duration of the game.

Graphically, the game is on par with it’s peers. 50 Cent looks like 50 Cent, and the facial animations are up to standard. At no point did I think to myself “man that looks awful” which has been the case with a few games I’ve played recently. My only gripe is that the environment doesn’t really vary for the entire course of the game. As you are in the middle east somewhere all the buildings are sand coloured and there is sand everywhere outside (thus the name I guess) It does get a bit boring looking at just shades of yellow and brown, one level with greenery (an Oasis perhaps?) would of been nice. For Audio, again, on par with other games in the same genre of this generation. The soundtrack is basically a load of 50 Cent music, which I didn’t mind. In fact it probably helped immersing you into this surreal Gangsta Rap world where a rapper goes on a killing spree because he didn’t get paid after doing a concert.  The weapons and also the environmental sounds are also very good.

In conclusion, I’d recommend this game, but maybe as a rental as it is pretty short (around 7 hours long maybe). I’ve heard it said before that this game is a “guilty pleasure”, and I couldn’t describe it better. It’s a game you don’t want to like, but you will. The gameplay is solid, the plot is so bad it’s good and graphically it hits the nail on the head. It’s nothing new, true, but it’s harvested aspects of other games that made them good and put them all into one package. If you can overlook any bias you have towards rappers then you should play this game.

Score: 7.5/10

Update 1 – 28/05/09: Now I’m the king of the swingers, a jungle VIP

I’ve been ploughing loads of free time into Little Big Planet and Street Fighter IV lately, but decided to give those a break to give this a whirl. Initial impressions are good, the dialogue is 80′s camp (I don’t know if this is on purpose or not) which is actually humorous, and the gameplay is interesting. To keep with the Bionic Arm theme of the original, a bomb has gone off in some generic city which means you can’t just walk right up to the bosses door, you need your extendable swing arm to grapple onto signposts, girders and broken bridges to swing from one checkpoint to the next. The swinging makes up the meat of the gameplay, the bones comes from what is at the checkpoints when you get there. You will usually have to fight a bunch of baddies to progress (on occasion you can go around them) but how you do so will govern what upgrades and trophies you will receive. It is usually in your best interest to see what challenges have been unlocked and complete them as soon as possible. The variety of challenges keeps the fights fresh as you are not just running and gunning. Thought has to go into how you plan to attack the next squad or outpost.

At this point I still like it. The swing mechanics can feel rather stiff at times, but I’m getting used to it. Hopefully, as more abilities unlock, the game will continue to get better.

Update 2 – 29/05/09: Doin’ it for da bling

Well I’ve decided I’m going to try and get a platinum trophy in this game. I purposely played through it on my first run in the hardest difficulty to get the Trophy for it, and after having a look at the list of Trophies (thankfully none of them are online grind trophies) it should be easily possible. Playing through it in Commando mode is tough. A lot of the time I have to resort to exploiting glitches in the levels to progress. For example I encountered 3 Biomechs blocking my path, I couldn’t go around them, and fighting all 3 of them at once at this difficulty would be suicide. So I found a ledge that they couldn’t reach and just took pot shots at them, slowly whittling away at each of there healths until I could jump in and pull off a radial move that would take out all 3 of them at once. Also, Snipers at this difficulty are an absolute pain. They track you without mistake, you really have to get used to moving out of cover, performing one quick finishing move, then back into cover before the next Sniper in the area has locked onto you.

The only consolation is that I imagine I will be playing it again now to unlock the rest of the trophies, but thankfully this difficulty level will be out of the way. The easier difficulties should be a breeze.

Update 3 – 01/06/09: Swing and a… hit!

Well I finished Bionic C0mmando over the weekend in commando mode, then finished it again a day later to unlock all of the trophies and get the platinum. In commando mode, the difficulty was insane in some places (particularly areas with snipers) but by the end it felt like something of substance had been accomplished. On my second play through I lowered the difficulty to normal (the lowest allowable setting) and while it didn’t feel like as much of a struggle, it was a whole lot more fun.

Moves I couldn’t even attempt before I now had plenty of time to pull off. for example, there are these flying baddies named “Polycrafts”. In commando mode, I had to constantly be in cover, shooting at them from a distance as they would never come close enough to allow me to grapple them. In normal mode, I was able to swing on a girder and throw myself towards them as I could take a lot more damage, this allowed me to get close enough to grapple onto them and perform an “adrenaline” finishing move, which basically pulls the operater out of the craft thus disabling it.

I thought the story was pretty solid (albeit let down significantly by the pretty bad voice acting) and the ending just made you hungry for a sequel. A few of the levels had a really good epic feel to them, an example being the boss fight against the Mohole. Everything about this was perfect, the size of the boss, the sounds and the music and the atmosphere of the level. But this is just a drop in the pond.

Overall I really enjoyed this game. I thought the musical score was excellent and the sound effects where perfect (plenty of bass used to great effect), gameplay wise it never got repetitive or boring and graphically it was solid, changing environments frequently enough so as to never feel tired. If you’re looking for a challenge, some fun, a feast of eye and ear candy or a bunch of easily obtained trophies for your collection then I highly recommend this game.

What happened was that I fell in love with the game, no joke, I love this game now. I started off hating the fact I had received this game in the post, changed to mild amusement at the sackboy sixaxis movements and costume designs, laughed at the odd design of the levels and then just proceeded to think this was one of the best games I’d played in a long time. Graphically the game is simple, although it does have it’s moments (soft fabrics and materials look especially realistic and tactile) but what sets it apart is the consistent, mildly difficult platforming and puzzles. What makes it even better is the knowledge all throughout the game that it is giving you the tools to make levels equal to the ones you are playing. I literally completed the entire main campaign in one sitting over the course of a day with my better half, and as soon as I was finished started trying out some of the community made levels.

The quality and rating system is such that you can easily tell which levels have been liked by others, and so far I haven’t been dissapointed with them. This gave me the gusto to make my first foray into designing a level myself. I’ve used a few level designers on the PC and they have never been user friendly, but LBP has hit the nail on the head. Within 10 minutes you can have built yourself a rocket car, within another 20 you can of designed a complete race course to drive it along. I must of plowed a good few hours into a level I was building to test out various features and mechanics of the game, but it only felt like I’d been playing for half an hour.

This is the true test of a game in my opinion, if you can play it and become so engrossed in it that you don’t even notice the passage of time. There’s really not much more I can say about it, the gameplay is excellent, the artstyle will appeal to all ages, the soundtrack is perfect and the developers have given you, the gamer, the steering wheel. I like it so much I’ve sent back my rental copy and bought the game. If you haven’t already I’d recommend playing it, and if you are looking for that reason to buy a PS3, this game is it.