Instead of renegotiating payment for his work, rapper 50 Cent grabs automatic weapons and splatters his former employers' brains. At least that's how it goes down in his upcoming video game, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. Created by Swordfish Studios, the brains behind the underappreciated PS2 shooter Cold Winter, this excessively violent and over the top third-person blast-fest has all the makings of a great stress reliever, providing it doesn't play like 50 Cent's previous game Bulletproof.

For whatever unimportant reason, 50 Cent and his G-Unit posse decided to put on a show in an unnamed Middle Eastern city. They were supposed to receive an expensive jewel for their troubles, but someone manages to stiff them on the bill, and the result is a bloody, 20-plus level romp through terrorist infested streets and buildings. 50 and his cohorts get "gangsta" on everyone, unloading countless rounds of ammo and performing vicious executions where they slit throats and fire guns into the backs of skulls.

Similar to Gears of War, Blood on the Sand is an over the shoulder, third person action game powered by Unreal Engine 3.0. You'll have a choice of either running and gunning through the environments or playing it safe and utilizing cover, popping up to take shots at your adversaries. The rewards for being aggressive and getting in close are kill moves, which let you perform some especially nasty action on your adversaries, gutting them like fish or blowing them away. Doing these special moves earns you points, and achieving certain scores converts your ammunition to more powerful (and possibly explosive) bullets. Over time, you'll also earn cash, which can be used to purchase new equipment and weapons. In addition, the game features limited destructibility, so you'll be able to blast exploding barrels and other goodies, and there's vehicle segments, letting you operate turrets on land and in the air.

Furthermore, Blood on the Sand features on- and offline co-op, letting another player jump in and out of the action. Before playing a mission, you'll choose one of three members of G-Unit (Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo and DJ Whoo Kid), and you can invite a buddy to control that character. Of course, if no one's around, it'll be computer controlled.

Combine all of the carnage with plenty of unannounced and exclusive 50 Cent content (music, videos) and Blood on the Sand sounds very appealing. With that said, we thought the same thing of Bulletproof and despise it, so there's still a good chance this game will travel down that same bumpy road. For now, however, we can at least hope that 50's latest project will deliver plenty of head shooting, missile firing fun. Prepare to collect payment later this year.

Related Links

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand Xbox 360 Game Guide

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand PS3 Game Guide