50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

Oh, Fiddy. I’ve idly stood by as you polluted my radio and television over the years, but tainting my consoles is where I draw the line. You know, not long ago an artist would have been called a sell-out for whoring their image, but now we refer to this practice as being “entrepreneurial.” Either way, you still suck, and so does your game.

In a nutshell, Blood on the Sand is 50 Cent’s attempt at vicariously living every violent fantasy he’s ever dreamed of fulfilling. The game is ridiculous from start to finish, from its premise of 50 and his posse trying to reclaim a jewel-encrusted skull from Middle Eastern terrorist crime lords to being able to purchase rocket launchers in telephone booths to the invokable “Gangster Fire” mode that stops time around the protagonist. Yeah, he’s also a super hero.

Like Ann Rice novels and movies by Michael Bay, Blood on the Sand contains lots of eye candy, action, and explosions, but you walk away from the experience feeling sadly empty and stinking of shame. Is it fun? Maybe, but so is using a stick to push a hoop down a dirt road. Let’s raise the bar a bit.

Wheelman

In the latest creative abortion featuring Vinn Diesel driving fast cars, players get to experience the thrills, chills, lacerations, and dislocated vertebrae associated with high-speed automobile chases and collisions. Originally based on IP owned by Midway, Wheelman was sold off for publication by Ubisoft a few weeks ago when the company filed for bankruptcy. Perhaps if Midway had spent a little more time developing a new title (their last successful franchise was, what, NBA Jam?) and a little less time putting out uninspired games loosely based on cinematic sewage like The Fast and the Furious they might have been able to stay out of the red.

I can’t get over the fact that, at some point, important, presumably intelligent people got together and collectively decided that making this game was a good idea. When I first heard about this game I had hoped it was some kind of Mega Man villain spin-off. I still do.

Halo Wars

Not since the last Halo release has a a worthless addition to the franchise been so overhyped (looking at you, Halo 2 with updated graphics Halo 3). Bungie played it safe by loaning its thoroughly monetized intellectual property to Ensemble Studios in order to turn a quick buck without soiling their image. From its conception, everyone fully expected Halo Wars bite more ass than Marv Albert, but then it was released and–surprise!–it didn’t suck.

We all know that when it comes to console real-time strategy games any crumb is a meal, but simply not being terrible doesn’t mean Halo Wars is deserving of attention. The control system may deserve praise for its fluidity and innovation, but it’s still no match for a mouse and keyboard. Frankly, I don’t care how intuitive the control scheme for Halo Wars is–playing an RTS with a control pad will always feel like competing in the Special Olympics.

Darkfall

In development for over SEVEN YEARS, developer Adventurine’s Darkfall represents the next step backwards in the MMO genre. Darkfall clings to old school gaming beliefs borrowed from the likes of Ultima Online, such as free-for-all PvP and player corpse looting.

Having set multiple release dates over the years (as far back as 2005) and missing all of them by a country mile, Adventurine’s latest failure has been in underestimating public interest in their title. Officially released yesterday, game, billing, and even forum servers had to be shut down mere hours after going live due to high traffic and unexpected bugs. The game is scheduled to go back online today. Yet despite these problems, players dissatisfied with World of Warcraft’s inept approach to PvP and unhappy with rapidly dwindling interest in Age of Conan and Warhammer Online are flocking to Darkfall, at least for now. Soon enough they’ll realize that the the fugly Lineage 2 clone offers nothing in the way of innovation and is apparently run out of some guy’s garage.

Quake Live

Quake III Arena was a pretty badass game…when it released in 1999. Ten years later, I can’t say I’m too excited for it. Sure, I might use the railgun to gib some low polygon count models in outer space death match arenas for nostalgic purposes, but I’ve still got Team Fortress 2 achievements to unlock.

Id Software’s new game spearheads an innovative form of digital distribution, technologically advanced gaming in your web browser funded entirely by in-game advertising. Id’s bold attempt at turning the retail marketing paradigm on its head is commendable, but in the long run I see this game having little impact on the progressive side of the industry.

Is Quake Live generating a huge amount of buzz right now? Yes. Were over 110,000 accounts created in the first 6 hours of the open beta? Absolutely. So why do I hate on Quake Live? Because Quake Live only has lasting appeal to the casual gamer. The novelty of playing Quake in your browser will wear off on those used to being on the cutting edge of the industry very quickly. Those who will play Quake Live for more than a few minutes every month will be people who (a) don’t know any better, (b) can’t run games made in this decade, (c) have their mind blown by Snood and Minesweeper.

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