THIS IS A REVIEW FOR THE PSP VERSION ONLY!!! NOTHING REFLECTS MY THOUGHTS ON THE CONSOLE VERSIONS SINCE I HAVEN'T PLAYED THOSE!!!
I wanted to like this game more than I ended up doing. The first half of the game is pretty fun. You just run around areas blasting dudes away with various weapons until a boss shows up. Maybe you'll have to search for something or destroy X number of objects first, but it's fun. It has some jank and can get a bit repetitive, but I didn't really mind that. That's not to mention the massive amount of instant kill animations the game has for when you run up to a guy and press the square button. There's also TONS of fan service for those that love 50 Cent (I never really listened to his music before and my playthrough of this had me listening to the game score more than the licensed music just cause I didn't want to spend money on it, but I'll get to that later). There's tons of songs and music videos you can unlock, cosmetic clothing items from 50 Cent's line of clothes, you can even make a custom playlist from the songs you unlock. It's pretty cool how much they put in for fans.
However, as the game progressed I started liking it less and less. By the, I wanna say, halfway point (where you're fighting through the subway and train cars), the game starts throwing more enemies at you than I felt I was reasonably equipped to handle. What made this worse was you aren't always guaranteed to go back to the Hood (the game's main hub) between levels even if a cutscene shows you being there. Even when you are there, the only things worth spending money on are healing items, ammo, and armor (helpful tip, don't do what I did and waste money on any armor besides the 300% one cause it doesn't refill the gauge like health, instead you're just stuck with worse armor). Despite constantly looting every enemy I killed, I constantly felt like I was running low on funds for anything else which is why I never bought any music or cosmetics. Wasn't till the last few levels where I had enough after filling up to buy the instant kill animations. You CAN go back to the Hood whenever you want, but doing so will reset you back to the start of a level and some levels can get pretty long.
The story is fine for the most part, even if it's presented in kind of a funny way that you could really only get from a licensed game released during this time. It's pretty much just 50 Cent wants to get revenge on the person who killed his friend and tried to kill him. There's a lot more that goes into it, but what made me enjoy nearly every cutscene was all the characters. They're just really funny and have some hilarious designs. I also laughed any time this game had like several of the same character model moving around to show the passage of time or one used that's supposed to be a ghost, but he just looks normal. Although I will say 50 Cent's acting leaves a lot to be desired. Like everyone else sounds like they're having fun that day in the recording booth while 50 sounds like he just got out of bed.
It's a decent enough game more for fans of 50 Cent than anything, but man does it drop hard in that second act. I struggle to really recommend it to anyone. Maybe the console versions are better, but I got no idea. I know this game got a sequel and maybe one day I'll play that, but not anytime soon.
I wanted to like this game more than I ended up doing. The first half of the game is pretty fun. You just run around areas blasting dudes away with various weapons until a boss shows up. Maybe you'll have to search for something or destroy X number of objects first, but it's fun. It has some jank and can get a bit repetitive, but I didn't really mind that. That's not to mention the massive amount of instant kill animations the game has for when you run up to a guy and press the square button. There's also TONS of fan service for those that love 50 Cent (I never really listened to his music before and my playthrough of this had me listening to the game score more than the licensed music just cause I didn't want to spend money on it, but I'll get to that later). There's tons of songs and music videos you can unlock, cosmetic clothing items from 50 Cent's line of clothes, you can even make a custom playlist from the songs you unlock. It's pretty cool how much they put in for fans.
However, as the game progressed I started liking it less and less. By the, I wanna say, halfway point (where you're fighting through the subway and train cars), the game starts throwing more enemies at you than I felt I was reasonably equipped to handle. What made this worse was you aren't always guaranteed to go back to the Hood (the game's main hub) between levels even if a cutscene shows you being there. Even when you are there, the only things worth spending money on are healing items, ammo, and armor (helpful tip, don't do what I did and waste money on any armor besides the 300% one cause it doesn't refill the gauge like health, instead you're just stuck with worse armor). Despite constantly looting every enemy I killed, I constantly felt like I was running low on funds for anything else which is why I never bought any music or cosmetics. Wasn't till the last few levels where I had enough after filling up to buy the instant kill animations. You CAN go back to the Hood whenever you want, but doing so will reset you back to the start of a level and some levels can get pretty long.
The story is fine for the most part, even if it's presented in kind of a funny way that you could really only get from a licensed game released during this time. It's pretty much just 50 Cent wants to get revenge on the person who killed his friend and tried to kill him. There's a lot more that goes into it, but what made me enjoy nearly every cutscene was all the characters. They're just really funny and have some hilarious designs. I also laughed any time this game had like several of the same character model moving around to show the passage of time or one used that's supposed to be a ghost, but he just looks normal. Although I will say 50 Cent's acting leaves a lot to be desired. Like everyone else sounds like they're having fun that day in the recording booth while 50 sounds like he just got out of bed.
It's a decent enough game more for fans of 50 Cent than anything, but man does it drop hard in that second act. I struggle to really recommend it to anyone. Maybe the console versions are better, but I got no idea. I know this game got a sequel and maybe one day I'll play that, but not anytime soon.