When I was thirteen, one of my favourite games was a lesser-known PC football title called Manchester United: The Double. Being a Derby County fan and disliking such overt branding, it was pretty embarrassing that I loved it quite as much as I did. Eleven years later and I'm getting a sense of déjà vu from 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, a third person action game that's clearly drawn a fair bit of inspiration from duck and cover shooters like Rainbow Six: Vegas, as well as the arcade high-scoring fun of The Club.

The early signs for this title weren't great; Blood on the Sand was dropped by Activision and Mr Cent seems willing to put his name on pretty much anything. The last time everyone's favourite misogynistic rapper put his name on a videogame, it didn't get a warm reception; that game, 50 Cent: Bulletproof - a reference to his having survived being shot seven times (though scientifically, I think you'd need a larger sample of bullets in an empirical study before someone could be declared "bullet-proof") - was the kind of bland, by the numbers third person action game that sells millions and must make struggling indie games developers want to just give up. Contrary to all expectations however, Blood on the Sand is good: silly, over the top, enjoyable and fast paced. It's a genuine surprise -so what makes this one a success where the last one failed?

The plot is gleefully ludicrous (not to be confused with another rapper, Ludacris). Our man Fiddy has just completed a rap tour somewhere in the Middle East, and goes to accept payment in the form of a priceless, diamond-encrusted skull (this may sound unrealistic but it's not that uncommon for us freelancers) only to have it stolen just minutes later (again, not that unusual) by a stereotypical eastern European woman. Declaring "that bitch took ma skull" (probably not how I'd put it, but close enough), Fiddy and his buddies from the G-Unit set off to get the skull back, ready to take on the full might of the fictional country's heavily armed criminal underworld.

This leads on to gameplay that is best described as Gears of War meets The Club. This might seem strange at first, when you consider that Gears of War is all about taking cover and timing your attacks, while The Club is all about getting through as quickly as possible picking up arcade style multipliers as you go, but somehow it works. You're awarded bonuses for getting a certain number of kills in a set period, for completing short assignments (kill the reinforcements in twenty seconds, get $20,000 worth of loot in forty seconds, etc.), getting headshots, killing with no cover, or taking an enemy down when you're at death's door, and each of these add to your score multiplier. This gradually fills up a power bar that gives you access to a shameless rip off of bullet time and your overall score is graded at the end. With achievements attached to silver and gold medals, as well as nicely competitive leaderboards, there's a great amount of replayability value here, which is a good thing, given that the overall length of the game is a touch on the short side - something that isn't helped by some odd pacing.

You see, as well as inconsistent usage of checkpoints (some levels just don't seem to have enough, while they're all over the [candy] shop in others), other missions are incredibly short. The vehicle sections are the biggest offenders and these can easily be polished off within minutes, while the on-foot sections take a great deal longer, despite occasionally being linear to a fault. They don't match up to the main meat of the game but at least offer a nice change of pace; driving or operating a helicopter gunship feels fairly standard and with no real opportunity to takes risks to boost the multiplier, this aspect of play is solid but unremarkable.

Of course, a game that gives you a chance to square off against your friends' high scores lives or dies on how tight the controls are, and in this respect Blood on the Sand is very much a mixed bag. While the main functions work in the same way as every other duck and cover shooter on the platform (pop up and aim with the left trigger, shoot with the right), there's a fairly basic mistake that results in Fiddy losing his bulletfproof reputation on several occasions. The problem occurs with the A button, which is designed to allow you to barrel roll out of the way of gunfire but also to take cover behind walls. Binding these functions to the same button is a disaster and often sees you rolling against a wall, or worse, taking cover with your back to a whole bunch of enemies who you were trying to roll away from! Quite why the developers thought this wouldn't be a problem is beyond me and it really should have been picked up in play-testing, because when a player (and I mean a games player, not a 'playa') is dealing with competitive high scores, the game makes it all too easy to blame the controls, rather than the skill of the gamer.

Fortunately, although you can find yourself frequently cursing the controls, you'll very rarely be left angry at your AI partners, who perform really well for the most part, taking sensible cover and picking up kills left, right and centre. They're always the first to run on when the area is all clear and thus do a great job of keeping the sense of urgency alive. The dialogue between the pair is also often joyously tongue in cheek and I was amused to spot the two gangsters taking some time out of the relentless gangsta talk to discuss the stunning architecture and historical significance of the fictional area they were decimating.

Stunning may be a bit too strong a word for the graphics in general, but they're certainly not bad. Like Rainbow Six, BioShock and Gears of War, the game uses the Unreal Engine, which the 360 can easily handle these days. It deals with the crumbling scenery and exotic locations very well at a solid frame rate, although the backdrops do blend into one another quite quickly. It's also telling just how over-the-top Epic have made their characters in Gears of War and Unreal Tournament, as Fiddy's rippling muscles look quite modest when compared to their past steroid-fed monstrosities. Your mileage of the soundtrack will depend on how much you like 50 Cent, as it's composed entirely of his music. You can unlock some of his more famous scores as you progress (In da Club, P.I.M.P, etc.), and if that still doesn't sell it to you then there's an option to put an instrumental over the top, with Swordfish clearly aware that the licence they've had to work with is likely to alienate as many people as it attracts.

At the same time though, they know full well that 50 Cent fans should be their main target and there's plenty to keep fans of the rapper happy. Scoring well and making progress gives access to all kinds of fanboy memorabilia, including the aforementioned extra music tracks, alongside videos and artwork. While most people will completely ignore this ("unlockable artwork" is the equivalent of "scene selection" on a DVD, isn't it?), its presence makes the package look like a solid piece of Curtis Jackson memorabilia rather than something that he's just mindlessly endorsed.

However, it's a shame that peripheral stuff like this is included when a more important area is neglected: multiplayer. Personally, I'm dead set against games being forced to include pointless deathmatch modes (can you imagine BioShock Capture the Flag? Of course not) and the developers have indeed passed up on this, but what would have been truly superb is split screen co-op. Using the same engine, Gears of War, Unreal Tournament and Kane & Lynch all managed to include this doubly-fun way of playing, but all Swordfish Studios have given us is the ability to play co-operatively over Xbox Live. It's fun, but this type of game has a kind of mindless camaraderie that can only really be experienced properly in the same room and a headset just doesn't cut it as an alternative.

50 Cent: Blood on the Sands is a really good, solid action game. It's silly, exciting and channels the best aspects of some of the 360's favourite hardcore shooters into some brainless arcade fun. From a purely objective standpoint, the game is worth an 8 in my eyes - if you love Fiddy and all his work then you can safely increase this to a 9 and if you loathe the man then the game still does enough to warrant a 7. Wherever you sit with regards to 50 Cent, you should give Blood on the Sand a try - it'd be a shame to miss some good, old-fashioned action gaming goodness because of the licence attached.

Reviewed by Alan Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).