"You Ain't No Gangsta"

Not too surprisingly, G-Unit Edition allows players to take on the persona of 50 Cent as he fights for his place in the criminal underbelly of New York City. More surprising, however, is High Voltage's decision to develop a mostly two-dimensional action game played via a top-down perspective. Unlike his foray onto the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, 50 Cent's PSP adventures better resemble the original Grand Theft Auto than its more recent incarnations in terms of viewpoint. While some players may be immediately turned off by the "dated" approach, Sony's hardware design is more to blame than High Voltage. Lacking a right analog stick, the PSP is best suited for classic control schemes, such as the one implemented here. The greatest benefit of the overhead vantage point is obvious - never is an enemy invisible due to a bad camera or an obtuse control scheme.

The downside of this perspective is its contribution to the overall look of the game. Releasing a two-dimensional game in 2006 is, unfortunately, a risky proposition. Many developers are unwilling to take this chance at all and have moved quickly away from the classic style. Others have recognized that fantastic art and animation are needed to make a contemporary 2D release marketable. With titles such as New Super Mario Bros. and Ultimate Ghosts & Goblins surfacing this year, there clearly is a home for new classics on portables. The problem is that there may not be a home for anything less than a classic.

50 Cent: Bulletproof, G-Unit Edition lacks the overall polish of the viable two-dimensional games of the 21st Century. Environments are repetitive and fairly barren. While the hardware makes a reasonable scapegoat for the point-of-view, it also leads to an indictment of the graphics. The PSP is comparable in power to the PlayStation 2. Games like Daxter have set a very high bar for the present and future of portable gaming. Like an unlucky adversary who wanders into 50 Cent's path in the game, G-Unit gets hit right between the eyes with that bar. There simply is no excuse for the lack of color, imagination, and variety present in the game's visuals.

"Gunz Come Out"

Players who enjoy retro games may get past G-Unit's graphics and find some enjoyment in the gameplay. There is a nice amount of variety in the manners in which an enemy can be dispatched. Several flavors of guns and melee weapons have their pluses and minuses, all activated by a lock-on and attack feature. In addition, enemies can be grappled, disarmed, and put down with their own weapons. The inevitable flip side is that there really isn't much more to the game than eliminating enemies over and over and over again. Even boss fights, which can save a game if done well, fall into the same trap. The key difference between fighting a group of regular enemies and fighting a boss is that the boss has one long energy meter instead of several short ones. The button presses and strategic approach are identical.

Throughout the game, action sequences are broken up with cinemas. Players who experienced the console release of Bulletproof will quickly realize that the PSP's storytelling is identical to the cut scenes from that game. Filling the glass halfway is the fact that the developers have succeeded in getting the PSP to match the PS2's visuals for these scenes. Emptying half the glass is the realization that this achievement comes to an abrupt end when the story sequence wraps up.

"Make Money By Any Means"

Considering the fact that G-Unit stars and is named for a rapper, one would expect that the aural qualities of the game would be well done. Thankfully, those expectations are met, thanks in large part to a large number of unlockable music tracks. Throughout the game, you can find rap and score versions of many 50 Cent and G-Unit songs. Others can be purchased from an in-game shop, using cash recovered from enemies' corpses. The non-lyrical versions of the songs can offer quite a different experience, with rhythms, such as Asian beats, often very different from what one might expect from a New York City rapper.

When looked at individually, 50 Cent: Bulletproof, G-Unit Edition's parts each seem to carry a bit of tarnish, but the complete package somehow rises slightly above that, adding a bit of shine. The graphics appear dated and the gameplay can be repetitive, but the soundtrack is great and varied and the point-of-view masks the platform's weaknesses well. G-Unit Edition won't convert people who aren’t fans of rap, but they likely haven't read this far anyway. For those gamers out there who are fans of rap or specifically of 50 Cent and/or G-Unit, there is enjoyment to be had from mindlessly shooting up the hoods of New York while the game's namesake busts out rhymes. It sure beats being shot nine times or being named Curtis.

· · · Daniel Riley