50 Cent: Bulletproof is coming to the PSP this September, and we got the first crack at a nearly finished version of the rapper-themed shooter. If you weren't a fan of Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson's video-game debut last year, though, don't turn up your nose just yet - the handheld 50 Cent: Bulletproof G-Unit Edition is a completely different game.
Instead of another third-person shooter, G-Unit Edition is more of an urban Untold Legends. All the action happens from a fixed, overhead perspective, with a little Fiddy running around mazelike levels and taking down thugs with his fists and a small armory's worth of weapons.
Locking onto the bad guys and letting fly with bullets, shells or grenades was easy, and 50 can also deliver some savage-looking close-range combos. For extra style points (and extra spattered blood on the PSP screen), you can try running up to an enemy and disarming him, or grabbing him for use as a human shield (which in turn lets you interrogate or execute him). And when he's down, you can kick him a few times to make him spit up money and jewelry like a foul-mouthed piñata.
The action was a little repetitive, but still surprisingly entertaining. The "puzzles," on the other hand - which frequently forced us to dash aimlessly from one end of the map to the other in search of whatever random, ridiculous thing we were supposed to interact with next - could certainly use some work.
