The rapper 50 Cent (real name Curtis Jackson) was inescapable back in 2005. There wasn’t a British classroom without a teenager wearing Jackson’s G-Unit clothing, while his catchy hits Candy Shop and In Da Club dominated the radio. The backstory of this Queens-born New Yorker – how he survived being shot nine times only to become one of the world’s biggest rappers – also made for compelling lore.
That year, 50 Cent sold more than a million copies in one week with his sophomore studio album, The Massacre. In a bid to cash in on this superstardom, his label Interscope Records planned a twin strategy: a Hollywood biopic (Get Rich or Die Tryin’) and a licensed video game, 50 Cent: Bulletproof – both to be released by November 2005. “I think the general public are going to be blown away by my game,” 50 Cent told the website IGN. “It feels more like an action film.”
British developer Genuine Games, previously responsible for a poorly received Fight Club tie-in, was tasked with creating Fiddy’s 128-bit era adventure. The problem was it only had 11 months to do it. “I remember we’d get to the office at 7am and wouldn’t leave until about 11pm,” recalls the game’s artist Han Randhawa. “We all lived on a diet of KFC. 50 Cent became my whole life. I even read up the doctor’s report from when he got shot, just so I could put bandages on his 3D character in the right places.”
The game’s designer, Haydn Dalton, says: “It’s funny, because this was a game about these dudes from the hood, and yet here was this white guy from the north-west of England writing all their in-game dialogue. It was kind of awkward, but I didn’t have much time, so it was about making stuff up on the fly.”
Shoot first, questions later … Photograph: THQ
Time has been surprisingly kind to 50 Cent: Bulletproof, which is 20 this November. In this shooter, 50 Cent gets caught up in a shadowy underground network full of dodgy terrorists, racist biker gangs and mouthy mafia members. Looking to track down whoever riddled him with those nine bullet wounds, 50 and his G-Unit gang (including Tony Yayo, Young Buck and Lloyd Banks) race through inner city environments, shooting first and asking questions later.
It’s as if G-Unit has been modelled on the A-Team, with each member bringing something unique (Yayo is an explosives expert; Banks picks locks), while the game also has surprisingly intuitive cover mechanics, whereby your squad ducks behind walls during shootouts. With its screenplay written by the Sopranos’ writer Terence Winter, the cinematic cut-scenes involving 50 Cent conversing with corrupt Det McVicar are a particular thrill.
He is a dirty cop voiced by a madcap Eminem, who constantly demands more extortion money so he can send his kid to expensive karate classes. The White rapper’s McVicar is joined by Dr Dre, who voices a stoned arms dealer who says things like “That’s some serious shit right there”, whenever 50 Cent purchases a rocket launcher. The game is stacked full of licensed 50 Cent songs, too, meaning you can kick a heavy in the face while Wanksta plays in the background.
“We were really blessed, because 50 Cent felt more like a superhero than just a rapper,” explains the game’s director David Broadhurst. “The idea was to make him a Black James Bond.” Yet Broadhurst admits the British development team missed out on a lot of this production’s glitz and glamour. “Vivendi [the game’s publisher] kept us away from 50 Cent and G-Unit; we’d get sent all their audio. I remember 50 Cent had invested in Vitamin Water, so we had to put the drink into the game as a purchasable item.”
Concept art for 50 Cent: Bulletproof. Photograph: Vivendi Universal Games
Specific requests are something Randhawa also remembers. He says that G-Unit member Tony Yayo wanted constant revisions made to his character’s face. “I knew I’d done a good job on Yayo,” laughs Randhawa. “When we wrapped one of the executive producers came over to me and was like: ‘The other members of G-Unit say you absolutely nailed Yayo’s ugliness!’”
According to Dalton, the original idea was for 50 Cent: Bulletproof to be more of an open world game akin to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. An early build allowed 50 to jump on the subway to navigate the Big Apple, but strict deadlines meant the development team settled for a more straightforward experience. Dalton reveals: “One idea was that 50 managed all these hookers in the street and they’d go out and collect drug money for him. 50 could control these women through a mobile phone and a special Pimp Management System (PMS). I know people might cringe at this feature today, but Bulletproof was a product of its time.”
Whereas other rap video games, such as those in the Def Jam fighting series, had violently pinned emcees against one another, Bulletproof refreshingly depicted rappers as the heroes. “It was a nice to have a piece of art where the rapper was the outright hero rather than the antihero,” explains former G-Unit Records’ executive producer Sha Money XL.
‘If you shot at G-Unit in 2005 then we were gonna shoot back’ … Photograph: Vivendi Universal Games
Money XL helmed the 50 Cent: Bulletproof soundtrack and he admits the game’s title could easily have been seen by the rapper’s many enemies as a call to violence. “Maybe some people wanted to test if 50 really was bulletproof, but if anyone was going to shoot at G-Unit in 2005 then we were gonna shoot back. Back then, 50 was the kind of person you either loved or you hated.”
This divisiveness might explain why 50 Cent: Bulletproof was savaged by critics. The game only has a 52% score on Metacritic, with reviewers criticising the game’s clunky aiming. The game’s director believes there was a clear agenda against the production from the off.
“It was obvious a lot of the reviewers hadn’t even played Bulletproof,” Broadhurst says. “Maybe they didn’t like licensed games or a Black lead character who sold drugs. I don’t know, but a lot of people were picking it up expecting something bad and coming away feeling surprised when it turned out to be pretty good.”
There were scrapped plans for a direct Bulletproof sequel, where the focus was on urban warfare and G-Unit surviving amid an America caught up in a civil war. However, 50 Cent: Bulletproof did inspire an underrated 2009 sequel via the Swordfish Studios-developed 50 Cent: Blood in the Sand, where Fiddy bizarrely fights the war on terror throughout the Middle East, pissed off after having a crystal skull stolen by terrorists.
These two 50 Cent titles weren’t a trigger for more hip-hop video games. Dalton has a theory as to why: “50 Cent was the last truly global mainstream rap superstar. There’s been a vacuum since. Even though our game made a lot of money, a new rapper game just isn’t obvious.”
Owing to the complex licensing agreements in place, it’s unlikely there will be a remaster of 50 Cent: Bulletproof any time soon. But for those who want a time machine back to 2005, tracking down a copy of the original on eBay is essential.
As Dalton puts it: “Yes our game was rushed, but I don’t have any regrets. When you go on Reddit you see a lot of people nostalgic for what we created. I’m not so sure a Drake game would hit the same way as he’s too soft by comparison. There aren’t many rappers right for a video game, but 50 Cent was 100% one of them.”
