Grab some of the biggest Rap and Hip Hop artists of the moment and make a fighting game surrounding them. It should've been the biggest bust the world had ever seen since Shaq Fu, and yet, Def Jam Vendetta proved to be a great game. So of course, it paved the way for a sequel, however, since it's been a while since I played Vendetta, I can't really compare them, not that it matters since this one can stand on its own two feet.
The story takes place right after you defeated D-Mob. Just as the police take him away, a car crashes into the police van and takes D-Mob away. You play as the new recruit who took part in D-Mob's rescue, as you try to take over the different avenues, by fighting Crow(Played by Snoop Dog)'s yesmen. The story is all kinds of ridiculous, which is what makes it so damn good. Try to take the plot seriously, and you won't get as much enjoyment out of it as you would otherwise. Picking up a lass is a matter of approaching them and fighting their dude, earning respect is done by, well, beating up other dudes. Everything is resolved by beating rappers senseless. This is my kind of game.
The game borrows many elements from wrestling games, but with better strike play. Battles take place in arenas, usually surrounded by a crowd. Arenas are more than decor, you can throw your enemy against the crowd to have them hold him for you, or throw them against various objects and punish them with them. There's three basic attacks: Punches, Kicks and grabs. Blocking beats striking, while a well timed strike will break a grab. There's five different styles(Martial Arts, Street Fighting, KickBoxing, Wrestling and Submission), but characters can know up to three styles which vary their movesets, so technically, there's more than five different styles. The objective of each match is to knock out your opponent, which is done by dropping their health to "Danger" level and hitting them with a weapon, an object, an special move or a style-depending move. All in all, fighting is very simple, but very fun. It's not the most involved of fighters, or the deepest, but it's easy and fun to play, with no glaring unbalances between styles.
There's a ton of modes, but they all involve fighting. You can do one on one, Team matches, Free for all with up to four fighters, Window Matches(In which you must throw your opponent down a window in order to win), Subway Matches(Throw them into the rails when the train comes by), Demolition(Destroy the opponent's car by using, well, the opponent itself), Inferno(A battle surrounded by a ring of flames that hurts whoever steps on it), Cage Match and Ring-out based matches. Quite a handful! There's also the Story Mode, which is a bit more involved as it follows a storyline and a custom-created character which you can customize by buying him clothes, raising his stats and learning finishing moves or other styles. Story Mode lasts about 2 hours on the easiest setting, but could potentially last 4 on the medium setting(My older savefile has 4 hours logged in, and a couple of losses which probably made for the longer time. Easy is pretty easy!)
Presentation is top-notch, high production values all around. There's over 70 unique characters(Even if a lot of them are, technically, clones with only their special move being unique), most of them based on real rappers. They all look fantastic thanks to the very stylized look the game went for. Characters look very realistic, but with a sort of cartoonish flavor, it's hard to describe. Whether you dig the style or not, the quality of the graphics is undeniable, lighting effects are sublime and textures look great. Animation is silky smooth as well, with some painful looking moves. As far as custom characters go, most of the clothes don't seem to fit them very well, making them look a bit fat, a bit of a minor complaint, but worth noting. Music.... It ain't a secret that I dislike Rap and Hip-Hop, so as far as I'm concerned, the soundtrack is terrible. Voice overs were done by the rappers themselves, and they all pulled very convincing performances.
Def Jam: Fight for NY is a great game, if you are into Rap and Hip Hop, I assume you'll get more out of it, but even for someone who dislikes the genre, the game is a blast, you don't even need to know who these characters are based on to enjoy the game.
8.0 out of 10
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