Being the son of folk singers, I know a thing or two about the gangster life style. Anyone who knows me knows I like it one way, and that’s straight street. Finally a game came along that will let me scratch that itch. “Def Jam: Fight for NY” is a new fighting game from EA sports.
The game is a squeal to last year’s “Def Jam: Vendetta,” a wrestling game that features Def Jam rappers instead of professional wrestlers. “Def Jam: Fight for NY” gets out of the sweaty men in spandex rut by evolving from a wrestling game to a full on fighting game. The developers managed to perform this evolution while still keeping true to the franchises feel and control, but of which made the first game decent.
There are about 70 different fighters, half of which are based on real world people such as Ghostface Killa, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Ice-T and Lil’Kim. Using Hip-Hop personality in a fighting game is a cute gimmick, if not done well it’s a gimmick that would become old after the first couple of fights. Luckily this game doesn’t rely on its gimmicks, it has solid game play behind it.
The fighting from the game isn’t as intuitive as most fighters out now, most of the moves involve timing and depend as much on your location in the fighting ring as what button you push. It takes a bit to figure out, but if you play it alone on story mode you’ll figure enough of the basics out to enjoy the game.
Story mode alone makes the game fun; of course you need to not think too hard about the plot. The plot is simplistic to the point of being incomplete; you play a fighter who randomly rescues D-mob from the police. D-mob then makes you part of his gang, a gang whose soul occupation is prize fighting in New York’s underbelly. That’s really all the plot there is, except for the fact the Snoop Dogg is the villain. The fun of story mode isn’t the story; it’s the “make-a-fighter” system you get to play with. You get to pick the look and sound of your character, and throughout the story mode you get to dress up your character, get a girlfriend, wear jewelry, change your hair style and even get tattoos.
The game isn’t perfect, it has 70 fighters, but you really don’t feel a need to play them all. Some characters are awesome to play against, like Ice-T, others (cough) Carmen Elektra (cough) make you scratch your head. The biggest problem is the controls. While they are not horrible, they really don’t feel as tight as a fighting game should be. A lot of times you’ll try to lunge at your opponent only to move in the wrong direction. Loading times are also problematic.
Even with these issues the game has a lot to offer. The game’s old school rap soundtrack is awesome.
This is not a game for the timid. It’s violent, crude and sexist. If any of that bothers you, avoid this game, but if you want a game where you can smash your opponent’s head through a speaker and then hear the F-bomb dropped, you are going to be in hog heaven.