Def Jam: Fight for NY
Kicking the snot out of someone has never been so fun.
Published: October 7, 2004
There's a special kind of person out there, we'll call them "retarded" that just hates everything about wrestling for seemingly no real reason. Yes, it's fake, but just about everyone knows that, so why hate on it so much? If I knew that, I probably wouldn't be so retarded, but I just can't stand it: I hate wrestling with every fiber of my being.
This is amplified even more by the spate of titles out there that sell like hotcakes yet never really manage to pull anyone outside the "sport" in thanks to a bigger focus on the grandstanding and pre- and post-match antics than refining the gameplay to the point where someone wouldn't care what all the fluff was about and would just get into the game itself.
Bearing this in mind, it's probably no surprise that I wasn't a huge fan of Def Jam Vendetta, the fruits of Japanese developer AKI Corporation and U.S. publisher EA. With the developer's background being primarily wrestling titles, and the obvious influence it played on the gameplay, I just couldn't seem to get into the game.
Still, despite being highly praised, it lacked some key features that seemed like they belonged in a game featuring the Def Jam name; weapons, visible damage, more actual Def Jam artists -- and even a few that the game itself just screamed for; online multiplayer, create-a-player, more match types and a deeper story mode.
What's amazing is that AKI somehow managed to not only completely revamp the game -- taking it from what was essentially an N64 wrestling game gussied up with a different look and turned it into a deep, varied pit fighter with multiple fighting styles -- but they added to or changed seemingly every single area that gamers complained about in the first game.
The result? A sequel that's still more than violent (it's cringe-worthy sometimes) and rife with hip-hop flavor, but plays like a whole new game, yet offers all the attractive bits of Vendetta with enough polish and variety to get us anti-wrestling retards to forget there ever was a first game.
You begin by creating your own fighter -- already a step beyond what the first game offered in the way of character customization -- then move on to the main story where the classic east coast/west coast rivalry has moved into the world of underground fighting. Crow (played by Snoop Dogg) has been systematically taking over all of D-Mob's underground street fighting clubs. After proving yourself to Blaze (voiced by Method Man), you're inducted into D-Mob's crew where you quickly go about beating the crap out of all of Crow's fighters that have wormed their way into the 22 different venues in the game.
Early on, you'll catch the eye of a couple girls, and from there you can pick one (and then, later, pick another if you'd like), where she'll quickly fall to window dressing status save for a single fight where you get to duke it out with another girl (either as the girlfriend you've chosen or a new one) for your created brawler's affections. The choices are actually rather appealing should you fancy a hip-hop honey, with a handful of real-life hotties like Lil' Kim, Kimora Lee (Def Jam founder Russel Simmons' wife), and Carmen Electra ripe for the picking.
To complement that level of never-gonna-happen-in-real-life fantasy-play, there's the option of just whipping the holy living crap out of so many actual hip-hop all-stars it's easy to lose count. Throughout the course of the game, you'll get the opportunity to beat on Busta Rhymes, Snoop, Fat Joe, Flava Flav, Slick Rick, Sean Paul, Ghostface, Ice T, Ludacris and Xzibit -- and there are plenty more on your team that'll fight alongside you for most of the game.
The actual fighting is cunningly simplistic at first. Triangle issues punches, Square kicks, X lets you dive in for a grapple, R1 blocks and L1 allows you to add a little power to any of the attacks or grapple moves. Just mashing the buttons will usually result in a combo of some sort, but the beauty of the game lies in the balance struck by the available actions. Any normal attack can be blocked, but grabs break through blocks, and attacks can reverse a block attempt if timed right. By blocking and pressing toward an attacker as they make their move, the attack can be turned against them.
Once a grapple has broken through, there are a number of available moves. Simple attacks will take them to the ground for the possibility of an extra shot, but the real fun lies in Fight for NY's biggest addition to the gameplay: interactive environments. The people and objects lining the smallish arenas are no longer for show; bottles, pipes, bats, cheering sideliners -- if it's not bolted down, you can probably use it against an opponent, and if it is, you can slam them into it.
While everything from walls to pool tables to fences can be used if you grab while pressing in a direction to throw the fighter against the wall, opening them up for an environment attack (like tenderizing their face and gut with your foot), the crowd plays a bigger part. Throwing an opponent into the crowd either ties them up for a dual attack using a crowd member, or pushes them back at your for a wrestling-style takedown. From time to time, a sideliner will hold up a weapon like pool stick, and you can either walk up to them and take it for use at your discretion, or you can throw your enemy into that person, resulting in an instant weapon attack.
Vendetta's lack of different gameplay modes here hasn't really been improved; the bulk of the game is normal one-on-one fights against a couple of fighters per arena then a final "boss", but there is a tournament here and there where you'll fight multiple rounds of combatants, and a free-for-all where four players enter, and only one survives. There are couple two-on-two twists to this formula, but by and large, you're either fighting three people or one, but the variety in venues and number of ways you can interact with the environment, mean you'll find plenty of ways to pummel the other guy -- even after fighting in an arena a dozen times.
Actual battles are won not by draining health, but by forcing a knockout. This can be done in a number of ways, but before any will work you must pummel them until their life bar turns from green to red. The more health and toughness they have, the longer this will take because of larger life bars and faster recovery rates. Once they're in the red, you can use a built-up momentum meter to activate a Blazin' attack (momentum is built by stringing together a series of consecutive big attacks) -- dozens of which can be bought to round out your moveset -- or you can use an environmental attack or any of the fighting styles' signature moves.
The five fighting styles (kickboxing, street fighting, martial arts, wrestling and submission fighting) aren't terribly varied, but they do offer some subtle differences. All have a signature finishing move, but submission fighting in particular is interesting because it involves grappling and then stressing all the different parts of the body until the opponent gives up.
The game allows for a nicely rounded set of moves (and some variety, since you'll have to endure 90+ fights), and allows you to build two extra styles on top of your original choice, adding to it new blazin' moves and upgrades to your standard attack. The new styles, as well as blazin' moves grabbed from fallen foes and upgrades to your character's upper and lower attacks, speed, toughness and health are all upgradable in Henry Rollins' Foundation Athletics gym, and use the respect points earned after matches as currency.
That's not to say you don't actually win any cash. Everything you do in the match, from being the first to blaze to felling an opponent quickly to using a variety of moves -- all of it means rewards in the form of cold, hard cash which can be used to buy clothes, jewelry, tattoos and new haircuts. It's not all for looks, either. Upgrading your appearance with lots of ice and expensive clothes means all that bling translates directly into cha-ching at the end of matches.
All of these upgrades coupled with a lengthy storyline (and even a twist about three quarters through the game), mean you'll have your hands full to the tune of double-digit hours of gaming. It may get a bit tedious during marathon sessions, but the game definitely excels in quick matches -- and more importantly in delivering that addictive "just one more fight" gameplay.
Through the many, many hours you're likely to spend with the game -- especially if you played the first one -- you'll notice just how much of a leap the game has taken over its predecessor, particularly in the area of graphics. AKI's engine this time around no longer looks or feels anything like a wrestling game, and the arcadey controls, incredibly clean animation and fantastic lighting all constantly feed your pupils with so much to look at, it'll be hard to go back to other fighters. The level of detail in characters means you'll know exactly who you're fighting right away, and the modeling and texture work is among the best the PS2 has ever seen in any fighter.
In fact, the sheer amount of moves that you can unlock, the signature blazin' moves you gain from other fighters all manage to be incredibly original. Some will garner less of a reaction than others, but all of them -- and really the animations in the game in general -- deliver a fantastic feeling that all those punches, kicks and slams have a ton of power behind them. Most blazin' moves defy gravity or physics for a second or two, and all would certainly kill someone in real life, but they deliver perfectly on the feeling that you really did just deliver a blow that would lay someone out for good.
The level of detail in environments is also replete with variety and detail. The crowds of people shouting and cheering are relatively low-poly, but most of the time you'll only really notice it during the pre-fight setup that showcases the venue for a few quick camera pans. From rain-drizzled power stations with crackling lighting in the background to dank pits with cardboard on the floor to an old-school four-walled cement arena dotted with huge chunks of steel pylons, there was an obvious attempt to make sure all the different places had a variety of things to interact with -- even if most are around the same size and dimensions.
If the graphics allow you to feel the punches and kicks landing with concussive force, the audio just helps cement the whole sensory experience. This is a brutally violent game, and the sound effects are thick, heavy skin-on-skin smacks, not quite Fight Club-level smacks, but you can tell fists are meeting faces in a typically arcadey way. It's just far enough removed from reality to keep it from being too over-the-top, but you still get a great feeling that your kicking the crap out of someone, and they you.
Even the music, which I normally can't stand, just works perfectly here, and not just because of the source material. The songs picked are almost never annoying (though they do a great job of resting in the background), and there's even a basic level of interaction with the world you're in. Duck into the gym or shop, and the music muffles to just the baseline and drum tracks. It's a really subtle, but totally effective way to push the soundtrack to the background when you need to be concentrating on upgrades.
Considering the game's massive cast of hip-hop characters, you'd hope they'd have a proper aural treatment, and whether it's the extended cast's voicemails, dialogue spoken during cutscenes, or just the pre-fight threats, you'll be hard-pressed to find a line that wasn't delivered well. In particular, Snoop and Busta Rhymes' characters (Crow and Magic, respectively) really stepped up, and it goes without saying that your impromptu mentor, Blaze (again, that's Method Man providing the pipes) has some great bits, through with the sheer amount of talking he does, there were bound to be a couple lines that lacked punch. The only area where things fell a little flat was in the announcer in some of the bigger indoor arenas, where repeated lines got tired real damn quick.
Fight for NY is one hell of a brawler. A fantastically weighted fighting system that perfectly demonstrates how thick, raw sound effects and smooth animation can suck you into the visceral, almost feral world of these underground fights gives your fingers, eyes and ears all something to digest while plowing through a story that actually keeps you in the game. This is without a doubt a must-have fighter for anyone old enough to pick up an M-rated game, because it is an unequivocally adult game, but if you can toss back a couple beers legally and repress the urge to cave someone's face in, this is the perfect way to get out that aggression, and have a hell of a time doing it.
This is amplified even more by the spate of titles out there that sell like hotcakes yet never really manage to pull anyone outside the "sport" in thanks to a bigger focus on the grandstanding and pre- and post-match antics than refining the gameplay to the point where someone wouldn't care what all the fluff was about and would just get into the game itself.
Bearing this in mind, it's probably no surprise that I wasn't a huge fan of Def Jam Vendetta, the fruits of Japanese developer AKI Corporation and U.S. publisher EA. With the developer's background being primarily wrestling titles, and the obvious influence it played on the gameplay, I just couldn't seem to get into the game.
Still, despite being highly praised, it lacked some key features that seemed like they belonged in a game featuring the Def Jam name; weapons, visible damage, more actual Def Jam artists -- and even a few that the game itself just screamed for; online multiplayer, create-a-player, more match types and a deeper story mode.
What's amazing is that AKI somehow managed to not only completely revamp the game -- taking it from what was essentially an N64 wrestling game gussied up with a different look and turned it into a deep, varied pit fighter with multiple fighting styles -- but they added to or changed seemingly every single area that gamers complained about in the first game.
The result? A sequel that's still more than violent (it's cringe-worthy sometimes) and rife with hip-hop flavor, but plays like a whole new game, yet offers all the attractive bits of Vendetta with enough polish and variety to get us anti-wrestling retards to forget there ever was a first game.
You begin by creating your own fighter -- already a step beyond what the first game offered in the way of character customization -- then move on to the main story where the classic east coast/west coast rivalry has moved into the world of underground fighting. Crow (played by Snoop Dogg) has been systematically taking over all of D-Mob's underground street fighting clubs. After proving yourself to Blaze (voiced by Method Man), you're inducted into D-Mob's crew where you quickly go about beating the crap out of all of Crow's fighters that have wormed their way into the 22 different venues in the game.
Early on, you'll catch the eye of a couple girls, and from there you can pick one (and then, later, pick another if you'd like), where she'll quickly fall to window dressing status save for a single fight where you get to duke it out with another girl (either as the girlfriend you've chosen or a new one) for your created brawler's affections. The choices are actually rather appealing should you fancy a hip-hop honey, with a handful of real-life hotties like Lil' Kim, Kimora Lee (Def Jam founder Russel Simmons' wife), and Carmen Electra ripe for the picking.
To complement that level of never-gonna-happen-in-real-life fantasy-play, there's the option of just whipping the holy living crap out of so many actual hip-hop all-stars it's easy to lose count. Throughout the course of the game, you'll get the opportunity to beat on Busta Rhymes, Snoop, Fat Joe, Flava Flav, Slick Rick, Sean Paul, Ghostface, Ice T, Ludacris and Xzibit -- and there are plenty more on your team that'll fight alongside you for most of the game.
The actual fighting is cunningly simplistic at first. Triangle issues punches, Square kicks, X lets you dive in for a grapple, R1 blocks and L1 allows you to add a little power to any of the attacks or grapple moves. Just mashing the buttons will usually result in a combo of some sort, but the beauty of the game lies in the balance struck by the available actions. Any normal attack can be blocked, but grabs break through blocks, and attacks can reverse a block attempt if timed right. By blocking and pressing toward an attacker as they make their move, the attack can be turned against them.
Once a grapple has broken through, there are a number of available moves. Simple attacks will take them to the ground for the possibility of an extra shot, but the real fun lies in Fight for NY's biggest addition to the gameplay: interactive environments. The people and objects lining the smallish arenas are no longer for show; bottles, pipes, bats, cheering sideliners -- if it's not bolted down, you can probably use it against an opponent, and if it is, you can slam them into it.
While everything from walls to pool tables to fences can be used if you grab while pressing in a direction to throw the fighter against the wall, opening them up for an environment attack (like tenderizing their face and gut with your foot), the crowd plays a bigger part. Throwing an opponent into the crowd either ties them up for a dual attack using a crowd member, or pushes them back at your for a wrestling-style takedown. From time to time, a sideliner will hold up a weapon like pool stick, and you can either walk up to them and take it for use at your discretion, or you can throw your enemy into that person, resulting in an instant weapon attack.
Vendetta's lack of different gameplay modes here hasn't really been improved; the bulk of the game is normal one-on-one fights against a couple of fighters per arena then a final "boss", but there is a tournament here and there where you'll fight multiple rounds of combatants, and a free-for-all where four players enter, and only one survives. There are couple two-on-two twists to this formula, but by and large, you're either fighting three people or one, but the variety in venues and number of ways you can interact with the environment, mean you'll find plenty of ways to pummel the other guy -- even after fighting in an arena a dozen times.
Actual battles are won not by draining health, but by forcing a knockout. This can be done in a number of ways, but before any will work you must pummel them until their life bar turns from green to red. The more health and toughness they have, the longer this will take because of larger life bars and faster recovery rates. Once they're in the red, you can use a built-up momentum meter to activate a Blazin' attack (momentum is built by stringing together a series of consecutive big attacks) -- dozens of which can be bought to round out your moveset -- or you can use an environmental attack or any of the fighting styles' signature moves.
The five fighting styles (kickboxing, street fighting, martial arts, wrestling and submission fighting) aren't terribly varied, but they do offer some subtle differences. All have a signature finishing move, but submission fighting in particular is interesting because it involves grappling and then stressing all the different parts of the body until the opponent gives up.
The game allows for a nicely rounded set of moves (and some variety, since you'll have to endure 90+ fights), and allows you to build two extra styles on top of your original choice, adding to it new blazin' moves and upgrades to your standard attack. The new styles, as well as blazin' moves grabbed from fallen foes and upgrades to your character's upper and lower attacks, speed, toughness and health are all upgradable in Henry Rollins' Foundation Athletics gym, and use the respect points earned after matches as currency.
That's not to say you don't actually win any cash. Everything you do in the match, from being the first to blaze to felling an opponent quickly to using a variety of moves -- all of it means rewards in the form of cold, hard cash which can be used to buy clothes, jewelry, tattoos and new haircuts. It's not all for looks, either. Upgrading your appearance with lots of ice and expensive clothes means all that bling translates directly into cha-ching at the end of matches.
All of these upgrades coupled with a lengthy storyline (and even a twist about three quarters through the game), mean you'll have your hands full to the tune of double-digit hours of gaming. It may get a bit tedious during marathon sessions, but the game definitely excels in quick matches -- and more importantly in delivering that addictive "just one more fight" gameplay.
Through the many, many hours you're likely to spend with the game -- especially if you played the first one -- you'll notice just how much of a leap the game has taken over its predecessor, particularly in the area of graphics. AKI's engine this time around no longer looks or feels anything like a wrestling game, and the arcadey controls, incredibly clean animation and fantastic lighting all constantly feed your pupils with so much to look at, it'll be hard to go back to other fighters. The level of detail in characters means you'll know exactly who you're fighting right away, and the modeling and texture work is among the best the PS2 has ever seen in any fighter.
In fact, the sheer amount of moves that you can unlock, the signature blazin' moves you gain from other fighters all manage to be incredibly original. Some will garner less of a reaction than others, but all of them -- and really the animations in the game in general -- deliver a fantastic feeling that all those punches, kicks and slams have a ton of power behind them. Most blazin' moves defy gravity or physics for a second or two, and all would certainly kill someone in real life, but they deliver perfectly on the feeling that you really did just deliver a blow that would lay someone out for good.
The level of detail in environments is also replete with variety and detail. The crowds of people shouting and cheering are relatively low-poly, but most of the time you'll only really notice it during the pre-fight setup that showcases the venue for a few quick camera pans. From rain-drizzled power stations with crackling lighting in the background to dank pits with cardboard on the floor to an old-school four-walled cement arena dotted with huge chunks of steel pylons, there was an obvious attempt to make sure all the different places had a variety of things to interact with -- even if most are around the same size and dimensions.
If the graphics allow you to feel the punches and kicks landing with concussive force, the audio just helps cement the whole sensory experience. This is a brutally violent game, and the sound effects are thick, heavy skin-on-skin smacks, not quite Fight Club-level smacks, but you can tell fists are meeting faces in a typically arcadey way. It's just far enough removed from reality to keep it from being too over-the-top, but you still get a great feeling that your kicking the crap out of someone, and they you.
Even the music, which I normally can't stand, just works perfectly here, and not just because of the source material. The songs picked are almost never annoying (though they do a great job of resting in the background), and there's even a basic level of interaction with the world you're in. Duck into the gym or shop, and the music muffles to just the baseline and drum tracks. It's a really subtle, but totally effective way to push the soundtrack to the background when you need to be concentrating on upgrades.
Considering the game's massive cast of hip-hop characters, you'd hope they'd have a proper aural treatment, and whether it's the extended cast's voicemails, dialogue spoken during cutscenes, or just the pre-fight threats, you'll be hard-pressed to find a line that wasn't delivered well. In particular, Snoop and Busta Rhymes' characters (Crow and Magic, respectively) really stepped up, and it goes without saying that your impromptu mentor, Blaze (again, that's Method Man providing the pipes) has some great bits, through with the sheer amount of talking he does, there were bound to be a couple lines that lacked punch. The only area where things fell a little flat was in the announcer in some of the bigger indoor arenas, where repeated lines got tired real damn quick.
Fight for NY is one hell of a brawler. A fantastically weighted fighting system that perfectly demonstrates how thick, raw sound effects and smooth animation can suck you into the visceral, almost feral world of these underground fights gives your fingers, eyes and ears all something to digest while plowing through a story that actually keeps you in the game. This is without a doubt a must-have fighter for anyone old enough to pick up an M-rated game, because it is an unequivocally adult game, but if you can toss back a couple beers legally and repress the urge to cave someone's face in, this is the perfect way to get out that aggression, and have a hell of a time doing it.
