Review
Release Date: 09.21.2004
Platform:
GameCubeDeveloper:
AKI CorporationPublisher:
EA GAMESReviewed by
Samuel Altersitz on 11.30.2004
| Review Rating: 9/10 | User Rating: 7/10 |
Following on the heels of
Def Jam: Vendetta (
GAF review), EA Games has decided to bring us the next installment of the
Def Jam series, in a bigger, bloodier, grittier way with
Def Jam: Fight for NY. Like
Vendetta,
Fight for NY is developed by famed wrestling game makers
AKI Corporation, and like
Vendetta before it,
Fight for NY lives up to AKI's past, and paves the way for AKI's wrestling and fighting game future.
Fight for NY begins right where
Vendetta left off, with D. Mobb being taken away by the police. Cut to inside the police car, and then-- WHAM!-- it gets sideswiped by a black SUV, and D. Mobb is released by an unknown accomplice; who just happens to be you. From here, we see the inside of a police station and one of the cops giving a description of the assailant. At this time you can choose a few pre-made guys, or try and make your own guy using the limited create-a-fighter tools. Oddly enough, though, no matter what you do, your guy ends up looking pretty much the same, with very few variations, as another guy you or your friends might make. Like I said, limited.
This time around, though, there is more of a story to
Fight for NY than the very basic revenge-themed 'boy loses girl, boy goes to get girl back' story of
Vendetta. As one of D. Mobb's boys, you are in an all new territory battle with Crow, played by Snoop Dogg. D. Mobb is much less the completely evil guy he is portrayed as in
Vendetta, and more of a thug/crime boss with a sense of honor person. Crow is his polar opposite in the honor department, though. He and his boys don't believe in honor, just winning and owning everything, no matter the cost.
Of course, somehow the way areas and clubs get owned is by defeating the fighters within them... but hey, this is a fighting game, not a crime game.
Returning to the fold as fighters in
Fight for NY are rap icons and legends such as Method Man, Redman, and N.O.R.E.; and they're joined by a host of new people as well, including Busta Rhymes, rap icon Ice-T, Fat Joe, and Bubba Sparxxx, as well as the aforementioned Snoop Dogg and others. Oddly enough, even though he is not a rapper, actor Omar Epps makes an appearance in the game as well.
EA certainly didn't skimp when it came to shelling out the money for voice actors this time around; and the stable of rappers that appear in the game proves this. And just like the previous
Def Jam game, the voice acting supplied by the rappers is astoundingly good.
Missing this time around, though, is DMX, which is kind of a shame, because I found his character fun in
Vendetta, and Funk Master Flex is no longer the announcer for the entire game.
Of course, with 75 fighters to use, after unlocking them all, you might not miss DMX.
Fight for NY isn't just a rehash of
Vendetta, though. In fact, it bears little resemblance to
Vendetta at all, when it comes down to the way you fight in the game. Where
Vendetta was a wrestling game at heart,
Fight for NY is a fighting game with a little wrestling thrown in. Gone, for the most part, are the wrestling rings (only a few ever show up in the game), and instead we are presented with rough and tumble, gritty, more underground locations-- such as bars, junkyards, power plants, and construction sites.
This means you lose a lot of the limitations offered by wrestling/boxing rings, like the ropes; but you also lose some benefits, such as the turnbuckles for doing high flying moves. But, this doesn't mean there aren't new things to do within the rings. Quite the contrary. Almost every new type of ring has some form of interactive option within it-- whether it be crowds acting like ropes and interacting with the fighters, the crowd giving the fighters weapons, speakers to smash opponents heads into, or cars to be smashed up using an opponent-- or more appropriately, his face; as well as more things I haven't even mentioned-- the new fighting areas offer a ton of options for winning, or losing fights.
Perhaps one of the most satisfying new areas is the subway station. This is because you can throw your opponent in front of a moving train to KO them. Yes, I know they should die in real life, but this is a no-one-dies-game. They just get knocked out, and a few blocks uptown.
Also changed from
Vendetta is the whole fighting motif. As I said, this is more of a fighting game with some wrestling thrown in, not the other way around like
Vendetta was. This is accentuated by the different fighting styles you can learn throughout the game. There are 5 fighting styles all together, but only 3 may be used by your wrestler at any one time. But, this isn't like how, say,
Mortal Kombat: Deception handles fighting styles, wherein players choose between the two martial arts and one weapon styles on the fly; instead
Fight for NY mixes in all the fighting styles known by a combatant during the match.
For example: if your character is a street fighter, he can KO others with a strong punch if they are in dangerous areas on their life meters, but he will have very few grapple moves. If you then add wrestling as a fighting style, you can knock people out with strong grapple moves, and you gain a larger variety of weaker grapples as well; but, you can still knock them out with a strong punch because of your ability at street fighting. When you add a third style, all the KO ability benefits from the last two stay with you, including the wrestling grapples learned when you became a wrestler. Although some other moves will be replaced with your new fighting styles moves.
Overall, this works really well, and actually allows you to play the games several times with different combinations of moves to see which ones you like best.
Like
Vendetta,
Fight for NY allows you to build up your stats as you progress through the game. Unlike
Vendetta, though,
Fight for NY doesn't use your money to buy stats, instead you gain separate development points to use for developing your stats, and your money is used to show off your bling. Buy clothes, jewlery, and get tattoos and your hair cut to build up your charisma, allowing you to get more spirit during fights. The more money you spend, the better your charisma. Let the bling sing.
Best thing about going to the gym to up your stats? Seeing the self proclaimed "Aging Alternative Icon" himself, Henry Rollins, greet you and talk to you as you increase your stats, or seeing him demonstrate any new Blazin' moves you may have unlocked. Hank is the man, and he shows it to House every time he does a finisher move to him to show you how it will look. Hank is also not a rapper, nor is he affiliated with Def Jam Records in any way that I know, but he's in the game, he's all tattooed, and he's... well... taller than he is in real life, and with a lot less gray hair than in real life (don't worry, Hank, I think your decision to not dye your hair rocks, and I still love seeing you do spoken word at the TLA in Philly). I don't know why EA decided to get Hank on board, but you won't hear one single complaint from me about it... well, except for the fact that there is no Black Flag or Rollins Band or Henry Rollins band songs on the soundtrack. Black Flag's song "TV Party", or "Rise Above" (the Chuck D. and Henry Rollins version from the
Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs for the Memphis Three album would work well on the soundtrack) would have kicked so much ass added into the
Fight for NY soundtrack.
Speaking of Blazin' moves, they're back, and more over the top than ever before. And this time you aren't just limited to one front and one back Blazin' move. Now you are limited to front only Blazin' moves, but you can have four different ones on your story mode fighter at any given time. The way to do them is the same, build up your momentum meter until you hear it ring, then flick the C-stick to activate your Blazin' state; then just grapple and flick the C-stick in the direction of the Blazin' move you want (up, down, left and right can each have a different Blazin' move attached to them). This is only for your created fighters, though; the fighters that are unlocked throughout the game each only have one Blazin' move. Each time you unlock a fighter, their Blazin' move becomes available for purchase at the Gym for your story mode fighter to then buy and use as his own. Mixing and matching Blazin' moves = yay!
The graphics have also seen a slight overhaul, mainly with better lighting and texturing in them. The fighters take damage, and bleed, and keep that blood on them for the end pose of the match; and blood begins to mar the battlefields as you do battle. Also nice is the animations and destructible environments for certain things like speakers, and cars. But, the frame rate does stutter every now and then (and this is on all the consoles, not just the GC version). Still, all the pain and punishment can be felt through and through by the graphical presentation.
The sounds of punches, kicks, and shattering glass are great to hear, and the voice acting is done very well. The music... well, I'm not a huge fan of rap music, so I could really care less about most of the songs, but they sound good in the game, and don't distract you from the action. And, come on, hearing Flava Flav scream "YEAH BOYYYYYYYY!!!!" for his Blazin' move taunt is something everyone should love, once they unlock him.
The biggest difference I had to get used to was the changes in controls that
Fight for NY uses over past AKI games. No longer is there a tap or hold system for weak or strong moves; instead the L button is used as a strong modifier for moves. Honestly, I'm an old school AKI wrestling game player, and I thought the tap or hold for the moves was the most intuitive way to do it. Also, reversing moves is done differently now as well, you have to punch or kick when the other guy tries to grab you to reverse his grab, or his grapple will go off without a hitch, and you have to push towards or away and the R button to block a strike. In addition, there is now a separate button for punching and one for kicking.
It takes a little while to get used to, but the control scheme does work, just not as well as the older styles of AKI games, which also includes
Vendetta. I could even easily deal with a separate punch and kick buttons if they went back to the tap or hold method, and it could work real well, too. The old style of controls wasn't broke, so why AKI tried to fix it is beyond me. But, at least they didn't completely destroy it.
Overall,
Fight for NY is a great fighting game. It's got style, it's got pizzaz, and it has Henry Rollins. It's extremely fun in both single and multiplayer modes (up to 4 players simultaneously), and is well worth a purchase by anyone who likes fighting games.
