Def Jam Vendetta - Word of mouf is, you gonna getcho azz whooped

Wrestling games have never fancied my taste in the least, so I’ve tried to keep away from them as much as I could. That way the game was protected from me relentlessly beating the crap out of it. The N64 had its fair share of wrestling games like WCW/NWO Revenge, which I remember playing 4-player multiplayer at a friend’s house many a day ago, however the game itself just did not keep my interest on an up rise. When Def Jam Vendetta was first announced by EA Big, I kind of kept a cold shoulder towards it, but then I realized that it was an EA Big game. Since I really liked SSX Tricky and NBA Street, Def Jam Vendetta started to look more and more interesting. Plus, there was one more magnet the game had - Def Jam Vendetta has DMX, Ludacris, Keith Murry, Ghostface Killah, and other Def Jam artists ( I didn’t quite make the connection until I started reading more about the game).

Gameplay
DJV (Def Jam Vendetta) is a ghettoized wrestling game that includes Def Jam artists like DMX and Ludacris (or Luda). The beef of the game lies in the single-player story mode where you’ll have the choice of four no-name fighters that you can take through the ranks to be a Def Jam champion, the highest fighting honor in the game. This is where the replay value kind of levels out, there’s really no incentive to go through the game with each of the four fighters. You just pick one to fight with, and you’re basically done in single player. Aside from slightly altered moves for each, finishing the story once is about it; going through 2 or 3 more times and it’s basically the same thing with slightly different moves.

After each match (when you win of course), a score sheet will come up tallying all the points accumulated during the match which are deviated from each move performed. A given amount of money will be awarded, and then you’ll receive a letter grade from how many points were scared. With the money that you receive, you use that to “upgrade” your fighter’s stats (stamina, power, speed, defense, etc.).

The fighting engine used in Def Jam Vendetta is very similar to the one used in WWF No Mercy on the N64, if not the exact same with a few updates. I don’t know because I’ve never played No Mercy. The fighting seems a little unbalanced in that you could be beating the crap out of a guy and their health is well in the danger zone, and they take one hit at you who has full health and you’re knocked out in one blow where the guy that you were just beating the snot out of then has access to some free shots at you. Albeit the off balance unconsciousness ratio, the rest of the fighting seems just about on par.

Punches include a combination of two buttons to perform a continuous punch line, but 80% of the time the second punch will be blocked off, so punching (or kicking) is very limited in Def Jam Vendetta. The bulk of the fighting includes grapple and special moves. Above your health meter is the Blazin’ meter, which increases a certain amount with each move performed or punch connected. As soon as the meter fills up it will start flashing. Once it starts flashing, move the right analog stick in any direction to activate Blazin’ mode. Now before Blazin’ mode ends, grapple with your opponent and push the right analog stick in any way again to perform your special move. If you’ve beat your opponent’s health down to a dangerous level and you perform a special move, it’s an instant KO (knockout).

The special moves are usually really cool looking and each fighter has two different specials -one from the front and another from the back (hmm, that didn’t sound right). The special moves are pretty easy to perform, after all, all you have to do is move the analog stick. It actually took me a while to figure this out as I thought the special moves were executed by some kind of longer button combination, but instead it’s as simple as touching the analog stick so it moves.

Another single player mode called Survivor and multiple multiplayer modes round off the rest of the game modes, along with a photo gallery full of pictures of 5 different girls (like each girl has 16 or so pictures each, Angel is pretty damn nice, eh?). In survivor mode, depending on whether or not you’ve beaten the story mode, there’s a roster of about 20 or so fighters to fight with including all 5 girls, DMX, Ludacris, Method Man, Red Man, N.O.R.E., Ghost Face Killah, Keith Murry, and some of the other generic fighters - basically everyone you fought in the story mode and beat will be available to use. Then stay in the ring as long as you can while fighting one person after another. This is pretty challenging, though I beat it my first time through using DMX, then got walloped the next time I tried it with Method Man.

Multiplayer mode is very interesting and is great when you’ve got four people to play with. The Gamecube version has it made in multiplayer because of the built in third and fourth player ports. PS2 owners however must have aid of the multi-tap to play with more than 2 players. The story mode really didn’t have a strategy to it - basically just beat the crap out of the people and KO, pin, or put them into submission. Multiplayer however is a different story, now your opponent(s) is human controlled, and so just walloping them to death probably won’t work this time around.

Graphics
The developers did a good job of re-creating the Def Jam artists into their polygonal models, though the rest of the characters look clay-like almost. A lot of the fighting moves are fictitious, but there are a few that I’ve seen used before in real street fights. There are different arenas and such, but the only parts of them you ever really see are the rings themselves, so they all pretty much look the same.

During story mode, rendered cut-scenes will be triggered between fights to put a little bit of a spicy emotional flair into the game. The sequences have a bit of a grainy look to them, but were still nice to have. Kind of pointless - but still interesting to watch (most of the cut-scenes are dramatized a little much).

Sound
The music in the game is what will most likely draw people to play Def Jam Vendetta. All the def jam artists in Vendetta have at least one song that plays in the game like DMX’s Party Up, Intro, and X Gon’ Give It To Ya - except for Ludacris, who oddly does not have one song on the soundtrack. I personally would have liked some Southern Hospitality going on, but who knows why he didn’t have a song on here, it’s ludicrous I tell you. Whenever you go up to face any of the Def Jam artists, there own song will be playing in the background (or one of them). The style of music sometimes doesn't quite seem to fit the fighting, but otherwise the soundtrack is awesome (Party Up is a great song - in eight grade I had it on a burnt CD that I listened to before EVERY one of my wrestling matches).

Whether each Def Jam artist voiced their own character or not, they do sound a lot like their real counter-parts. DMX had a couple of slight blurbs that didn’t quite sound like him in real life, and Ludacris sounded like someone grabbed his nuts and squeezed. Aside from those little differences, the voiceovers had a certain ring to them that are believable.

Overall
Def Jam Vendetta is a very interesting game, but the fighting and unconscious ratios are just way too unbalanced. Both the Gamecube and PS2 versions are ultimately the same, so if the question rises on which is better, it's really a matter of opinion. Def Jam Vendetta is the type of game you’ll either like or hate, but whichever part of the game that interests you the most it’s definitely worth a rental.

happy gaming