Review: Def Jam Icon (Xbox 360, PS3)

I wanted to give you some first impressions a while ago when the demo hit Xbox Live, but it was too short to fully try out the game’s features. Also, I wasn’t too sure about the new direction EA decided to take with the series, so I decided to wait until I could find it used. For those of you who don’t already know, for reasons known only to themselves, EA decided to hand the Def Jam brand off to EA Chicago, the creators of the Fight Night series. Many players agree that it was just fine with developer AKI, but Kudo Tsunoda had his own ideas for the series, mainly integrating the music into the game engine, and making use of the analog sticks in a manner similar to Fight Night. It’s clearly not gonna be for everyone, and there are a few areas that could use some work, but for the most part, it’s a bold new direction for the series.

Instead of focusing on D-Mob and his underground fight ring that just so happened to feature big name rappers among the combatants, the game now focuses on you and your quest to take one of the biggest rap labels to super stardom. You create a character using an editor as detailed as the one in Fight Night. You can once again buy clothing from big name clothing designers, but customization isn’t as important to the battle as it was in Fight For New York. After showing your skills in a club, a major music mogul recruits you to assist with his label. You’ll be responsible for deciding which rappers to sign, setting release budgets and royalty payments, and attending to the needs and wants of your artists. Pay TI’s bail money, or finance E-40’s new movie? Buy a new car for Ghostface, or pay for first class fights for Big Boi’s family? Decisions, decisions. This aspect of the game is interesting, although with no way to check on your label’s progression beside the billboard charts, it seems to be merely window dressing to help advance the plot. It would be nice to see some way to see which areas I need to work on when setting budgets. Along with managing the label, you’ll take to the streets to deal with paparazzi, rival rappers, crooked cops, and jealous club goers.

The fighting takes an all new approach, and it integrates hip hop music into the actual gameplay, albeit with mixed results. The actual fighting is a tad sluggish, and fighting game fans may find fault in the lack of special moves and variety. The fighting is pretty bare bones compared to FFNY, with no weapons or specialty matches, and only 8 venues to fight on. You can choose one of six fighting styles, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. There seems to be a lot of functions placed on the analog stick, and it’s hard to memorize the defensive maneuvers without practice. However, the real allure of the game engine is in the role that the background music plays in the fighting. The backgrounds pulse and vibrate along with the music. Environmental hazards are aplenty, as speakers blow up, gas stations explode, and other fun things happen to the drum loops and bass lines. At any time during the match, you can take control of the turntables. Rewind the beat to add on some serious damage to the end of a particularly vicious combo, or change tracks to give yourself an advantage. Xbox 360 owners can even load up their own tunes off the hard drive, and watch as the levels react to them. Just like in Fight Night, the HUD is totally optional, and it’s not uncommon to play with it turned off. Your status is recorded by visual clues, such as the amount of damage on your fighter, and the color of the screen. Since the camera is pulled back further than in Fight Night, it may be a bit harder to notice the changes.

As I mentioned earlier, both the fighting and label management are simply tools to move the plot along. The plot can be seen as a commentary on the current state of hip hop as it is now. It’s strictly about the business and not the music. Even the roster reflects this, as it deals strictly with today’s hottest artists like TI, Young Jeezy, and Jim Jones. Old schoolers such as Flavor Flav and Slick Rick are sadly nowhere to be found. You’ll be dealing with label politics, rapper beefs, corrupt policemen, and even a few politicians. It’s cool to see updates on BET nightly news, and even if the fighting isn’t implemented as well as it could be, the story makes it worth wading through just to see what happens next.

Overall, this is a bold new direction taken by EA. It serves as an experiment more than anything else, but with a little fine tuning, a faster fighting system, a more diversified roster, and more features, this could serve as a fighting game franchise for the next generation.