Accessories

Under-rated
This is my first def jam game and I'm not really into the hip hop scene, so I had low low expectations about it, especially with all the bad reviews here (although the critic reviews for this game were not that bad). It boils down to this, if you're into frenetic fighting games with 20+ selectable players each with a dozen special moves you have to memorize and practice in order to master the game, then move along. I'm too old for those games and now I want one that is simple to pick up and play. Here you have 4 basic attacks and 6 special attacks with the analog stick a la Fight Night 3. There is a mini-game while you fight as you must control the music to cause havoc in the environments to hurt your enemy. That's basically the gist of the game. It's a little like GTA in that you can access your computer to check email and buy and change clothing/accessories, but there is no traveling, just fighting. My fiance who likes this kind of music actually likes listening to the tracks as I play and there are a lot of recognizable tracks in here.

really hard, but pretty amusing
Def Jam: Icon is the newest game in the Def Jam series of games. In this one, you make your character and are taken from being a typical street hood to a producer for a big shot music mogul named Curtis Carter. As the story goes on, and you sign more artists and become richer, a whole conspiracy unfolds involving a rival music mogul named Troy Dollar and off-duty cops.

The game starts off with you creating a character - you can customize pretty much everything from his eye seperation to body build to head size to hair color - and then from there you are thrown into the game. You can purchase jeans, shirts, hoodies, jackets, shoes, hats, tattoos, jewelery, shorts... pretty much anything that you could in real life but just couldn't afford haha. Anyway, after that you have to fight; the controls are simple really - right analog stick does strong attacks, and the buttons do either quick or semi-strong attacks. As your empire grows you can begin to do favors for the artists under your label like bail them out of jail (I had to do this for E-40 atleast 17 times) or send their familys to Europe under your expense. Additionally, on the same lines of your artists, you have to budget how much money to spend on the marketing and air-play of their newest singles to depend on how much revenue they will bring to you in the end. Finally, you can also get girlfriends who will also ask you for money.... hmm...

Now this particular Def Jam game relies on the environment for the bulk of your fights. By this I mean there are random hazards strewn about the level like stereo speakers or helicopters or cars and the point of them is to throw your opponent into them and activate the "DJ Turntables" to have these hazards to explode and cause additionally damage. The DJ Turntables basically have your character stand still and rotate (quite literally) air-vinyl tracks and cause things to explode. You can also use these to change the song during the fight.

The best part about this game, besides the customization, is the online play. I can truely say that DJ:I has some of the most balanced online fighting I have experienced and it isn't filled with a bunch of foul-mouthed punks talking yang non-stop. I had a lot of fun online, and there are achievements to be found through X-Box Live.

The graphics were pretty solid, and quite impressive. The way the levels were designed and how they interacted with the fighters was pretty cool. The rappers looked practically lifelike, so that was a plus. Only, there was a serious clipping issue - your necklace would go through your clothes, enemies would grab you and their arms would be through your body (lol)... it wasn't big, but it took away from the semi-serious tone of the game.

The music was off the hook. I loved the tracks (though now I have a new found dislike for Mike Jones) that this provided. However, there wasn't enough of a variety in the songs I mean there was like..I think 10 (give or take) artists to listen to.

Now for the bad part - this game is SERIOUSLY hard. The fights last really long, enemies always seem to counter your attacks and always throw you into hazards regardless of how far away they are from it, and Young Jeezy is almost impossible. The camera tends to place itself in awkward positions making seeing the action hard, and like I said the game difficulty is RIDICOUSLY hard. Oh, and sometimes you'll be in the middle of pulling of a move and the enemy will just come over and tap you once causing you to stop the move all the way... errrr...

The ending was flat out terrible. You unravel the conspiracy, and have to fight the last boss. After winning, you become the top man in your own label. You find yourself sitting in a club with Method Man (who in this game is called Goosh or Coosh.. something like that) as he talks to this guy Senator Jacobson. Thats it... all that brain hemoraging anger from the difficulty for that? Hmph, I smell rip-off.

Anyway, Def Jam: Icon has a pretty good fighting game underneath its flaws and I do recommend it.... as a rental. Cause after all the aggravation and cheesy story, there isn't much left to the game except run through it again and earn more money. 7.2 Platinum Records out of 10.

Beautiful graphics, horrible repetitive gameplay
The graphics are absolutely amazing, and the way the soundtrack interacts with the environment is unique and well-done. Everything beyond that is terrible.

For whatever reason, the developers decided to get rid of the very fun and very successful fighting engine from the previous two games. We went from a system of several different grapples, counters, and strikes that gave each character literally hundreds of moves to chose from to...a system with a punch, and very slowly animated kick, and a throw (and all you need to beat the game is the throw).

Every single character seems to have the same basic moves, fights are nothing more than throwing over and over again, loading times are terrible, and the music selection is awful. Luckily, you can add your own songs.

You will get bored of this game VERY quickly. I can only hope that the developers decide to go back to the old system, since this game could have been perfect with the old N64/AKI/THQ wrestling engine.

Not Nearly as Good Def Jam Vendetta
I was really looking forward to this game, breaking my normal habits of only buying used games. I loved Def Jam Vendetta, and I thought the new feature of utilizing music, including MP3s from my collection would put a great twist on the game mechanics. Sadly, the best parts of the previous game were lost - there is no training, the fighting styles can't be mixed and the game was somehow both short, and far too repetitive.

The concept of becoming a producer could have been interesting, but wasn't. And the overarching story was rather predictable, and at times a bit too far from reality, even for a fighting game.

Repetition
This game is very repetitive. If you like doing virtually the same thing repeatedly while changing clothes on rare occasion, this is the game for you. Talk to your boss, go fight, talk to your boss, go fight, ... ZZzzzzzzzzzzzz