It's plain to see that Def Jam is an intense fighter, but some frustrations keep it from its full potential.

User Rating: 7 | Def Jam: Fight for NY GC
(+) combat is intense and satisfying; lots of single and multiplayer battle modes and a fighter creation tool; looks and sounds good

(-) losing against the same fighter repeatedly is no fun; controls never feel very stable; a very weak first impression

Def Jam Fight for New York is one of the darkest fighting games I have ever seen that actually stays true to reality. In the midsts of overpopulated cities, where crime is unavoidable, I can see groups and more groups of thuds creeping through the shadows and challenging others fearlessly to battle. There's no extraterrestrial powers that you would see in something like Mortal Kombat, but there really wouldn't need to be. Def Jam Fight for New York is a dark and intense fighter, and has potential to spare. But does it live up to that potential?

The game starts you off with an eye-boggling scene of someone on the road crashing into another driver, and an anonymous person grabs that person from the rubble and saves them. From there, the person is later taken to a police station and is asked to tell them what the person looked like, suspecting foul play. From here you can either choose several looks by default, or in this way use the game's cleverly designed character creation tool, when the person asks "what did his hair look like?" or "what about his nose?" you choose the look you want for the person in this process. However, on the PS2 and Xbox versions, you also have several choices of voices to have for your character, but for some reason you don't have that feature here on the Gamecube.

After creating your fighter, you view some cut-scenes of your character and others playing a video game, interestingly on whatever system you happen to be playing Def Jam on, so in this case you'll see them with Gamecube controllers. Then someone comes in and belittles them for sitting around playing video games, then they confront them and say at least they're still around. Meanwhile, they smoothen things over and find another place for your character to hide out ,since unknowingly why to them, the cops are searching for them. This is because fighting is almost like a business, and you must fight to make a name of yourself and get by. As you complete fights, you'll get messages on your phone's answering machines as well as fax, congratulating you on your performance or giving you tips on how to improve your fighting skill. The story does a pretty good job of keeping you involved with the action.

Def Jam is a total beat-em'-up in a wrestling arena. Winning involves simply kicking the crap out of your enemy by all means possible. You do have the choice to set up different fighting styles, for example fighters of martial arts overwhelm their competitors with high speed attacks, while submissions slow it down and concentrate on disabling specific parts of the enemy's body until they scream uncle. Even though the game is mostly brutal fighting, winning involves using a special move that can be activated through their Blazin' meter. You can also grab other items from the spectators around like beer bottles or brooms and smack the enemy with those.

As far as first impressions go, Def Jam did not deliver a pleasant one. At the very first fight, I was being pummeled indefinitely over and over again, without as much as the ability to strike back once. This was even after I learned some of the basics of the controls. Although the game does have a quick tutorial, it's just intolerable how often the difficulty stretches through each of the battles, especially the very first one. After completing that, the situation was made a bit easier because you gain so many training points after each fight, then you can report to the gym and increase points of health, upper arm strength, lower arm strength, speed and more, but still your status is overly low from the start and it's a glaring disadvantage against most of the other opponents. If you complete the game though, you'll naturally fill each stat to their entirety, but between that process you'll meet some relatively easy fighters as well as some that kick your ass repeatedly again and again, and that can lead to some extreme frustration.

The fighting itself though is intense and satisfying. The moves are appropriately devastating and hectic, punching someone in the face then stomping down on them is sadistically satisfying. And actually pulling off your special move when their health is low but you have to finish them off in a "DANGER!" mode, striking them down with another colossal attack this time for final is rewarding. But this is often a tricky process, because you only have a short time limit which you can execute the move on the opponent, and you must have them in a grapple first to perform most moves. Very often, finishing your opponent can feel very much like an endurance test, because you'll be hoping your fighter can take the punishment until you sigh of relief while he grabs the enemy in the air, and smacks them against the ground. Of course it's never fun having all of that done to yourself, but it's only natural for one to enjoy watching their rivals get the living crap beat out of them.

Controls however take more time than they should to grasp. My main complaint is one the Gamecube you punch with the Y button, and kick with the B button, which never feels that intuitive with each other. Punching and kicking should be easy to do in a streak, but those two buttons together are hard to interact with with that much accuracy. The A button would have been much better, since it's the largest button, but that's only used for grapples and throws. Also using the special Blazin' moves requires the touch of the C stick, which though it's only required on occasions the button is also fairly difficult to activate in quick reflexes.

The graphics are great in Def Jam Fight for New York. The environments are dark and creepy but nonetheless detailed. The character models are moderately realistic to about the extent the technology of this generation of game system would allow. The fighting is also fast paced and full of exciting moments, and no slow down even with all the chaos. Whether you like Hip Hop or don't, the music fits the action and there's a ton of different artists that submitted songs for the soundtrack, and the combat moments burst with blasts and bangs of vicious energy. The developers really took time when producing the title.

Def Jam Fight for NY offers some multiplayer modes for up to four players to fight simultaneousness as well as some single player challenges. There's no big dearth of content, there's plenty to do before you see it all. The action is dark and exciting just right for people who need just a little more adrenalin and morbid brawling and they've already played Smash to death. It's plain to see that Def Jam is an intense fighter, but some frustrations keep it from its full potential. It doesn't make much sense why they would make the first fighter so powerful, and the controls never feel all that optimized. But if you're willing to deal with that, then the game will definitely satisfy your native desire for high octane violence.