crazy fun!
Tapping and holding the A buttons still activate your weak and strong grapples, respectively. B button is your main striking button, and it too is pressure sensitive where longer button presses result in powerful attacks. Instead of the old Special meter, there is now a “Blazin” meter, along with a standard health bar. Both meters flow up and down depending how well you progress during the bouts. Unlike the previous AKI games, the new Blazin specialty moves can only be performed in front and back grapples with a wiggle of the C stick (they could’ve been performed from several other locations in No Mercy). They are also easier to pull off because they can now be performed from weak grapples. These specialty moves aren’t the common Pedigree’s and Rock Bottom’s of old, they are extremely exaggerated super moves that the pros couldn’t be capable of pulling off. They look amazing, and fit the EA Sports Big theme perfectly. For the newbie’s of AKI games, the developer has thrown in several tutorial videos to get you use to the controls in no time.
AKI added some new modifications to their stellar engine in DefJam Vendetta. These following changes were more or less included to comply with the EA Sports Big label on the game. The first noticeable one is that all the moves now have hip-hop type names. For example, the common jawbreaker is now called a “hangover” and a head butt is now dubbed “Bow Down.” Then there are pin and submission meters where I have to button mash to fill it up so my brawler can kick out of a pin or submission.
It takes a while to get a submission victory because there are now health meters in four categories: Body, Head, Arm, and Leg. The meter gradually goes down a couple of notches with each submission hold applied, but the ever cheap little brother or annoying lackey can take advantage of this and keep doing the same hold over and over until your meter depletes and you are forced to submit. While I welcome this addition, it does take away from the element of surprise that was strong in AKI’s previous efforts. Finally, combos can be executed, not like the failed combo system found in Revenge, but more like a link of moves, like an Irish Whip into the ropes, followed by a clothesline, and an elbow drop. Each character has a few sets of combos which results in bonus points when executed perfectly.
I am as happy as the next guy to finally slug it out in the classic AKI engine, but the developers added some faults to its previously impeccable engine. For example, there are no weapons to be found whatsoever. Also, reversals happen way too often. There are double-reversals seen here and there, but the tides of battle changes so many times from the frequent reversals that it’ll be bound to frustrate even the most relaxed gamers (I’m looking at you Shaq!). The computer AI takes advantage of this to the extreme, and within moments from delivering my special, I found myself at the other end of the stick from the cheap AI. One last straw was the inability to not customize match rules such as toggling the ever-annoying rope break rule off, or having matches set to Pin or Submission only, it also means you cannot toggle on or off the random KO’s that result from the Blazin moves.
Initially, there is only several of the 44 characters available to you in DefJam Vendetta. Most of them are phony fighters made by AKI, and a few that appeared in other EA Sports Big titles such as NBA Street. There are only twelve rap artists from DefJam Recordings that appear in here, but most of them are the main players such as Ludacris, DMX, Method Man, Redman, Scarface, and Keith Murray, among others.
The key to unlocking the rap artists, costumes, stages, and all the other generic characters is in Story Mode, and what a story mode it is. I picked a wrestler, and found out I was replacing the injured Manny in a one night tournament. I faced Scarface in the finals and unlocked him. The storylines keep getting better as the girls start flocking to me as I won more matches. Some of the chicks will settle it in the ring, and I got to pick which one to keep at my side. Victories earned me cash, which was spent either on raising the attributes of my fighter or on the luscious pictures of the real life women who portray the female characters in the game.
Besides the awesome Story Mode, I regretfully have to report that DJV pulled a RAW on us and only has the bare bones of game play modes available. There is another single player mode dubbed Survival where the rest of the roster of characters takes you on in one-on-one matches until you lose. Then there is the Battle mode which consists of single, tag team, two-on-one handicap, and four-player free for all bouts. That is it, there are no gimmick matches to be found like the popular Cage, Ladder, Guest Referee, Table, and Hell in a Cell matches that are common in most WWE games. Hell, there isn’t even a Create-a-Wrestler to be found. That simply cannot be forgiven. While AKI states time constraints were the reason for no CaW, I speculate it is EA forcing the developers to hold out the good stuff for the expected sequel.