Combing Rap, Hip-Hop and wrestling is obscure, but it makes for a solid game.
But for good reason. Def Jam combines music and wrestling to create a great game that creates its own unique brand, and follows that up with some decent gameplay, and stunning audio presentation.
So what's up with Def Jam? What's its story?
Def Jam casts you as another soulless character (but who cares, as long as you get to break some necks) who, persuaded by his pal Manny, takes part in a few underground brawls for cash and respect. Your buddy Manny owes the big boy of the whole "underground fighting league" some cash, so it's up to you to give him a hand. But things get more complicated as you realize that the leader of this fighting movement has been making way with one of your ex girls, so it takes it to a personal level, and later on you decide to participate in the elite Def Jam tournament.
But what connection does this have with rap? Well, Def Jam presents some music artists from the same label as opponents, such as Redman, DMX, and others. Each has great voice-acting, and that just about goes for every other single character in the game.
That brings up Def Jam's sound design, it's excellent. While you're brawling in the ring, you'll hear ever crunch and cringe-inducing crack as you deliver blows and back-breaking throws and grapples to your enemies. Although not as brutal as its sequel, Def Jam still makes you let loose a "ooh!" each time you deliver an especially ferocious attack.
The menu places a good selection of different tunes, and a different song is played through pretty much each battle, and these songs fit very well with the carnage on screen.
This only adds up as you hear the crowd cheering behind the battle. Applause, cheers, and cat calls respond accordingly to what's happening in a battle. If you deliver a ball busting punch to your opponent's nether regions, the audience gives an appropriate reaction. Which only makes combat much more satisfying.
Not only does the audience have some excellent sound design, they also impact the gameplay, at the bottom of each player's health bar, is another bar that fills up slowly as you deliver more complex combos, grapples, and just overall brutal moves. When this bar fills, you can switch over to "Blazin'" mode, which allows you to KO your opponent if his health is low enough.
Def Jam works as such.
Your life bar is as any other fighting game's, with the exception that you can't defeat an enemy simply by depleting his life gauge. You have a nice variety of options as to how you wish to defeat your advesary. If you've lower his life well enough, you can KO him by switching over to "Blazin" all delivering a finishing move (which by the way, is different for each character).
Along with that, you have to option to pin your opponent, which involves you pushing your enemy to the floor, and pinning him down before he can get back up, once the crowd reaches the third count, your advesary is out.
The final manner of elimination is by submition, not only does your enemy have a life gauge, but so does several parts of his body, such as arms, legs, body, and head. In order to pull these several bars down, you need to grapple an enemy on the ground, then continously do so until you deplete the life guage for any body part, once this is done, your enemy is forced into a submition defeat, and you take home the gold.
But what is grappling? Along the with generic punch, kick and block, you have to ability to grapple. This will be your main weapon throughout the game, grappling is akin to grabbing an enemy. Once you have grappled an enemy, he will have an appropriate amount of time to react before you deliver an especially stunning blow.
Grappling attacks vary on which buttons you press. X might deliver a powerful throw, while square will have you punch your viciously opponent right in the face. Any way you wish to do this, it's up to you.
The arena has a variety of other tactics available to you, from jumping up on the corner posts to smash down on a prone enemy, or jumping down from the arena to get your enemy in a more enclosed clausterphobic space down at the sidelines.
Def Jam's visuals are none too amazing, but they're still pleasant, and they do the job well. There isn't much to say about them though, but they're much better on the other consoles that the PS2.
The controls for Def Jam are suitable, and while they take some getting use to, they do the job.
And although you won't have difficulty with the controls much, you will find that Def Jam is rather hard on anything other than easy, opponents are especially merciless with grapplings, and they tend to juggle you just as much as any other fighting game, wihich is a sever annoyance.
But those problems aside, Def Jam only has a few niggling problems.
While you have your ordinary one on one matches, there are also tag team matches. Where you and a buddy take on two other opponents. You only need to pin, KO, or submit one baddy on the other side to win though, which is good, considering that tag team matches can last up to a good twenty minutes if neither side is gaining much momentum.
There's a grading system that gives you a grade on each battle, depending on your combo score, time, and health score.
You can spend money on stats, or model photos.
Along with its already-mentioned Story Mode, Def Jam features a Survival Mode, One on One twoplayer mode, and a multiplayer Tag Team Mode.
This is all very fun, and Def Jam should keep you busy for awhile.
So what can I say? It's a decent fighting game with some great sound design. Along with nice content and a rather decent fighting system. If you're a wrestling fan, this is one of the best games you can get. And if you just like games in general, well you can't go wrong either.
What more can I say? This is worth a 20$ greatest hits copy, so go out and buy it!