Def Jam Vendetta

"The King of The Ring is Back"

Summary : AKI, the king of stateside wrestling has teamed up with EA BIG, the king of over the top sports action to bring us one of the best wrestling games in Years. Enter Def Jam Vendetta.

Gameplay: 8/10 - Take all of the best Def Jam Artist, a bunch of wacky Characters (ranging from Pimps - to Psycho Clowns) add one of the Best wrestling engines ever created, and you get DJV. The AKI engine is back and almost barely touched. Just about every move from the No Mercy and Wrestlemania 2000 games have been faithfully tansitioned over to DJV. You get your basic Free for all, Tag Team, and Survival Modes, but the mode that shines most is the Story mode. In Story Mode you play as one of four different guys working your way up to D-Mob, The Head Master of The Def Jam Underground Wrestling Circuit. Along the way you'll fight all the Def Jam Artists as the ''Bosses'' of that particular tourney. You Also get to play as females who will fight for the Right to be your personal Vallet. There are TONS of unlockables from Wrestlers to Arenas, and pictures of the females models...Where are the THONG pictures EA?? Huh?? I can fully understand the fact there is no CAW feature, because EA wants you to play as the Characters they worked hard at creating, rather than the player jus creating every WWE character out there. Did I mention these are some of the Craziest Finishers ever in a wrestling game?

Graphics : 9/10 - Wow. Talk about polish. Every Character model is nicely detailed with chains hanging out of pockets, Rings on fingers, etc. Every Def Jam Artist looks how they should, although some of them are a bit bigger than they are in real life...but this is a video game...an EA BIG videogame, so it's pretty much a given. the Arenas aren't anything that will wow you but they do add a nice touch with the audience doing a number of things in the background. A refreshing sight from THQs, bland adudiences. The only I and I do mean only, downside to the graphics are the not so clear FMV's that play during story mode. Of course, if you play a lot of GC games, this really isn't a surprise.

Sound : 10/10 - OK, right off the bat I'll tell you that this score may vary heavily depending on the players preference of music. ALL the music in this game is Rap Music. I like Rap so naturally I love the music that plays during the menus and whatnot. However, the music that plays in-game is just the Instrumental of that particular song so if you don't like Rap music it wont be much of a problem. IMO, This music blows away anything any menu or in-game music any other wrestling game has offered. The Characters all talk, except for the four Characters available for Story Mode. The Voice work is great, and funny sometimes too. They even Curse....well, ''ass'', ''the b word'' and ''the s word''. You might get tired of hearing the same old one liners the Wrestlers spit before and after the matches.

Replayability : 9/10 - I was stil playing ''No Mercy'' with my friends years after it was released. So if that's any indication, I'll definetly be playing this one for quite some time as well. Sure Sure Sure, there's no CAW feature...so WHAT. I can still play as 40 something other people. And yea, it is kind of a bummer there's only Free-For-All and Tag Team, but that's all we ever really needed. If you have friends who are Wrestling game addicts then this game WILL last you for a good while. If you dont have any friends....GET SOME....NOW.

Buy/Rent - BUY If you liked or loved the previous AKI wrestling games (despite whether or not you like Rap or not) , get this one for sure. RENT If you never Played the AKI games, rent it, see if you like it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/03/03, Updated 04/03/03