Def Jam Vendetta

"The new king of the ring!"

During the Nintendo 64 days, most of the wrestling games on the system were made by AKI. They were put on the map when they made wrestling classics like Wrestlemania 2000 and WWF No Mercy. The company's grapple system is one of the very best, if not the best. A lot of other companies that make wrestlers have tried to copy their system either resulted with no success or a complete failure. After No Mercy, however, AKI became a hibernating company. Now, the company is awake and doing the things that they are so good at. Partnered with EA Sports BIG, AKI have created one of the best wrestlers on any next-generation system- Def Jam Vendetta.

The first thing to know before one plays this game, this is not your regular wrestling game. The action is faster and the moves are way more over the top than in any WWE game.

The men are muscular and the women are anorexic.

The visuals in Def Jam Vendetta are great for a wrestler. The graphics are the norm for a grappler. The men are muscular and the women are anorexic. The males look rather proportional to real life wrestlers. Some are wide, some are thin; however, there is barely any variations with height. Most of the wrestlers are all the same size vertical-wise. The women ALL look the same with the exception of the faces and clothes. They are all the same size both vertically and horizontally. Not something to make you pass up this game though.

So blurry!

Since the Gamecube uses a smaller disks which contains less space compared to PS2 and Xbox's disks, companies need to compress the cutscenes and FMVs. The cutscenes are horribly compressed compared to the PS2 version. The scenes are blurry and full of jaggies. But, again, not something to make you pass up this game.

X gon give it to ya.

The music in Def Jam is, well, rap. The songs are all from Def Jam artists. Songs are from DMX to Public Enemy, N.O.R.E to Scarface. There are 18 songs in total. Sometime, the songs play without lyrics, with only the background music, yet ten minutes later, you could be hearing the same song with lyrics.

*Groan*

The sound effects in Def Jam Vendetta is like any other wrestler. The fighters groan in pain when they get hit, rail clang when opponents are thrown into it. The norm. Overall, very basic.

Nobody eva beats me!

The speech in this game is great! Each wrestler has their own distinct voice. The Def Jam wrestlers' voices come from their real life counterparts. DMX has his hoarse voice, and Ludacris has his southern accent. Very well done.

Grapple! Counter! Pin!

Those are some of the things you might be yelling at your TV screen when you're playing Def Jam Vendetta. The gameplay is very well done. The grapple system, AKI's point of expertise, is the best of any other wrestler available at this time. The ''A'' button is used to grapple. From there, players can do a variety of grapple moves by pressing a direction and pushing the ''B'' button. Grapples are also classified into soft and hard depending on how hard you press the ''A'' button. The ''B'' button is used for strikes. Like the grapples, strikes are classified into soft and hard depending on hard you press the ''B'' button. The ''X'' button is used for running. The C-Stick is used for taunting and doing your special move. The gameplay mechanics are very deep. In the instruction booklet, the controls take up about four pages so it can't all be explained in a review.

Def Jam's 12 most famous artists are here.

There are actually around 44 wrestlers in all from both sexes, and from all walks of life, but only 12 are the Def Jam wrestlers. There could have been a couple more because of all the great artists that are associated with Def Jam, but what's there is good.

Where are the different modes?!

Unlike most wrestling games, there aren't all that many modes in the game. There are no outrageous types of fights found in other wrestling games like Hell in a Cell or TLC matches to be found. There are only three main modes: Story, Battle, and Survival. The Story mode is where you pick one wrestler and go through everyone else to get to D-Mobb. The Battle mode is where you and your friends can go at it. The Survival mode is where you take on a never ending onslaught of fighters (only ones you've unlocked through Story) to see how long you can last. All three are great fun. It's just a shame that you can't go through story mode with the Def Jam wrestlers.

Hey _______, _______, ________ (insert your friends' names here), wanna play Def Jam?

The replay value of Def Jam is good. Of course the multiplayer is where most of the replay value's at, but the single player will last you a long time as well. You'll have to go through the Story mode at least four times to get everything in the game, and the challenged presented by the Survival mode is another calling for you to keep playing.

Should I buy this game if I like wrestling games, but don't like rap?

This might be a question that you may be asking yourself. I would say yes. This is truly a great wrestling game. If you can't stand the music just turn it down and listen to what you like.

Overall score: 8.8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/12/03, Updated 04/12/03