Def Jam: Fight for NY

"Overrated? Maybe, but not by much."

Well, no use stalling. May as well just go through things as I see fit.

Gameplay: 8/10

I've always been a fan of wrestling games; I actually hate wrestling, but actual games about it are just plain fun, and this is no damn exception. Being able to combine the 5 Styles, your main style and two sub-styles which effect you overall, is a great touch, and I got a lot of extra value creating a character who majored in each of my three favourite styles; Kickboxing, Martial Arts and Streetfighting, although I didn't touch much on Wrestling or Submission.

The interactive environment is one of the coolest things in the game, from throwing people into crowds, into walls, over walls, through walls, through windows, into jukeboxes, and more painful things like jamming their head in a car door and kicking it in, through a third-story window, and even onto the railway just as a train screams into them. Weapons are also involved, crowbars, tazers, pool cues, baseball bats and, of coarse, beer bottles.

However, it wasn't all glory. Once you progress a while in story mode the battles can become, simply put, outright frustrating. The CPU will often have unnatainable recovery speeds, more damage/defense than possible, and even more serious offenses; one fighter has a bulletproof kevlar vest which you can NOT use ever, and twice I have seen a fighter teleport a couple of inches to connect with an attack that would have, otherwise, missed. You will be ganged up on in 'free for alls', and enemies will begin to counter attack at insane percentages. (My record is, fighting one opponent, he countered 7 attacks in a row, a combination of punches kicks and grapples)

All in all, the game is tons of fun, but I think it's easily among my Top 3 for games-most-making-me-want-to-smash-my-TV.

Graphics: 9/10.

They're not perfect, but they're bloody brilliant. Occasionally you'll see limbs going through people or clothing, but you really can't complain for a fighting game, it's next to unavoidable. One day there will be a time when life-like physics are attained, limbs never go through anything, everything reacts perfectly to everything else, but it won't be on -this- generation of consoles, that's for sure. Any special effects are well done enough, characters are rendered very well, mostly everything is. Absolutely no complaints here.

Sound: 3/10.

What can I say, I loathe rap. The sound effects are all great, nothing says ouch like snapping your opponent's neck three times, but I hate rap. If they're going to make a game have music COMPLETELY of one genre, then add in customizable soundtracks, and no matter what you think, I know a LOT of emos/punks who like this game.

Story: 7/10.

The story wasn't that great. But the story of very few games is that great. So in comparison, it does quite well. The idea of your clan, based on honour and respect, fighting the clan of Crow, based on fear and power, is a good refreshment. It's also quite applied since the enemies late in the game will be 100% dishonourable.

Controls: 7/10.

The controls suited well, all the buttons were in easy reach, no stupid ideas or poorly placed combinations; my only response is the occasional lag time in controls. You'll often find yourself screwing up a special attack, because of the roughly-one-second delay time in which, while grappling your opponent, your character won't be doing a damn thing. But mostly, they're pretty solid.

Value: 4/10.

This is where the game mostly falls short. I beat this game in one day of solid playing, beat it again in about 4 hours since I knew what I was doing, then felt very, very little urge to go through and get all the trophies. About 20 hours of gameplay all up. It's not horrible, but it's far, far from good, compared to things like Tales of Symphonia (140 Hours) and World of Warcraft (God knows how many weeks.)

Overall: 7/10.

There are flaws, and lots of them, but essentially, it's a very fun game. If you're a big wrestling fan, definately don't be afraid to pick it up. Also, it prooves a lot of stress relief in the end; the final few additional fights after the final boss are amazingly fun, since not only do you get to beat up people you hated before, now your stats should be insanely high enough to completely smear their faces on the ground. And hey, you can always turn the music off.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/21/05