Def Jam: Fight For NY (GameCube) Preview

That was Vendetta, of course, we are now more worried with how Fight For NY is going. First off, let it be known there are over forty of your favourite rappers and celebrities to beat each other up with and the game doesn't stoop to celebrity death match levels to pull it off, thankfully. Among them are Busta Rhymes, Sean Paul, Snoop Dogg, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Ludacris, Lil' Kim, Ice T, Redman, as well as celebrities Carmen Electra and Danny Trejo (a personal favourite of mine). However, all this would mean nothing if the gameplay was not up to much, but even with less wrestling connections, it still squares up to the challenge.

Using AKI's traditional wrestling engine, watering it down slightly from Vendetta, it is the standard fare: a grapple button, a strike button and one to make your rapper run. As usual, a simple tap of the strike or grapple button will only produce a weak move, whilst holding it down will deliver a more powerful one. But rather than having rapper-specific moves, as most rappers do not actually wrestle for an occupation, each rapper has a certain fighting style, out of the new five; martial arts, kick boxing, street fighting, submission fighting and normal wrestling. As such, submission wrestlers will surprisingly make better use of submissions, and wrestlers use more wrestling orientated moves, like suplexes and other slams. To finish your opponent, as it were, new "blazin'" moves are on offer.

But do not let this simplified fighting style start to make you worry how it will compete with the recently released WWE Day of Reckoning, as while most WWE games are confined to the arena and its interior, Fight for NY takes place everywhere else. Subways, car parks, even rings of fire are all on offer and they are all fully interactive with a very urban feel. There are also ten different match types to play through; like an inferno match, where you are surrounded by flames and have to stay in the middle of the area and subway matches where the loser is the one that falls on the tracks and is hit by the 11:15 running late as usual. With twenty-two arenas to play in, the variation is guaranteed to keep you pleased, especially due to how in-depth they all are. For instance, in the car park, if your opponent gets hung up on the front of a car, you can slam him into the windshield, or after breaking his face on the car door for a while, you can toss him through the window. The crowd also gets stuck in; toss a rapper into the crowd and perhaps one of your crew will get them in a hammer lock, allowing you to pummel them a little bit more easily. Of course, beer bottles, baseball bats and anything else you can use to cause pain are all there to be used, as well as destructive environments for your enjoyment.

Then there is the obligatory Create-a-Wrestler, or street fighter in this instance, feature where you can gear your fighter with clothes from many brand names, tattoo him and give him much needed bling. The story mode here is even surprisingly original and carries on from where the first one left off; D-Mobb, the bad homie from Vendetta, is broken out of jail by an unknown assailant, who the cops believe to be you. Drawing your fighter in a police sketch to actually design them, they are then put in a turf war fighting the new gantsa' No. 1, Crow, who is voiced by none other than Snoop Dogg. Your fighter will be represented in cut scenes and fights, but in between this you can buy new clothes for your fighter, go to Jacob the Jeweller, who will fix you up with some new bling, or just get a new tattoo, which you unlock as you progress. Then, of course, if your skills are lacking, there is the trainer on hand to teach you two new fighting styles, to create a new one of your own.

The game itself is looking very impressive, with a huge range of animations for each fighter, along with a in-depth detail in each fighter, along with very nice shine effects on all the jewellery they are boasting. The models themselves are very realistic, and the whole presentation is looking very solid, features like the crowd in the backdrop give it more urban style and the moves are looking quite painful. The only real problem EA had is by avoiding sticking a "Not for Children" label on the game in the US, the various tracks from the rappers in the game have been censored slightly, but real voices from all the rappers themselves makes the game seem like a dent package and the UK version is to come with an 18 tag anyway, so it looks like we get the complete version. Also, we cannot forget EA's view on women; you can "win the heart" of one young ladies at the Babylon Club, such as Carmen Elektra, Lil' Kim and Shaniqua. Clearly more fuel to add to the fire of sexism in games, but that is another issue altogether.