|
PS2 Review - Def Jam: Vendetta
Are
you ready to feel Method Man "Bring the Pain"? Are you ready
for DMX to "Give it to ya"? Can't wait to "throw them
bows" against Ludacris? In an effort to merge (and exploit) white
America's obsession with bubble gum hip-hop and wrestling, I give
you Def Jam Vendetta.
Plot:
Join one of three characters (I chose Briggs, who looks like Guile's
long lost brother) as they come to find their friend Manny in a predicament.
Manny blows up your pager (who still uses a pager?!) to tell you he's
in trouble with the biggest gangsta thug in town who can best be described
as a poor man's Suge Knight. Your boy Manny hurt his shoulder
and needs you to fight in his stead. You oblige him and thus begin your
quest for redemption. I don't know what you are trying to redeem,
but as you enter the ring for the first fight, the announcer (Funk Master
Flex) says, "This guy's got a lot of nerve coming back in
here." No one knows why he's says this and it's never
addressed in the game. Baffling.
After
the third fight, you get to pick a bitch. You read right, pick
a bitch. Then you have a cat fight to determine which girl
gets you. After the fight and after each female brawl you win, you unlock
photos of the women. I'm not sure what this had to do with anything,
but I was all for it. You also get a strong dose of Phat Farm clothing.
The labels are everywhere. Apparently giant overalls, jeans, Tees, Polos
and Timberland boots are good to wrestle in. At some point Manny recovers,
but you are starting to make that long dough, so you start fighting
tag team matches with him.
Oh
yeah, it turns out your ex is now riding Suge's bologna pony.
But after she sees you again, she misses you. As I'm sure you
can imagine, this escalates. Part of the bad guy's crew jumps
you...yadda yadda yadda...which leads to the big finale where,
you guessed it, you lock horns with Suge himself (that is, the poor
man's Suge. The real Suge was busy sodomizing weak white men in
jail while this game was being made). You win, you get the girl, end
of story.
Game Play:
As far as wrestling games go, I hate them. You press a bunch of buttons
and it takes VERY little skill to rip through opponents. However with
that said, I was impressed by the controls of the game. I could discern
moves and combos (back to those in a moment) very easily. The controls
were easy and convenient. You also had to dissect your opponent and
change your attack based on his strengths. Unprecedented for a wrestling
game where you can usually dominate with your strong suit all day long.
As
far as the moves go, they are given the best names. There are simple
moves like: Nut Shot, Back That Ass Up, Flap Jacked, or the Sea Walk.
But the finishing moves are the best. You work the crowd and pound the
be-Jesus out of your opponent to work up your "Blazin" meter.
Once this is full, you can finish your opponent for the limited time
that you are..."Blazin"! The characters you can use have
fairly tame finishing moves like the "Vertabuster," but the
rapper's moves are where it's at. Por ejemplo, Ludacris will KO
you with his "Ludacrisification." DMX will give you the "Ruff
Ryder's Anthem." After which he'll implore you to,
"Stop actin' like a bitch." The moves are pretty smooth
and some of them will give you a good laugh.
Overall:
The soundtrack seems cool at first until you come to find that it's
not the real songs, but parts of them on loop. So they get old...real
fast. Being able to kick the shit out of the likes of: Redman, Meth,
Keith Murray, WC, Ghostface, and others is fun, but can't carry the
painfully boring and predictable plot. Call me old (because, well, I'm
probably too old to be playing wrestling games anyway) but I need more
than just famous people in a game to make it legit. I might be less
biased if I had my memory card for the first two days. But I didn't.
So I had to keep replaying the first part of the game. Two days of the
same characters, same songs, same catch phrases which nearly resulted
in me lighting myself on fire. Lucky for me, I couldn't find any
matches or lighter fluid in my room and I was too lazy to walk to the
garage.
Def Jam Vendetta is good for some laughs and a few ass whippings. But
overall, I wouldn't recommend buying it, unless you already have
every other game you have ever wanted and you've already rented
or bought them and beat them.
The
next game I review better be good.
|
