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Def Jam: Fight for NY: The Takeover is a little late to the party. Def Jam: Fight for NY was released nearly two years ago for current-generation platforms and offered more moves, characters and story compared to its prequel. The Takeover is a polished version of that game and although a bit late, still offers a lot of compelling gameplay.
The Takeover is actually supposed to be a prequel to Fight for New York. Accordingly, it has a somewhat different story. In this version, you’ll have to rescue tattoo artist Manny, which fans of the game will remember as one of your main allies. Once you do this, you move on to the game’s fairly detailed character creation system. You’re tasked with moving up in the underground fighting scene. Along the way, you’ll meet a number of rappers (there are over 40 including Busta Rhumes, Fat Joe, Ice T, Method Man, Redman, Snoop Dogg and Xzibit) and characters played by rappers.
In the story mode, you’re placed at your crib where you can check for messages and view a map of the city. In the map, you’re able to choose fights to participate in. You can also choose to shop at a number of places including a jewelry store ran by Jacob the Jeweler, a clothing store, barbershop, and others. The game rewards you for spending money (earned in the fights) by increasing your charisma the more you spent on your character. You’ll find a number of name brands in the clothing store like P. Diddy’s Sean John brand and Ecko. Aside from accessories, you’re able to go to the gym where you can purchase character abilities like more strength, speed, etc. You can also purchase new moves and learn new fighting styles to increase the variety of your character’s move set.
Aside from the single-player mode, you can fight in the game’s battle mode against the computer using any of your unlocked players and arenas. In addition, the game includes local multiplayer support for up to two players.
The game’s actual fighting is as solid as ever thanks to the classic AKI engine. The game includes five different fighting styles in the game – wrestling, submission-based, martial arts, street fighting and kickboxing – but they are all responsive and fast. The different characters have moves from a few of these styles and it allows for a variety of moves for these fighters. You can combine moves from these different styles to make some killer combos. Aside from the moves you can perform, you can also rely on the crowd to help you (or your opponent) out. If you get thrown into the crowd, they’ll hold you for your opponent to beat on you with a weapon or simply throw you back. The crowd is very interactive and adds depth to the fighting engine.
The Takeover’s visuals are almost indistinguishable from the PS2 version’s graphics, which is a mighty compliment. The character models for the fighters are still excellent, allowing their unique personality to come across perfectly in the game. The animation in the game is superb so all of the moves look believable even when they are pretty outrageous. The crowd graphics have been subdued somewhat but still looks pretty good. Technically, the framerate never dips which is impressive considering how faithful the game’s visuals are.
The game’s audio has been noticeably reduced, though. The soundtrack is largely comprised of hip hop music which has made the transition unscathed. The sound effects are equally fulfilling. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t feature the excellent dialogue of Fight for New York. All we’re given are short quips before the matches. The voice acting helped add a lot to the atmosphere and it’s unfortunate that the game no longer includes it.
Def Jam: Fight for NY: The Takeover is an undeniably fun game. At the same time, it’s basically a port of a two-year game. Unless you played the game to death though, the stellar presentation and sound gameplay mechanics, make this game easy to recommend. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Sep 29, 2006
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