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The Def Jam gang drops the wrestling and takes up some old-fashioned fighting. The previous Def Jam games, developed by AKI, were more or less wrestling games with Def Jam characters instead of WWE superstars. With Def Jam: ICON, EA Canada has focused on a straight-up fighting game and made better use of the music background that Def Jam comes from.
Def Jam: ICON’s fighting is brought together by the label management career mode entitled Build a Label. Like previous Def Jam games, you start off as a random nobody but you manage to save a big-time record executive who thanks you by offering you a job. As you progress through the game, you’ll become an artist & repertoire (A&R) person trying to attract new people to the label. In ICON, this means engaging in physical fights with them so that they join the label. You’ll eventually earn income for signing these artists, and invest in them to hopefully get a return on your investment. There are a number of crazy (although feasible) things that can happen to your roster (such as having to pay for a paternity test) that keep things interesting.
ICON includes a number of big Def Jam celebrities like Mike Jones, The Game, Lil Jon, Ludacris, Big Boi, Redman, T.I., Paul Wall, Sean Paul and others. There are also some celebrities and other figures that can be found in the game such as Warner Music Group’s Kevin Liles and Anthony Anderson, who actually plays a character in the game’s story mode. Moreover, you can create your own character using EA’s now infamous character creation tools.
At its core, though, ICON is still a fighting game. EA Chicago, of Fight Night Round 3 fame, developed the game so it’s a little slower and more strategic than other fighting games. The game has a delicate system of checks and balances thanks to high and low attacks, that can be blocked with blocks and counters, which can in turn be reversed with grabs and throws. The game uses the right analog stick for strong strikes and grabs, and as in Fight Night, the farther back you go with the analog stick will result in a stronger strike. As I mentioned above, music plays a much more influential part in the game. Your character has a song that makes them fight better. You can switch the song playing in the background to find your song and get the associated bonus. Also, the game’s environments react to the beat of the music resulting in explosions to certain areas of the environments. If you happen to throw your opponent to one of these areas as the beat changes, they’ll get thrown into the explosion and receive extra damage. Further, by switching songs you can force explosions adding another layer of strategy to the game.
ICON includes offline and online multiplayer. The offline mode is about what you would expect and alleviates some of rare cheapness found with playing against the A.I. Online multiplayer is fairly smooth but sometimes a bit laggy. The game has a number of pre-set text taunts that you can easily set, although interestingly cursing is turned off.
The game has some pretty sweet graphics, with particularly great-looking character models. The rappers look very just like they do in real life and the fantastic animation strings all of the tricks together. Unfortunately, while the animation is smooth, the limited number of moves and styles means that you’ll see the same animations quite often. The environments are greatly detailed and thanks to the ever-present explosions and interactive objects, quite stylish as well.
The game’s audio is highlighted by the soundtrack from game’s roster of artists and others like Nas and M.O.P. The lyrics are largely uncensored so you’ll hear quite a bit of cursing and “n” words pop in, which makes the censor filter in the text taunts seem humorous. The rappers do a bit of voice acting for the game which sounds authentic enough. The sound of fighting are less impressive but good nonetheless.
Def Jam: ICON successfully combines the label-management career mode and surprisingly deep fighting. This, coupled with great graphics, interactive environments, and a killer soundtrack, make ICON an easy game to recommend. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Mar 14, 2007
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