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The third game in the Def Jam fighting franchise hopes to send the series in a new direction
April 4, 2007 | 12:30 AM PSTby: A. McDaniel
Def Jam: Icon represents the third game in the EA-published Def Jam fighting series. This marks the first foray on the PlayStation 3 hardware for the Def Jam franchise. Since its inception, hip-hop music has always featured musical feuds and posturing. It is definitely not something new; battling for bragging rights [and more sales] has always been an inherent part of hip-hop. The competitive nature of hip-hop music makes it a obvious source for a music-based fighting game that somehow just works without being too forced. So far, each Def Jam game has been a large departure from the last. Icon is no different. Icon marks the first Def Jam game developed by EA-Chicago instead of developer AKI. It also is less wrestling focused than previous titles.
Take It To The Street
The PlayStation 3 already has several solid fighting games, but like its moniker, Icon does a decent job of differentiating itself from the pack. Unlike most games in the general fighting game genre, Def Jam Icon doesn’t focus on cartoon-like fireballs and energy projectiles or flashy moves that would be impossible for even an Olympian. At the heart of Icon, you have a solid fighting game that feels more like a cross between a WWE game and Fight Night Round Three. Staying rooted in reality works to Icon’s Benefit. In contrast to the surreal nature of the background stages, the realistic movements of the fighters keep the game from veering too far into the fantasy arena and away from the music itself. The rhythmic pulsation of the stylishly lit stages still feels right out of a music video.
The star of the game is the stages. Learning where their hazards lie and how best to exploit them is the key to winning some matches. As you fight through the career mode, you will unlock each stage. The stages are varied, allowing you to fight in a nightclub, a penthouse, and even BET’s 106 & Park soundstage. Each venue has its own personality and features multiple environmental hazards and destructible objects. Depending on the track playing at the time, each stage can take on a different hue. As your fighter starts to lose energy, you will notice a dramatic change in color saturation. Icon’s default lack of a HUD works well due to little touches such as these. The fighting venues rotate slightly as you fight, but the background stages give you less than 360 degrees of rotation. You will find that the camera isn’t always dynamic enough to keep your view from being obscured during an intense match.
Bone Breaking Beats Have A New Meaning
The game’s tagline: “music is your weapon” actually holds true throughout the game. Manipulating the music is the key to winning matches and turning the tides of some of the more tough opponents. Weapons and super moves are absent in the latest version of the series to emphasize the environmental hazards more. As the fighters near environmental hazards, large bass beats will in turn trigger them. Learning the moments when a song hits a heavy beat and timing your attacks will carry you far in the game. To make things easier, holding the L2 trigger allows you scratch the track in order to “break” the beat at one of the larger bass beats. If you knock your opponent down near one of the hazards, you can scratch the track and trigger a big beat hazard for additional damage to your opponent. The hazards aren’t as unbalanced as they seem. You will find that using the background threats to punish your opponents will often find them flying back towards you and knocking you both down. Triggering a hazard while you are near it will damage you as well. This adds an additional consideration to using them, so you don’t wind up relying on the free damage after every knockdown.
Rounding out your fighting options, you also get to choose a fighting style. Each fighting style gives differing benefits to your fighter. Generally speaking, most of the styles are decently balanced. Some styles allow for fast song switching, but are slow when it comes to throws. Some styles may require longer time to activate environmental hazards, but they make up for it when it comes to quicker recovery time. You just have to choose a fighting style that caters to your style of playing.
Achieve Icon Status
Icon presents you with five main game modes: Throwdown, Online, Beatings with Bass, Build a Label and your basic practice mode. Throwdown mode allows you to quickly pick a fighter, fighting style, location and allow you to quickly pick a fight. Beatings with Bass allows you to play through a match with your ability to manipulate the song track disabled. This mode is meant to give you practice learning a song and when to expect the big beats [and when the environmental hazards are active] on each track.
The Build a Label mode allows you to plot out a career for your fighter and budding record label. You start out by using EA’s streamlined F.A.C.E. modeling interface to create your character. From there, you get to personalize your character in million dollar chains and watches to name brand clothing and tattoos. On par with the rest of the franchise, you have access to an almost insane amount of gear for a fighting game; provided you have enough cash. When starting out you get to run small tasks such as fighting off belligerent fans for artists, beating back overzealous paparazzi and settling rapper feuds. Depending on your decisions, you get to sign artists to your budding label and manage their careers. Their sales [and your income] depend largely on your actions. You not only have to manage your career and theirs, but keeping with the series’ staple, you have to cater to your needy girlfriends as well. Allowing one of your artists’ or your girlfriend’s satisfaction level to drop below 0 will have an adverse on their song output, or in the latter case, cause your girlfriend break up with you.
I Got 99 Problems
Maintaining one of your expensive girlfriends, buying more expensive gear and taunting during matches all attribute to your style. Style points are the games' equivalent of experience points and bonus modifiers. Each girlfriend is a container for various bonus fight modifiers; if you allow her to leave you, you will also lose whatever bonus modifiers she had attached to her. Building style will help your artists’ records sell more and eventually propel you into a record mogul or industry icon.
Hip-Hop Hooray
Def Jam Icon presents a lot of excellent ideas, and presents them well. How good could a game based upon the world of hip-hop be without quality sound? Icon definitely serves up some quality tracks. The music is comprised of hit tracks from Island/Def Jam going back to at least 2000. The hits and voices sound very good in Dolby ProLogic II. Sometimes the random in-match voices can get a bit repetitive, but overall the voice work through the career mode is topnotch. The voice actors do an excellent job and considering how easy it would be to make the hip-hop stars seem over the top, nothing seems forced. For a hip-hop based game based upon Def Jam characters, the labels CEO/ artist Jay-Z is noticeably missing.
Unfortunately, a few technical issues betray what could have been an even greater addition to the PlayStation library. Outside of the problematic camera angles at times, Icon also suffers from a handful of issues that hold the game back from being truly standout. Some items suffer from flicker, the destructible backgrounds and some of the customizable character items are particularly susceptible. Due to the rhythmic nature of the game, the fact that the game seems to run at a slow pace is emphasized. Combination moves never seem to move fast enough. Icon gets so much right and has such potential and innovation. As a PS3 launch window game, most of Icon’s issues seem like they are simple affairs that could have been ironed with just a little bit more development time. Hopefully, the next iteration of the franchise will have more time to get everything right.
If you are looking for a hip-hop themed version of Tekken or Street Fighter, you may be disappointed by Def Jam Icon. Icon is more than that though. If you can drop whatever preconceived notions you have of what a fighting or wrestling game is supposed to be like, you will find enjoyment from this innovative title. Icon has brilliant artistic values and a solid presentation, but a few technical issues hold Icon from shining as bright as it could have.
Take It To The Street
The PlayStation 3 already has several solid fighting games, but like its moniker, Icon does a decent job of differentiating itself from the pack. Unlike most games in the general fighting game genre, Def Jam Icon doesn’t focus on cartoon-like fireballs and energy projectiles or flashy moves that would be impossible for even an Olympian. At the heart of Icon, you have a solid fighting game that feels more like a cross between a WWE game and Fight Night Round Three. Staying rooted in reality works to Icon’s Benefit. In contrast to the surreal nature of the background stages, the realistic movements of the fighters keep the game from veering too far into the fantasy arena and away from the music itself. The rhythmic pulsation of the stylishly lit stages still feels right out of a music video.
The star of the game is the stages. Learning where their hazards lie and how best to exploit them is the key to winning some matches. As you fight through the career mode, you will unlock each stage. The stages are varied, allowing you to fight in a nightclub, a penthouse, and even BET’s 106 & Park soundstage. Each venue has its own personality and features multiple environmental hazards and destructible objects. Depending on the track playing at the time, each stage can take on a different hue. As your fighter starts to lose energy, you will notice a dramatic change in color saturation. Icon’s default lack of a HUD works well due to little touches such as these. The fighting venues rotate slightly as you fight, but the background stages give you less than 360 degrees of rotation. You will find that the camera isn’t always dynamic enough to keep your view from being obscured during an intense match.
Bone Breaking Beats Have A New Meaning
The game’s tagline: “music is your weapon” actually holds true throughout the game. Manipulating the music is the key to winning matches and turning the tides of some of the more tough opponents. Weapons and super moves are absent in the latest version of the series to emphasize the environmental hazards more. As the fighters near environmental hazards, large bass beats will in turn trigger them. Learning the moments when a song hits a heavy beat and timing your attacks will carry you far in the game. To make things easier, holding the L2 trigger allows you scratch the track in order to “break” the beat at one of the larger bass beats. If you knock your opponent down near one of the hazards, you can scratch the track and trigger a big beat hazard for additional damage to your opponent. The hazards aren’t as unbalanced as they seem. You will find that using the background threats to punish your opponents will often find them flying back towards you and knocking you both down. Triggering a hazard while you are near it will damage you as well. This adds an additional consideration to using them, so you don’t wind up relying on the free damage after every knockdown.
Rounding out your fighting options, you also get to choose a fighting style. Each fighting style gives differing benefits to your fighter. Generally speaking, most of the styles are decently balanced. Some styles allow for fast song switching, but are slow when it comes to throws. Some styles may require longer time to activate environmental hazards, but they make up for it when it comes to quicker recovery time. You just have to choose a fighting style that caters to your style of playing.
Achieve Icon Status
Icon presents you with five main game modes: Throwdown, Online, Beatings with Bass, Build a Label and your basic practice mode. Throwdown mode allows you to quickly pick a fighter, fighting style, location and allow you to quickly pick a fight. Beatings with Bass allows you to play through a match with your ability to manipulate the song track disabled. This mode is meant to give you practice learning a song and when to expect the big beats [and when the environmental hazards are active] on each track.
The Build a Label mode allows you to plot out a career for your fighter and budding record label. You start out by using EA’s streamlined F.A.C.E. modeling interface to create your character. From there, you get to personalize your character in million dollar chains and watches to name brand clothing and tattoos. On par with the rest of the franchise, you have access to an almost insane amount of gear for a fighting game; provided you have enough cash. When starting out you get to run small tasks such as fighting off belligerent fans for artists, beating back overzealous paparazzi and settling rapper feuds. Depending on your decisions, you get to sign artists to your budding label and manage their careers. Their sales [and your income] depend largely on your actions. You not only have to manage your career and theirs, but keeping with the series’ staple, you have to cater to your needy girlfriends as well. Allowing one of your artists’ or your girlfriend’s satisfaction level to drop below 0 will have an adverse on their song output, or in the latter case, cause your girlfriend break up with you.
I Got 99 Problems
Maintaining one of your expensive girlfriends, buying more expensive gear and taunting during matches all attribute to your style. Style points are the games' equivalent of experience points and bonus modifiers. Each girlfriend is a container for various bonus fight modifiers; if you allow her to leave you, you will also lose whatever bonus modifiers she had attached to her. Building style will help your artists’ records sell more and eventually propel you into a record mogul or industry icon.
Hip-Hop Hooray
Def Jam Icon presents a lot of excellent ideas, and presents them well. How good could a game based upon the world of hip-hop be without quality sound? Icon definitely serves up some quality tracks. The music is comprised of hit tracks from Island/Def Jam going back to at least 2000. The hits and voices sound very good in Dolby ProLogic II. Sometimes the random in-match voices can get a bit repetitive, but overall the voice work through the career mode is topnotch. The voice actors do an excellent job and considering how easy it would be to make the hip-hop stars seem over the top, nothing seems forced. For a hip-hop based game based upon Def Jam characters, the labels CEO/ artist Jay-Z is noticeably missing.
Unfortunately, a few technical issues betray what could have been an even greater addition to the PlayStation library. Outside of the problematic camera angles at times, Icon also suffers from a handful of issues that hold the game back from being truly standout. Some items suffer from flicker, the destructible backgrounds and some of the customizable character items are particularly susceptible. Due to the rhythmic nature of the game, the fact that the game seems to run at a slow pace is emphasized. Combination moves never seem to move fast enough. Icon gets so much right and has such potential and innovation. As a PS3 launch window game, most of Icon’s issues seem like they are simple affairs that could have been ironed with just a little bit more development time. Hopefully, the next iteration of the franchise will have more time to get everything right.
If you are looking for a hip-hop themed version of Tekken or Street Fighter, you may be disappointed by Def Jam Icon. Icon is more than that though. If you can drop whatever preconceived notions you have of what a fighting or wrestling game is supposed to be like, you will find enjoyment from this innovative title. Icon has brilliant artistic values and a solid presentation, but a few technical issues hold Icon from shining as bright as it could have.
February 8, 2010
