"Blah, blah...Def Jam: Vendetta is not a wrestling game...blah, blah."
I'm sure we've all read or heard it somewhere. To those of you who believe that, have you ever heard this old proverb-"If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...it's a duck"? Believe me, I know wrestling when I see it, and Def Jam: Vendetta is the hip-hop injected rendition of the genre with a pinch of Fight Club
The deal with Vendetta is this: you're a no-name brawler in the underground, and you want to earn respect and move higher up the food chain. But, order to do so, you need to mow down over forty other fighters who are led by twelve Def Jam artists: Method Man, Redman, Ghostface Killah, NORE, Keith Murray, Ludaris, DMX, and others. Get past them, and have a shot at the leader of the underground circuit, D-Mob.
Gameplay
According to the games creators, Def Jam: Vendetta was not designed to play like "the competition," meaning the WWE Smackdown series, of course. In most cases, this claim does hold true, however the methods and variety in gameplay were not very well thought out.
In many ways, Vendetta scheme is much similar to that of its label mate NBA Street. Performing moves and combos racks up the points, but repetition can cut your gain significantly. The better you perform, the faster your "Blazin'" meter fills, and from there, you are able to perform your finishing maneuver. However, if your opponent is slapping you around, your meter will drop.
Of course, each fighter has a health bar, but their physical condition is more intricate than that. Here, there are health meters for the body, arm, leg, and head. When you focus your attack on one part of the body, the meter slowly decreases, and when it runs out, the fighter will submit. There is also a pin meter, which fills up while you are pinned. The more damage taken, the slower it fills.
In Vendetta, the moves the player executes is dependant on the grapple used: hard or soft. The grapple button is pressure-sensitive, so tapping it does a soft grapple and holding it does a hard one. But here lies a major gameplay flaw-in order to perform grapple moves, you have to get a hold of the opponent first, so you can't just bust out a move on the fly like in Smackdown. When facing any opponent, you are forced to get very close, if not touching, in order to perform a grapple because if you reach out and miss, you're screwed.
Here is the similarity between the Smackdown series and Vendetta--performing moves. In both games, pressing the directional and an action button executes various holds and strikes from the grapple position. However, Vendetta doesn't pack nearly as many moves as Smackdown, and gameplay can get really repetitive after a while, leaving a gamer wondering why so many characters have "this one move."
Speaking of moves, I can guess a real reason why people would want rush out to pick up this game is the false belief that there are a slew of off-the-wall, original moves. Don't be fooled however, because the only original maneuvers in Vendetta are the finishers. Every single move in the game is a textbook wrestling slam, strike, or lock-nothing you've never seen on any other wrestling game or television show. Another thing is that all of these moves have been renamed, so it's fitting for anyone who doesn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch. Unfortunately for EA, I do.
I can clearly see where EA tried to steer away from the wrestling genre. A knock-out system has been implemented, so if you bludgeon your opponent badly enough, you can knock him or her out as opposed to a pin or submission. Personally, I think it works, being Vendetta isn't a wrestling game, and all, but it would have been nice to have an option somewhere where you can turn it off. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes to administer long butt-whoopins before finally defeating an opponent. It's not fun having your matches end before you want them too, but this apparently is what the creators wanted. The developers felt that in "other games," the matches were too long and drawn out, so they decided to make the matches a bit thinner.
Def Jam: Vendetta is lacking in yet another valuable aspect of wrestling games: modes of play. The most disappointing of these modes is undoubtedly the story mode. Usually, in any "fighting" game, or any game, where there is a large roster of characters, a player can take on anyone through the story. Not here. Out of forty-four possible fighters, a player can choose from only four characters.
If you've played NBA Street at any point of your life, you'll recognize the story mode bracket format. You go through a group of competitors before you meet a boss character, whom of which is always a Def Jam artist. In story mode, everyone you beat will automatically unlock, and when a boss is defeated, he and his ring will be available through the other modes. Keep going up the ladder until you meet D-Mob, the underground kingpin.
Winning is everything, and you get paid for each win. The money you earn can go towards your characters attributes, such as power, speed, stamina, etc. If you'd rather spend it on pictures in the gallery of hip-hop honeys, then go right ahead.
As opposed to the story mode, there are a few others as well: The battle mode is simple: you pick one fighter and run the gauntlet against everyone you've unlocked through the story mode. You just keep going until you lose, and try to have your name immortalized on the "roll call." Free-for-all, which is nothing more than any match with more than two fighters in the ring at once. The last fighter on his or her feet is the winner. Pretty lame, being the most you can have in the ring at one time is four. Survival mode is you against two or three others, and tag Team is just that, a two-on-two match.
No, I didn't miss one. There is no create-a-character mode. Thatdefinitely cost a point or two.
In the gameplay department, Vendetta has some serious issues to work out. There are a few concepts that work out great, but it really needs polishing.
Graphics, Animation, and Sound
Now that I've cleared the grime, let's get into to the goodness. The graphics in Vendetta are very clean and smooth. Each brawler is well represented in this game, and their voice-overs are excellent. This goes double for the rap stars; anyone who knows the music can easily tell who's who. Though some of their physical statures are slightly exaggerated, their transformation into the digital world was a successful one.
The sounds are probably Vendetta's highest aspect. Everything from the in-ring sounds to the music is totally on point. The sounds, in conjunction with the smoothness of the animation, make every move look and sounds ultra-aggressive, especially when you pull off finishers. Believe me, once you pull off a few, you'll want to hold the back of your neck in empathy.
The music soundtrack is laced with some of the hottest tracks the Def Jam label has to offer. Each rapper who appears in the game has a song or two, and their song always plays when you face them in story mode. I talk to my games, and usually I'm trash-talking when I'm playing a wrestling title, but the tunes are so catchy, I often catch myself rapping the lyrics over the instrumental. Call me crazy.
The awesome sound and look of Vendetta is some of the best I've ever heard or seen of any video game. If it were the most important aspect in gaming, this one would have had it made.
Replay Value
Now, it's time to once again dwell on the negative.
For once, I'm tempted to just leave this section of the review totally blank. As far as replay value is concerned, Def Jam: Vendetta has absolutely none. Zilch. Once you run through the story mode with the four playable characters, that pretty much ends it. Sure, you can play the other modes (the few that there are), and you can continue to earn money, but what will it all be once you max out those four characters? Exactly nothing, which leads to another dust collector.
My overall assessment of Def Jam: Vendetta is simply this: it's well worth a rental, but nowhere near worth its fifty dollar price tag. I seriously hope the sequel is more refined than this title. It had so much potential and hype, but its lack replay value slams this title to the mat.
