“Def Jam Fight For NY” is a Playstation 2 title that changed my life! I don’t say that just because of the gameplay which, let’s be honest, is pretty violent, and the game doesn’t even have blood explosions, rolling heads or stuff like that, but because it is a very realistic violence, but anyway, That’s not why the game impressed me so much (although for a teenager this is already enough haha), but for the presence of big names in music, more precisely rappers like Snoop Dogg, Method Man, Redman, Erick Sermon, Ghostface Killah, Slick Rick, Flava Flav, among other legends.
The presence of such iconic personalities for a culture as rich as Hip-Hop was something I had never witnessed, for hours of gameplay I sometimes forgot it was a fighting game, I kept hearing the music, recognizing or even meeting artists (Bless and Lil Flip, I didn’t know you before) it was such an amazing experience that I can humbly say, or not so humble, that I became an amazing player (not humble at all really) of this title, I beat everyone who dared to challenge me in the video stores and I was always “training” for future duels.
The game had a very good story, with twists and turns, choices and several possibilities of character customization, I did not mind playing several times the same thing but always creating other rappers who were not in the game as Tupac, Biggie, ODB, Eminem … this universe that also had characters from outside the Hip-Hop music as Sean Paul, Crazy Legs and Danny Trejo, these personalities left the game increasingly immersive and the relationship of my character with them was very real to me.
Being a fighting game, Def Jam did very well when it came to combat, there were several possibilities of combos and special moves, physical skill training, different arenas and 1×1, 2×2 and up to 4 character combat modes in a Free-For-All.
What some people don’t know is that the game is named after a major record label, Def Jam Records, created in 1984 by visionaries Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons. Since its founding, Def Jam has bet on artists and diverse branches of culture, such as the Def Comedy Jam program, a great icon for Stand-Up Comedy culture in the United States, this kind of innovation has made the company one of the biggest in the world’s cultural industry and, through its game, has made several people, like me, get to know more musicians and consume even more Hip-Hop culture.
I usually say that Def Jam is, above all, a music game, from the loading screens to the references that the characters played by the rappers presented during combat or provocations, the game served as a fun, and violent, way to transform stars from one universe, into stars from another universe, before, Method Man was a great rapper, but in Def Jam Fight For NY, he plays Blaze, the great companion of the protagonist.
The game’s advertisement is also very focused on the musical part, the trend of trailers that use rhythm as a tool to make the experience more dynamic was already explored in the Def Jam campaign in 2004, the advertisements used songs from the artists themselves who had their musical and acting skills explored during the title.
I could extend this text too much, after all, this game has a great importance in my life, today I can say that I met a new universe through it, Hip-Hop culture lives in the lyrics, in the people and, because of Def Jam, it also lives in the games! If you like fighting games, play Def Jam Fight For NY, because I know that if you like Hip-Hop, you have already played it!
