Electronic Arts jumps back into the wrestling game market with Def Jam Vendetta, teaming up with legendary wrestling game developer AKI to deliver a moderately successful and unique endeavor that seems a little too early out of the oven. In Def Jam Vendetta players take on the role of a former NYC underground street circuit fighter who was forced to retire. But when an old friend (Manny) sends you a text message on your beeper asking for help because of an ever increasing debt to underground fight heavy D-Mob (who just happens to be the toughest fighter in the league and the man that takes over the payments on your old lady) you decide to help him out. Thus begins a series of battles that shapes into a fight for your old girlfriend and your honor in the dangerous underbelly of the fight scene.

Developed by both AKI and EA Big, Def Jam Vendetta does a great job of melding Gangsta Rap flavor with a solid wrestling game engine that offers all the flash, bang and sizzle you expect from AKI (who most notable endeavors include No Mercy and a series of other fine wrestling games for the Nintendo 64). At the heart of AKI's new game is an engine that offers the familiar moves and grapple systems (tap and hold grapple systems, counters and special moves) combined with new animations that turn ordinary wrestling moves into ultra violent attacks that would kill an ordinary man. The system utilizes AKI's tap and hold grapple system, which means that weak grapples do weak moves but holding the button down results in more powerful moves. Anyone that has played any of AKI's previous endeavors will easily pick up the gameplay mechanics in a matter of minutes. DJV offers the usual kinds of moves you'd expect in a wrestling game like pile drivers, body slams, power bombs, clotheslines, running grapples, and even a few signature moves that were "borrowed" from certain superstars). The game has renamed these moves to match the flavor of the game's theme but it's the usual suspects with a dash of adrenaline and flashy animations to make them come off as more violent. Tie it up with a faster paced game engine and a decent counter system and you come up with a game play system that is nearly flawless. AKI also added visual indicators for submission moves so that when you attack a certain body part you know how much damage you've done. While the visual aspect of it is there now, the system was already in place before. AKI did omit location based visuals on models (i.e. making characters visibly limp or hold their arms) for some reason, but we're not completely sure why (perhaps to make room for other multimedia content).

Basically the story mode part of the game follows the aforementioned story that we laid out in the first paragraph. Each time you apply a move to your opponent you are given points that are converted to cash at the end of the match. Players can use this cash to upgrade character stats that can give them more defensive and offensive strength, make them faster, upgrade their grappling skills and give them more charisma (which will help get the crowd behind them). Ultimately, you'll need to upgrade your character on a regular basis if you want to survive the latter matches in the game. Exhibition mode also offers cash rewards after each match which can be applied to a pool to be used on the four characters that you can use through story mode. The advantage to this is that you can exit the story mode, play a bunch of exhibition matches and return with lots of extra cash to upgrade - very handy if you're having a particularly tough time in a certain match.

Story mode is primarily used to unlock additional outfits, players and five girlfriends that are a little too good at fighting and a little too hot to be considered "marrying material" (coming home late to one of these girls with out a valid excuse could lead to an extremely violent beat down.) Players can also unlock or buy a gallery for each girlfriend that isn't hard on the eyes. What purpose this has beyond getting teenage boys excited is beyond me, but I'm not going to complain because I'm married and I can say "I'm just playing a game".

The Exhibition mode offering is pretty sparse but what's there is a lot of fun. DJV features single player, Handicap, Free-For-All and Tag. There's also a fifth mode called "Vendetta" which is a stripped down version of story mode where you face an onslaught of matches without the benefit of cutscenes or the ability to spend any earnings on character development. The major plus to this mode is that the payoff at the end is usually pretty huge.

The most important thing to note about DJV is the game's main focus - the artists from Def Jam Records that appear in the game. Artists like Redman, Ludacris, DMX, Funkmaster Flex (who does the commentary in the game), Capone, Ghost Face Killa, and many others. DJV also features a number of fictional characters including a clown, a priest, a big Russian, a muscular Spaniard, a hip-hopped white guy, a pimp, a redneck, and a number of other appealing and colorful characters - a good 80 percent of them are locked at the beginning of the game giving players a good incentive to play the story mode through multiple times. DJV also features a lot of Def Jam Records artists' music including Onyx, DMX, Public Enemy, Redman, N.O.R.E (also featured as a character in the game) and many others. The jams are always playing both while you're in action and when you're making menu selections. The synergy between the game's engine, the characters and music is perfect, melding together to create a great atmosphere.

DJV offers a lot of different venues to fight in, including a nightclub, a junkyard, a dojo, a bridge underpass in the slums and a swanky and brightly lit fight club run by Def Jam. The venues are decent looking and AKI and EA Big did a great job of making the crowd look a lot more realistic then in some of AKI's previous games. The crowd is still partially 2D but near ring side they use some trickery to make them look more realistic. Overall the presentation comes off as realistically as it can considering that most matches take place in and around the grimy underbelly of an inner city fight promotion.

DJV does have a number of shortcomings that have to be noted, chief among them being the lack of actual game modes. You get singles, tag, handicap (3 on 1), battle royal and a mode that throws you into match after match until you are defeated or defeat everyone - it's a lot like story mode except that you don't have access to the "between match screen" and you don't have to deal with any story or cut scenes. While these modes are cool, the game really needs more. There's no hardcore mode, cage matches, ladder matches, six-man tag, 40 man battle royal (ala Royal Rumble style play) or even the ability to play tornado tag style in tag matches. You can kind of understand why these modes aren't in there - it's not technically supposed to be a traditional fighting game like AKI's previous endeavors. Perhaps EA Big and AKI should have taken some extra time to add some new and unique modes that would mix well with the game's style and didn't compromise the overall design they were shooting for.

My final gripe with DJV is that the storyline is very linear, offers no plot paths and is the same no matter what character you play. You can only play four chracters in that mode - you can't play any of the guys that you'll unlock as you plow through story mode, which is a real shame because it would have added a little longevity for players that have breezed through story mode. A Create-A-Wrestler mode would have been nice - fans would have been willing to give up the lovely pictures of all the models in the game and some of the less popular music tracks to have access to a robust character creation system.

Putting these complaints aside, there's no denying that DJV is an awesome game with a lot of flash, charisma, style and action. AKI has done a grand job of creating a game engine that (I hope) will evolve into the foundation for a formidable and robust franchise. This first iteration of the engine is great but there's room for improvement. DJV is a must buy for fight/wrestling game fans even though it's missing a few important features and game modes that are a staple of the wrestling/fighting game genre.