Once the fighting begins you can visit the barber shop for crazy haircuts and dyes, the tattoo parlor for some ink, the jewelry dealer to bling up, or the local clothing store to pick through a massive assortment of threads.
It starts with several combinations of facial features, a choice of skin and hair color, and a trash talkin’ voice. From bottles to tire irons, the weapons created that advantage you needed to come back from dear death or deliver the final blow.Ĭustomization – For its time, Fight for New York‘s customization was nothing short of immense. To top it all off there were literally dozens of weapons you could grab from the crowd. The game featured five main fighting styles, and any two could be combined into an all new style. It appealed to fans of wrestling games, fans of street brawlers, heck, even those you just want to beat up a buddy and trash talk. Sometimes you just feel the need to reach out and punch someone.ĭeadly combat – Man, oh man, this game had some of the best brawling of its time. Everyone at least wants the option of taking on friends over Xbox Live, even if they’re not a major online gamer. Today there’s no excuse for leaving it out. Even the original Xbox didn’t have as many online-compatible games per release. Online play – Last generation online play was largely ignored on consoles.
Maybe adding the arenas and characters from Vendetta would put the game over the 2GB limit–if so then they could be offered as DLC. On the flipside Vendetta had new arenas and four silent protagonists to choose from. The character who gets tackled has the ability to gather sand and throw it in the attacker’s face. Cutting fluff and compressing the rest could easily bring the game to 1.8GB or less.įeatures from Vendetta and The Takeover – The Takeover features a few new gameplay mechanics, such as being able to tackle a downed foe and attack them. The movies for the game clock in at 150MB themselves, and only one would be required to truly keep the game intact, the rest are game logos (which can be converted to static images) and ads for movies of the time. It’s very common for compression to cut 30-50% from a file’s size.
No, there’s only one in the series that could truly make a comeback.Ĭompression, compression, compression – The original Xbox version of the game clocks in at around 2.8GB, but it doesn’t use any sort of compression. Finally Icon, the only current-gen title, was absolutely horrible, taking fighting far beyond over-the-top to a point where it’s comically awful.
The PSP version of New York, subtitled The Takeover, had a few new gameplay elements but removed all voiceovers. Vendetta, the first game in the series, was great, but didn’t have the features New York first exhibited. Of the four Def Jam fighting games it stands head and shoulders above its peers.
The list of great beat em’ ups is a mile long, but one stands out as a great candidate for re-release on Xbox Live Arcade: Def Jam Fight for New York. There’s nothing like delivering some blows to a virtual bad guy to calm a rough day.