[Vyse]

With Def Jam Vendetta turning 20 later this year and 2024 marking two decades since Def Jam: Fight for NY released, I wanted to ask have you also played either of these games back in the day? I used to play Def Jam: Fight for NY all the time on the PS2. I gave the PSP version a try as well which is actually a prequel to Vendetta but plays like an enhanced version of Fight for NY. The ability to mix different fighting styles together with my custom fighter and use blazin' super moves was a lot of fun. You could also use the environment to damage your opponent. With more than 70 fighters to choose from, there was a lot of replay value in creating different custom matches.



You could also hook up with Kimora Lee Simmons (or other women like Carmen Electra).



The game had a great licensed soundtrack too. Pretty much all of the music you could bump your head to and was utilized well throughout the story, whether getting you hyped for a fight or cooling down afterwards. And a really cool use mixing different instrumentals in the loading screens. Overall, I remember the game wasn't very difficult - kind of like the THPS of fighting games, if that makes sense - but nonetheless I really enjoyed my time with it. Of course this was back when EA and other publishers were still putting out great, meaty games for consoles and handhelds.

 

[Rock And Roll]

Yeah they were both pretty good games. I haven't played them in forever but Vendetta felt a bit more like a wrestling game while FFNY felt like a brawler if memory serves. I'm sure the soundtrack/licensing and roster make a modern port a logistical nightmare so I doubt we'll ever see them re-released. I also think the games and music industry have shifted so far away from what made these possible in the first place that we won't ever see another Def Jam game.

 

[Vyse]

I only played the demo for Vendetta and don't remember too much about it. Fight for NY definitely was fleshed-out and packed with content. Funny quips by Redman too. But it's way too late for a remaster at this point. Like you said, a lot has changed with games and music.

 

[ExpandKong]

Was Icon any good?

 

[Vyse]

Was Icon any good?

Good hype music, disappointing fighting. Not that it doesn't do anything unique with its combat, because it does (timing critical hits to the bass in the instrumental) but it's really bare-bones and sluggish.

Also, way less fighters and stages compared to the first two games. I think the stages were originally going to have transitions too (kind of like Injustice) but in the final game you're boxed in.

 

[Arkam]

Good hype music, disappointing fighting. Not that it doesn't do anything unique with its combat, because it does (timing critical hits to the bass in the instrumental) but it's really bare-bones and sluggish.

Also, way less fighters and stages compared to the first two games. I think the stages were originally going to have transitions too (kind of like Injustice) but in the final game you're boxed in.

I actually worked on Icon, that's a pretty accurate assessment. Fighting was meh.

My favorite parts were the UI (loved the cool tones of white black and blue) and the story. Not the actual story as it was bland, but the fact that a major element of it was to nail women. It's been so many years that my memory is hazy, but I believe by default you sleep with the two black girls, and you had to win a certain fight to unlock the blonde white girl. Each would show up to your apartment in sexy little outfits to do the deed.

In fact this game was so subpar, it led to the demise of EA Chicago. Crazy how we went from the success of Fight Night Rd3 to the failure of Icon.

Spoiler: Story spoiler

I also love how we had your character shot in the face 2/3 the way through and forced you to essentially create a new one

 

[cryptoadam]

Scratched that AKI itch after No Mercy.

My cousin worked at EA back then so I got the whole series for free (and a bunch of other BIG games).

 

[Vyse]

One inspiration for this thread was that I had found out this song by 2Pac was apparently cut from Fight for NY.



It would have been amazing to hear in the game. He is easily my favorite rap artist growing up.

Some other songs that were cut:

 

[Vyse]

Don Mattrick hates guns!

Article:

These days, Def Jam Vendetta – which launched in North America 20 years ago this weekend – is remembered as one of the more interesting takes on the wrestling game genre.

The game, which was an international collaboration between the Japanese developer AKI Corp and EA Canada, played similarly to previous AKI-engine titles like No Mercy and WCW/nWo Revenge, but combined this established formula with the Def Jam license and a dramatic story mode that had you competing in an urban fighting league.

We spoke to two former EA developers who worked on Def Jam Vendetta for another article, and while chatting to them, they told us an interesting tidbit about the game's development which we felt was worth sharing.

Shortly before Def Jam Vendetta was ready to go to manufacture, EA Canada executive Don Mattrick put pressure on the team to alter the game's ending due to a scene involving villain D Mob (voiced by Christopher Judge) shooting another character. This led to a tense standoff between the development team at EA and the senior figure over the game's creative vision.

Def Jam Vendetta art director Daryl Anselmo tells us:

We were less than a week from manufacture and it went through this executive review and we showed our trailer. There was a scene in it where D Mob, the final character, pulls a gun out and threatens Manny with it, like 'I'm going to shoot you', and for a set of 20-something guys who grew up on hip hop, it was not that big of a deal.

It was just that guns were a thing in hip hop culture and we had a scene with a character who pulls a gun and it added a lot of drama [...]. But Don said, 'Thank you so much for putting a gun in my f*****g game.' I was like 'Uhhhh, they don't pay me enough to battle with Don', so I'm going to back into the corner now and listen to him and Josh go at it.

And go at it they did. As EA producer and designer Josh Holmes recalls,

Don was adamant that there could be no gun in the game and wanted us to replace it with a knife or a lead pipe or a baseball bat. I was on the verge of losing my sh*t because we were under deadline and none of those ideas made any sense.

Stanley Chow was the reasonable one (he was my boss at the time) and was trying to be diplomatic but then Don said, 'There are no guns in hip hop' and I absolutely lost it.

According to Anselmo, the next few days were stressful for the team, but eventually, Def Jam Vendetta ended up going to manufacture. And as you may know from playing the game today, the ending survived without any alterations – thanks in part to Stanley Chow, who helped smooth things over between the two parties.

Funnily enough, when Def Jam Vendetta was eventually released, there was also almost no controversy surrounding this particular scene, with most people agreeing with the developers that it was meant to villainize D Mob, not glamorize gun violence.

We reached out to Don Mattrick for this article to try and find out more about what his objections actually were, but we sadly never heard back.

Source: https://www.timeextension.com/features/there-are-no-guns-in-hip-hop-the-fight-to-save-def-jam-vendettas-ending

 

[Vyse]

YOOOOOOOOOOOOO! This is cool.

 

[Arkam]

YOOOOOOOOOOOOO! This is cool.

Frank Gibeau...

 

[Vyse]

Hey @Arkam are you able to comment on this project? I love the new UI design and the two stages look interesting conceptually, given Icon's unique gimmick. It would have been really interesting to play a sequel that incorporated the stage transitions first teased in the Game Informer cover story. The character select also looks a little reminiscent of the "fight poster" loading screen from Fight for NY.

 

[Arkam]

Hey @Arkam are you able to comment on this project? I love the new UI design and the two stages look interesting conceptually, given Icon's unique gimmick. It would have been really interesting to play a sequel that incorporated the stage transitions first teased in the Game Informer cover story. The character select also looks a little reminiscent of the "fight poster" loading screen from Fight for NY.

I am going to be 100% honest, this the first I am seeing/hearing that. Icon was never really expected to get a sequel. We did the PS3 port of Fight Night Round 3 while Icon was still in Alpha, then moved over after FN shipped (I worked on the online components of both). We had fairly low expectations for Icon's sales since it was such a departure from the earlier games. But EA Chicago GM Kudo Tsunoda really believed in it.... and he was wrong. It flopped. EA Chicago laid everyone off and shut down a few <6 months after we shipped Icon. We all saw this coming a few months before.

So this prototype of a sequel had do have been done in a just a few months with a very small group. Probably in parallel to submitting to 1st party. By that time all the designers and gameplay engineers were not really working on the game any more. Just a couple to fix bugs found during submissions.

As for the UI here, I much prefer the clam negative space of Icon. I am very biased, cuz after working on FN3 (which had orange screens that 'shook') it was calming and didnt cause headaches when staring at it for hours on end. I also thought it gave Icon a clean. modern "gen 3" feel (Note: EA counted generations starting with the OG PlayStation). This prototype has a dingy brown feel that doesn't seem like a sequel to Icon should have had. But then considering how early it was it was probably hobbled together from old DJ games just to not have a blank screen.