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The Def Jam Trilogy Is Mortal Kombat With Rappers
Electronic Arts
Def Jam has put its fingers in everything from music to stand-up comedy, and they decided to dive right into video games as well. In the mid-2000s, the company released a trilogy of games: Def Jam Vendetta, Fight For NY, and Icon. Beginning as primarily a wrestling game set to rap music, things began to, uh, get loose from there.
Electronic Arts
Clearly ahead of its time, Def Jam let you break Macklemore's neck years before everybody on Earth wanted to.
All three games share effectively the same storyline. You're a street fighter in a world in which street fighters somehow find enough time in their day to make music and have stellar rap careers. After climbing to the top, you're betrayed and/or injured and forced to ... eh, it's not important. It's a video game about punching people in the face, only some of those people are rappers like Snoop Dogg, Method Man, Ghostface Killah, and, uh, Henry Rollins and Danny Trejo. Seriously, everybody short of retired U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman are in these damn games.
Def Jam Wrestling Wiki
The plot is one centaur Cumberbatch away from turning into Internet fan fiction.
In real life, Snoop's method of knocking out a dude usually involves Swishers. But in Vendetta, seamlessly kicking ass enables you to activate an embarrassing something called Blazin' Mode, a set of moves that look like 50 Cent hired a three-legged Rottweiler to develop his choreography. And in Fight for NY, you eventually wind up fighting while disguised as a billboard for brands such as Reebok or Air Jordan, because brand-based conflict of interest means nothing in this game.
Electronic Arts
Paying $35 for a Jordan throwback is easily the most unrealistic part of this whole series.
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