Richard Bailey of The Koalition writes:
To kickoff our special gaming edition of Throwback Thursday this week, the game we chose to spotlight is the popular hip-hop stylized wrestling game titled Def Jam Vendetta.
Developed by the world renown AKI Corporation and published exclusively under the EA Sports BIG label, Def Jam Vendetta was a game that took popular Def Jam artists and pitted them against each other in the squared circle. The game featured over 45 unique characters along with 12 notable hip-hop personalities. Several of the artists included in the game were Capone, DMX, Ghostface Killah, Joe Budden, Ludacris, Method Man, and Redman.
It's been two decades since Def Jam Vendetta came out and it's just wild that we've had so little new Def Jam since.
I miss this franchise. This and Fight For NY are truly amazing wrestling games.
The Def Jam game series has been laying dormant for over a decade at this point, but could we ever see a revival of some kind?
Whut
Fight for New York was awesome.
Icon was pretty bad, but I'll give them some benefit because they tried to do something new. A direct sequel to FFNY would be grand, though in the era of microtransactions and EA being who they are now, one should tread carefully about that fantasy.
I hear you, but the rappers nowadays are completely lame and corny when compared to the rappers from FFNY.
I rather take a remake from the game than a sequel.
You'll get no disagreement from me there.
For some reason, I hadn't considered that there would be modern rappers. Christ.
On the other hand, I wouldn't be mad if they added more Wutang members so I can "torture" Tekashi69. :D
we definitely need it to return, but nothing like Icon since that was trash. The mechanics of Def Jam fight for NY and Vendetta was still great til this day.
I hope so. Just go back to the Fight for New York style, and forget Icon ever happened.
Man I used to really love DJ Fight for NY and DJ Icon back in the day. I hope someone (not EA) can revive this franchise.
Icon sucks, I admit. But I used to love the DJ games so much that I was willing to accept any game thrown in my way.
Gary Swaby at TheKoalition.com writes:
"EA released Def Jam: Vendetta back in 2003 and had some of the biggest hip hop stars of that era featured in a gritty brawler. My favorite in the series, Def Jam: Fight for NY released a year later in 2004. Not only did they have Hip Hop megastars such as Method Man, Redman, Snoop Dogg, and DMX but there were also upcoming talents such as Joe Budden; who was a rookie in the rap game at the time. Even though the game was endorsed by Def Jam, it also featured a number of talents that weren’t exactly part of the Def Jam roster at the time.
While reminiscing about how dope these games were—minus Def Jam Icon—I got thinking which rappers would be included in a 2021 roster for Def Jam Vendetta. Def Jam is currently teasing some kind of game announcement, so who knows, this could very well become a reality."
I never actually owned Vendetta, but I loved the follow up..Fight for NY.
Cousin and I played so much of this game back in the day.
I miss childhood . . .
man i missed this game...had so much fun playing this with my brother
Wow! I wore out this game. Thanks for bringing back the good memories.