Def Jam: Fight For New York
Okay!
I've now put in about 5-6 hours with DJ:FFNY (PS2 version). I tried this game since several online reviews of Urban Reign say I should play this instead. The short version: I instantly didn't like it, but I gave it many hours to improve. It DID in fact improve. I had much more fun with the game during my closing hour or two, once I had learned how reversals and other complexities worked. But it still wasn't really fun.
The long version:
DJ:FFNY is a very stiff wrestling-based fight game. I say wrestling-based since most of the really damaging moves are grapples. I say stiff because the controls don't have the fluidity I have come to love in Namco fighting games.
Character animations during the fights are silly and clownlike. It seems odd to me that a game with an "M" rating and the important four-letter words in it would do this. The animations limit the game's ability to live up to its "hardcore" street image.
The health bar is weird: emptying your opponent's health bar does NOT knock him out. It is a two-tiered health bar: there's the max health, and the current health. Each hit knocks about half the inflicted damage off the max health. The only way to score a KO is to do a special move while your opponent is in the "danger" zone, which is about the last centimeter of the health bar. So you beat on your opponent until he's in danger, then try to get in a team grapple with the crowd, use a weapon, a signature move, or a Blazin' move. This just feels wrong to me, though I did get used to it.
Blazin' moves. Hmm, where to start. Over time, if you stay in a fight and don't run around, your momentum meter fills. When it's full you wiggle the right stick, and you go into Blazin' mode. Grapple your opponent, and hit the right stick in a direction to select one of 4 Blazin' moves. These are 15 second long choreographed attacks that cannot be stopped once started. Three things suck about Blazin' moves. When you first go into Blazin' mode, the whole fight stops for your dude to yell (unless you're playing multiplayer); it stops for about 3-4 seconds. Second, once you start the move, there's nothing for you to do but wait. Third, for them to have maximum impact for the player, controller rumble is almost exclusively reserved for these; the rest of the fight feels "light" due to the lack of rumble feedback in the controller.
Okay, I was starting to have a bit of fun with the game, when the 2v2 team fights showed up. Eesh. Once player A and C are in a grapple, players B and D cannot touch them. It feels more like 2 simultaneous 1v1 fights, where the people involved can switch periodically. There are none of the elegant teamwork mechanics that can be found in Urban Reign. Yes, there's a double-team grapple, but it's hard to execute, and just feels like another scripted animation.
After several of these 2v2 fights, I gave up on the game, as it just isn't fun. I feel there are rules governing the fight, which seems silly given it is supposed to be a no-holds-barred street fight.
Oh yeah. There's a load of licensed music, real rappers playing characters in a well-voiced but rather silly story, and other general EA Games features. None of that can save the game since the basic fighting engine is weak. The fighting is complex enough, it just isn't fun.
Not Recommended. 2 1/2 stars out of 5.
I've now put in about 5-6 hours with DJ:FFNY (PS2 version). I tried this game since several online reviews of Urban Reign say I should play this instead. The short version: I instantly didn't like it, but I gave it many hours to improve. It DID in fact improve. I had much more fun with the game during my closing hour or two, once I had learned how reversals and other complexities worked. But it still wasn't really fun.
The long version:
DJ:FFNY is a very stiff wrestling-based fight game. I say wrestling-based since most of the really damaging moves are grapples. I say stiff because the controls don't have the fluidity I have come to love in Namco fighting games.
Character animations during the fights are silly and clownlike. It seems odd to me that a game with an "M" rating and the important four-letter words in it would do this. The animations limit the game's ability to live up to its "hardcore" street image.
The health bar is weird: emptying your opponent's health bar does NOT knock him out. It is a two-tiered health bar: there's the max health, and the current health. Each hit knocks about half the inflicted damage off the max health. The only way to score a KO is to do a special move while your opponent is in the "danger" zone, which is about the last centimeter of the health bar. So you beat on your opponent until he's in danger, then try to get in a team grapple with the crowd, use a weapon, a signature move, or a Blazin' move. This just feels wrong to me, though I did get used to it.
Blazin' moves. Hmm, where to start. Over time, if you stay in a fight and don't run around, your momentum meter fills. When it's full you wiggle the right stick, and you go into Blazin' mode. Grapple your opponent, and hit the right stick in a direction to select one of 4 Blazin' moves. These are 15 second long choreographed attacks that cannot be stopped once started. Three things suck about Blazin' moves. When you first go into Blazin' mode, the whole fight stops for your dude to yell (unless you're playing multiplayer); it stops for about 3-4 seconds. Second, once you start the move, there's nothing for you to do but wait. Third, for them to have maximum impact for the player, controller rumble is almost exclusively reserved for these; the rest of the fight feels "light" due to the lack of rumble feedback in the controller.
Okay, I was starting to have a bit of fun with the game, when the 2v2 team fights showed up. Eesh. Once player A and C are in a grapple, players B and D cannot touch them. It feels more like 2 simultaneous 1v1 fights, where the people involved can switch periodically. There are none of the elegant teamwork mechanics that can be found in Urban Reign. Yes, there's a double-team grapple, but it's hard to execute, and just feels like another scripted animation.
After several of these 2v2 fights, I gave up on the game, as it just isn't fun. I feel there are rules governing the fight, which seems silly given it is supposed to be a no-holds-barred street fight.
Oh yeah. There's a load of licensed music, real rappers playing characters in a well-voiced but rather silly story, and other general EA Games features. None of that can save the game since the basic fighting engine is weak. The fighting is complex enough, it just isn't fun.
Not Recommended. 2 1/2 stars out of 5.
posted by Almo at 3:37 PM
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