Once you're in, you're given the opportunity to sculpt your character using the same type of sketch-artist system as the first game. Though The Takeover's storyline deviates from the original game's (it's actually supposed to be a prequel to the older Def Jam games, despite its liberal recycling of characters and situations from Fight for NY), you'll still play a nameless up-and-coming thug brought into the world of underground street fighting after rescuing one of the game's personalities from certain doom (in this case, Manny, the tattoo artist and fighter, rather than D-Mob, the gang boss from Fight for NY).

The clashes of these various personalities and characters occur primarily within the game's story mode. All told, there are 68 fighters available in the game, with a significant portion of those being real-life people. There's even a few celebrities from outside the confines of the hip-hop world, with actors like Omar Epps ( House, Dracula 2000), Danny Trejo ( Heat, Con Air), and Henry Rollins ( Heat, Jack Frost) all making appearances as playable fighters. Also, many of the brawlers are played by real-life hip-hop personalities, ranging from East Coasters like Busta Rhymes and Method Man to West Coast stars like Snoop Dogg and Xzibit to dirty South crew members like Ludacris and David Banner. Money is made and respect is earned by these various brawlers by duking it out in arenas across the five boroughs. Think of Def Jam like Battle of the Network Stars, but with rappers instead of low-rent TV celebrities, and actual battling instead of lame track and field events.įor those uninitiated into Def Jam's urban world, the basic premise of the series is that New York's underground is run by a series of street-fighting crews. But if you never got around to playing Fight for NY on consoles, you'll find that The Takeover is a great way to experience what you missed out on. It's certainly not because of new or original content, because this port is decidedly lacking in that area. Ultimately, it's because that original game was so great that The Takeover manages to fly. A weird mixture of wrestling, fighting, and hip-hop, Fight for NY was one of the big surprises of that year, providing a brutally enjoyable combat system and an oddly engaging character-customization system to go along with some great presentational components. The trend of old games getting new life on the PlayStation Portable rolls on unabated with Def Jam: Fight for NY: The Takeover, an updated version of 2004's Def Jam: Fight for NY.

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