I'll say it again: whoever at EA came up with the idea to make a wrestling game starring some of hip-hop's most flamboyant personalities must have been crazy. Apparently, however, the idea was just crazy enough to work. Now in its second iteration, the Def Jam wrestling games continue to defy logic. Given how well received its predecessor was, it's not really surprising that Def Jam: Fight for NY turned out as well as it did. What is surprising, however, is just how much more was packed into this sequel. EA didn't settle for a half-assed roster update. What we have here is a game that is substantially more robust than its predecessor in pretty much every conceivable way, and not to mention a game that is as fun as all hell in its own right.

Words from the Nutcracker

The reason why Fight for NY earned an M rating will become readily apparent the first time you fight. And there are a multitude of them. Straight up, the fighting in this game is insanely violent. The sound effects accompanying the moves are harsh and explosive, and the animations are completely over the top. That said, you'll be hard pressed to find a fighting game with a more satisfying sense of impact. If you're in the slightest sense sadistic, you'll likely get more than a few kicks out of the outlandish way that the violence is rendered.

When it comes down to it, though, Fight for NY is, at its core, a wrestling game. Of the five fighting styles available, there are three that aren't ostensibly centered around grappling: street fighting, martial arts, and kickboxing. But the differences between these and the grappling-based styles -- e.g., wrestling and submissions -- feel mostly cosmetic. Kickboxing looks like kickboxing, without a doubt, and if you develop your character the right way, your kicks are going to do crazy damage; good luck knocking an opponent out using nothing but strikes. Intrigued by the possibility of kicking and punching my way through game, I had my story mode character learn all three of the striker styles. Much to my disappointment, however, I never really felt like I could win a match without resorting to heavy grappling. Quite the opposite, in fact. Just like in pretty much every wrestling game before it, strikes are merely a way of buttering your opponents up before putting them down with a heavy, and preferably flamboyant slam.

Crazy Legs also gots a crazy face. Don't step.

Not to take anything away from the fight system, though. Taken on its own merits, it's fun as hell to wreck the bodies of opponents, and the myriad ways in which you can do this are staggering. In the story mode, pretty much all of the different venues will have elements that you can use to help you inflict bodily harm upon your opponents more efficiently. Sometimes members of the crowd will throw in weapons; other times, they'll hold fighters who get too close to them in order to facilitate their beating. Others still will have objects onto which you can smash your opponents' faces -- parked Escalades, and concrete columns, for instance. The most gruesome example of this takes place on the platform of New York City's 125th Street Subway station in Harlem. In this one, the train runs through the level every minute or so, and if you can manage to have your opponent's body on the tracks when this happens ... well, you can imagine the result. Anyway, most of the abovementioned scenarios have play modes built around them outside of the story mode, which does good things for the longevity of the game, especially when it comes to multiplayer.