Def Jam: Icon – 360 – Preview


EA Chicago – Hands On Preview


Def Jam: Icon is the third Def Jam title which puts you in control of your
favorite rapper who fights against other stars of hip-hop. Kudo the
Executive Producer for Def Jam: Icon took a few minutes to talk about the
next Def Jam. This installment will be injecting the hip-hop lifestyle into
all of the core game play mechanics. Everything in the environment is
animating and pulsating to the beat of the music. Buildings in the
background and even rubbish bounce with each beat. As soon as the big beat
comes up, hazards like fire shoot out.

 

 

The level that I played was a gas station. When
you first start playing, the gas tanks are shown in the background. If you
throw someone into the gas tank, it breaks, and flames spout from the
ground. As mentioned earlier, if you know a big beat is coming, it would be
a good choice to throw your opponent over the broken gas tank so that they
are engulfed in fire for bigger damage. Another interactive element was the
brushes from the car wash. They came rolling out on the right side during
big beats. Finally, and this is something you only get from next generation
games, I could see people and activity inside the gas station. In fact, it
looked like someone was ready with a fire extinguisher.

 

A representative from Def Jam explained to me
that every detail in the game will be true to life, all the way down to the
sneakers that your character is wearing. During the tour of the EA Chicago
office, we were shown the face scanning technology. This is what they use to
make sure that artists featured in the game like Ludacris, T.I., and Big Boi,
look so real.


 

The final game will be available in March, 2007
for your Xbox 360 or PS3. There will be 10 stages and about 30 characters.
Not a big hip-hop fan? You can load up your own music, and the game will
have beat detection to find the beats from any song. I can only imagine how
funny this game would be with some smooth Barry Manilow playing. I know his
songs have some big beats. 🙂