Def Jam: Icon Member Review for the Xbox360

You may enjoy Def Jam Icon at first.  But trust me, it's an illusion.  When I first started it up, I had good feelings about the game: the menus were stylishly simplistic, the create-a-character system was incredibly deep, and the story was good enough.

Actually playing the game at first wasn't bad, simply because it was so easy you didn't actually need to know what you were doing.  You can just mash on buttons.  And that's fine, until when the game actually gets difficult.  I don't take issue with needing a lot of time to get used to controls, but this game doesn't do a thing to teach you the mechanics, nor is the booklet any help.  This wouldn't be a problem if this was a pick-up-and-play game, but it most certainly isn't.  The controls have complex analog patterns that unleash certain moves, and once the difficulty ramps up, this game is nigh impossible.  Now, despite my hatred for it, I pushed through to the end, and the story is one of two reasons I'm giving this game a D+.

The story is good, if a little cheesy at times, but for a fighter, it's perfectly acceptable and quite compelling.  One thing that helps drive the interesting story along is the graphics.  The graphics are possibly the best I have ever seen on a fighting game.  Unfortunately, graphics don't drive an entire game, and that's why I'm so disappointed.  This studio made Fight Night Round 3.  They definitely know how to make a fighting game.  So why is this such a disaster?  The music is popular and licensed, the graphics and story are great--why does this game suck so hard?

The answer is, of course, it's no fun to play.  The controls are such a chore when the difficulty ramps up, you'll want to throw your controller.  This is just unacceptable from a studio of this calibur.

If you are in desperate need of a fighter with a good story, then you could go with this--if you don't mind that everything else about it sucks.