A Player's Guide to the Xbox Classic 'Def Jam: Fight for New York'.

Even though 'Def Jam: Icon' has already been released for the next-gen systems, I wanted to take a look back at Def Jam's predecessor, 'Fight For New York'. I know that there are probably quite a few people out there that have already played and defeated the game with its eighty-plus amount of matches, but I wanted to give a beginner's guide to the game for those who have not discovered this little gem yet, and as I feel this was one of the best games that Def Jam has created for its franchise in the video game world, I only thought it proper to give it its due.

For those of you who are not familiar with FFNY, it is the second installment to the popular game, 'Def Jam: Vendetta', where you were responsible for attempting to send criminal boss and fight club coordinator, D-Mob, back to prison and take back the streets. In this second installment, we find D-Mob on his way to prison, where he is mysteriously set free by a lone 'stray', which is the player that you control, and your sole duty in the game is to help D-Mob take back the streets of New York and keep his fight clubs out of the hands of his rival, the villianous Crow (*voiced by rap star Snoop Dogg). As is stated above, there are about between eighty and ninety fights that you will have to endure, and each time that you take on an opponent, you have to actually think about how you train, how you dress, even how you keep the crowd on your side during a match that will ensure your victory. Now, for a fighting game, I found this to be a very intriguing twist on the genre, as it was a fighting game where you actually had to think about what you are doing.

But before this looks more like a review rather than an actual strategy guide, let me get into the tips and tricks that are going to help you:

1) First and foremost...save every time that you complete a match. Just because there is an autosave feature on the game does not mean that it will be there the next time. Just when I had thought that I had saved a few times, I had actually lost lots of time and had to redo several matches before I ended up at my last save point.

2) Always get to know your opponents. In each club, there can be as little as one opponent that you will have to fight, where as some have up to four or five in each club before you have actually have that club added to D-Mob's empire. There are some that may only have one fighting style, while other may have up to three in their arsenal, which means they can be unpredictable, if not lethal, to you during a match if you are not aware of the weapons that they possess.

3) Check your opponent's stats. There are status bars that are not only on your character, but also on the character that you are entering the match with. The stats are upper and lower body strength, health, charisma, toughness, and so on. These stats are repesented by colored bars, and these bars show what their strengths and weaknesses are. For instance, while an opponent may be high on their upper body strength, they may be possibly low on their lower body. In the game, you will earn points after you complete matches where you will be able to train, and if you know that your opponent is weak in his lower body strength, then perhaps it would be best to train your lower body, and so on. Always make sure you know where their weak spots are and exploit them by training in those areas.

4) Never, and I mean NEVER, ever use all of your training points all at once. The first few clubs, such as Foundation and The Limit, do not require a whole lot of training. While they may be difficult being that you are not as strong yet, they are able to be overcome. Learn your opponent's moves, watch for their attacks, as sometimes they will often use the same attack more than once. After you learn their patterns, it will make for an easier match. But, be forewarned, the AI does like to mix it up a bit, so be prepared for anything. As you win matches and say get 1000 experience points, then start training, and the next time you are ready to enter a club, you will be ready to bust some heads!

5) Choose your fighting style wisely. There are five that you can choose from (*submissions, martial arts, wrestling, streetfighting, and kickboxing). While all of them may have great benefits, standing alone they are not much of a force to be reckoned with. As I tried different starting combinations, I found that wrestling was the weakest, as all you are able to do is grapple and throw them around a bit. The highest that I have seen starting off was probably kickboxing, as if you have a larger character, that big boot that you have can cause some major damage!

6) You have an enviornment...use it. Enviornments are a great way to whittle down an opponent as there are so many things that you can do. Throw them on a car, smash their head into a speaker, ram them into a refrigerator, and so on. These enviornments were not placed within the game to look pretty, but rather to be used as a weapon and a quick way out of a bad situation.

7) There will be numerous specialty matches that you will have to play during your gametime, such as Free-For-All, Tag, and Gauntlet tournaments. These matches usually consist of multiple matches against multiple opponents, such as two-on-two, one-on-one, or one against a multitude of AI players. The Free-For-Alls are a real time consumer, as they can last for up to an hour, and unless you step back and allow the AI's to knock themselves silly as much as possible, they will grab you and do a tag-team effort on your character that will take you out of the match in less than five minutes! So, in other words, let them hash out their aggressions on each other first before you initiate an attack plan! In Tag matches, the main thing to remember is to never leave your teammate unprotected. If there is a chance that you can step in and double your efforts, do so. Even if it means losing a little bit of energy in the process, do it, as your opponent if he is taken out early in the match, it will mean your ultimate demise! In Gauntlet, there is only one rule to remember....pace yourself. It may be a one-on-one match up, but you will have to go through all of the fights with no way to recharge if you are damaged too badly, and that next match that you have coming up, even if you win, you will be in a weakened state and therefore lose and will have to start the whole tournament again.

8) They say that clothes make the man...if you have the money, spend it! Always mix up your fashions, as how you look is what keeps the crowds pumped up. Also, buy diamonds! The crowd loves seeing your player in diamonds as it shows that you have the bling and the clout to enter the ring. If the diamond you have is too small, then buy a larger one. Soon, the crowd will be behind you 100%!

9) Watch out for the crowd. The crowd during a match will grab you if you get too close and will help your opponent beat the stuffings out of you! Also, they will throw weapons in the ring, use them against you, or your opponent may grab a weapon from the crowd to use on you. That weapon could be anything from a broken liquor bottle all the way up to a lead pipe or a broom! If you have a weapon, use it quickly, as your opponent could grab you, causing you to drop the weapon and then use it against you as well, and that makes for a quickly lost match! The crowd will also use weapons to make sure that your rival wins, and they are not beyond breaking a bottle or whatever weapon they use over your head or other areas of your already battered body!

10) You will have opportunities to gain ladies in the game, but be forewarned! The ladies in this game can turn extremely fickle if you decide to kick them to the curb for someone new. If you do this, what will ensue is a catfight between your former girlfriend and your new one, and if you keep the old one, it's going to happen anyway! The fight is going to happen, and whichever girl it is, you are going to have to take control of them and give up a serving of pain to keep the respect of your player. If your girl loses, then you leave with the new girl, and that will pose problem for you later after your old girl gets her new boyfriend to come and beat you up! Then, well, you know what will happen.

11) Finishing moves can also be purchased, but you will want to make sure that your player is strong enough before you go learning some new moves. They can range from 250 points all the way to 3500 points, depending on the damage that you want to inflict. The ones that start at 250 will weaken an opponent, but it will not finish him. There may be a chance that you may have to use more than one. If you have the points, buy a couple and then assign them to different directions on the pad. While one may not be as effective, another may be just the trick that you need to finish off the other guy for good. The one that I like to use the most is one called 'Hostility', and you can learn that move after you defeat an opponent named Havoc at the Syn-Energy Power Plant. Another one that I have found that works especially well is 'The Fix', a move that you learn after defeating Scarface later in the game. Combine these two, and your opponent will not know what hit him!

12) Always learn more than one style. If you can have three, they will make you a force to be reckoned with. I have found that the best combination that worked well for me is Streetfighting, Kickboxing, and Wrestling. Each style had a different benefit, but mixed with the others, it had balanced out my player and made him almost invincible. Not only could I kick an opponent, but I could grapple him hard, kick him in the stomach a few times, throw him into a car, and then slam his head inside a car door. Soon, it was all over, and I had won the match just simply by timing what I was doing and knowing how to execute the moves and how the mixing increased their effectiveness. Also, if you do what is called 'blaze' (*which is the sign that you can do a finishing move), and your opponent is stunned, hard grapple him and use the move. If you can do it more than once, so much the better! You may have to beat your opponent a little to gain that extra move and to blaze again, but by the time that it's over, your opponent will be finished! If you have to, take him out by using your enviornment, such as maybe smashing his face into a wall or hitting him in the head with a broom.

The game took me a week to complete after playing almost five hours a day, and when you do finally make it to Crow, the final boss, take into account that he is fast, agile, and extremely strong. Make sure that you have done all that you can do in your training before taking him on. If you have to save before the fight, do so, as he is probably the hardest boss fight that I have ever encountered in a fighting game to date. He will make no qualms about throwing you out of the twentieth story window to your death if you fail to fight smart.

I hope that this guide has been helpful, and I hope that those of you who have not thought about the 'Def Jam' franchise, I would highly reccomend giving them a chance, as their games do require some thought to your fighting. So, tape up your hands, fighters, and get ready to take back New York!