The Best Hip Hop Influenced Video Games

What's your favorite video game? Does your favorite video game have a hip hop theme to it? Truth be told is that some of the most popular games of today are injected with tons of hip hop influences. Below is a list of the best hip hop influenced games!

Grand Theft Auto IV: Let's get it poppin'! The whole Grand Theft Auto series is influenced by the hip hop culture. While previous games have touched on "hip hop themes", Grand Theft Auto IV separates itself from the rest by featuring a lot of hip hop heavyweight features. No, they don't appear in the game as characters, but on the car radio stations that you drive. There are many stations that play artists such as Kanye West, R.Kelly, Busta Rhymes, Prodigy and Ne-Yo. Grand Theft Auto IV may possibly be the hottest game on the streets due to its urban surroundings in the game. The grimy New York themed game takes players on a rough and tough journey to make it to the top.

Def Jam Series: The Def Jam series games such as Vendetta, Fight for NY and Def Jam Icon show and prove the exact definition of a hip hop game. Besides all of the characters being rappers, the game also unveils a top notch soundtrack from an all-star roster. These games feature hip hop artists going head to head in battle in a street fighter like aura. Hip hop artists such as Ludacris, Method Man, Scarface, Ice-T, Fat Joe and even Flava Flav make appearances thru outt these brutally entertaining games. Let's talk about the soundtrack to these games! It features songs from all of the hip hop artists on the Def Jam Records roster and more spittin' blazin' hot battle rhymes.

True Crimes: Streets of L.A.: The Westside is in the building! The streets of L.A. were never that same after True Crimes. The L.A. themed game serves up lots of actions and an even hotter soundtrack. While the game is playing you can hear unreleased music tracks from West Coast artists such as E-40, La'Vetti and even Snoop! Speaking of Snoop, you can even unlock him as a character in the game. Enough said, get it poppin' in a clean aqua blue 6'4 and make it do pushups with the hydraulics. The songs play at random during the game so you never get bored!

True Crimes: Streets of N.Y.: New York New York! Get the full experience of New York sites and sounds by playing True Crimes Streets of N.Y. This game is featured with the best hip hop has to offer. The urban setting of this game lets you do all sorts of things such as roam the rugged NY streets and even hop aboard the infamous subway train. Think that's it? Nawwww, it only gets better as you can rotate thru the hottest NY "flava" of music. Artists like LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Busta Rhymes, Kool Moe Dee, Wu-Tang, 2pac and Slick Rick let their presence be known during the entire game. Rapper Redman also makes a character appearance in the game as well.

NBA Ballers: Baaaaaaalllllin', as Jim Jones would say! The street b-ball game known as NBA Ballers is injected with pure hip hop madness. The "bling bling" themed game features rookies working their way up the ladder of success by challenging some of the greatest names in the NBA. See the true "playa" lifestyle of the greats as you get to play on courts located at the NBA player's houses. Producer Just Blaze does his job by supplying some of the hottest beats for rappers to rap over during the game.

50 Cent's Bulletproof: G G G G unnnnitt! Bulletproof is just what it sounds like, insane excitement and bullet showers. This game features 50 cent and his G-Unit crew doing what they do best, causing havoc. The soundtrack to this game only features G-Unit, which could be both a good and bad thing. You can win points to unlock unreleased G-Unit tracks to play while you branch off into the game. 50 cent has promised that the sequel to this game, Blood in the Sand, will feature exclusive unheard freestyles and tracks.

PaRapper the Rapper: YO, yo, yo, check my flow! PaRapper the Rapper is a game where timing means everything. The hip hop infused game involves you pressing buttons in a correct order to spell out the rhyming words and win rap battles. The game play is quite simple but it excels at its hip hop creativity. Check it out!