Def Jam's Rapstar: The New Ultimate Party Game

There are a lot of rhythm and music games out there, but none of them really compare to Def Jam's Rockstar. This latest release from 4mm Gaming brings the nostalgia of old school beats and the amazing/retarded lyrics of today's number one rap hits. No matter what your favorite rap single is, you will surely find it in this game.

Rapstar is set up like most other rhythm games. There is a career mode, quickplay, freestyle, and live rap battles over XBL and functions a lot like karaoke. You read the words as a little time-keeping ball bounces over the lyrics appropriately. Even if you don't know the words exactly, you can still score pretty high as long as you make sounds that are similar and you are on beat.

There are lots of other new little features. The player has the ability to record themselves rapping to the game and clip it into 30 second videos. There are sound and video effects available in the game to add a little post-production sparkle. Registering and creating a profile on the Rapstar website will allow you to upload your videos directly from your Xbox to your online profile via XBL. I'm waiting for some pretty amazing viral videos to emerge from this function. If nothing else, you can probably find clips of big, hairy guys in their boxers rapping to Salt-n-Peppa ;)

The songs are really varied, at least varied among rap and hip-hop music. You can find artists like Beastie Boys, Lil Wayne, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Ice Cube, and loads more. And just like Rock Band or any music game, you can download songs to increase your game playlist. It can be frustrating if you don't know the songs, but you will probably still be able to complete at least a couple songs. And the other annoyance is that all the curse words are removed. I wish they had made an option at the beginning of the game to have a mature version where you can choose to have the lyrics in all their offensive glory.

The bottom line is that this is a really fun game. It looks really over-whelming and super dorky in the beginning. But once you start your first song, you are going to instantly travel back to your college days in the clubs or you formative years in middle school.