With the help of our readers and EA, we had an opportunity to interview Kudo Tsunoda, Producer of Def Jam: Icon.

Kudo Tsunoda:  What up Operation Sports!! Love your site and always happy to get to talk games with you. Thanks for sending this along!!!

Operation Sports:  Will we be able to play our own personal music tracks, in which the game responds to the beat and rhythm of it?

Kudo Tsunoda:  In DEF JAM: ICON, music is a huge part of how the fighting works. One of the questions I get all the time is “Kudo, clearly DEF JAM: ICON is the most innovative and exciting fighting games to come out in years. But I am not a fan of hip hop, why should I buy this game?”. That is why we created the “My Soundtrack” feature. Already on the Xbox360 you are able to load up music and have them play over a game. In other titles, this music just plays in the background. DEF JAM: ICON is the first game that allows you to load up music that actually drives the main gameplay of the game. If you play your own song, the environment and all the environmental hazards will animate and bump to the beats of your song. One of the defining features of the gameplay is the role the environment plays in the fight. If you know the beats of the song animating the environment, you will do much better in the fights.

Operation Sports:  How many characters are in the game? 

Kudo Tsunoda:  There are a total of 38 characters in the game. Most of these are characters you can fight with, but some are girlfriends you meet in our Build a Label mode or people like Russell Simmons who make a special guest appearance. For the rappers we have fighting in the game, we really focused on getting artists with a wide variety of music styles from all over the country and world. Some well established artists, some who are just breaking now. Guys like Ludacris, The Game, T.I., Big Boi, and Young Jeezy are just some of the headliners.

Operation Sports:  What's the difference between this game and the previous ones?  

Kudo Tsunoda:  The main difference between DEF JAM: ICON and all other hip hop games ever made is that authentic hip hop lifestyle elements are the driving force behind our main gameplay features. Unlike other games that just throw some guys with bling in the game and have them shooting people, where hip hop is just a window dressing on an old and tired existing gameplay formula, we have based our core gameplay mechanics on hip hop. For example, our core fighting mechanic is based on using directional strikes and our grab and throw mechanic to kick or throw people in to hazards in the environment to do big damage. The hazards all animate to the beat of whatever track is playing. If you know the beats of the song, you will do more damage in the fight. Also, you can control the music with our innovative DJ Controls. On a controller, the analog sticks are set up just like a DJ’s turntables. You can switch songs during a fight or add your own beats to trigger hazards by scratching on the analog sticks like a DJ would on their turntables. Plus, our (1) player story mode is based around building your own record label.

Operation Sports:  What are the different modes that will be shipped with the game? 

Kudo Tsunoda:  The main gameplay mode is Throw Down. This is our core head to head fighting mode where you can play against another human opponent or the AI. We also have our Build a Label mode which is our Player story mode. We also have a practice mode, all of our online gameplay, and a special mode – Beatings with Bass where it is a straight up fight to the beat – no using the turntables during a fight. Of course, there is also My Soundtrack which allows you to load up your own songs and fight to their beats.

Operation Sports:  Will the game still use the five different fighting styles or will it have some different type of system?

Kudo Tsunoda:  We have 6 different fighting styles in DEF JAM: ICON. But gone is the wrestling based gameplay of previous Def Jam games. The ICON fighting styles are more Hollywood action, street fighting type styles. As with everything we are doing in the game, even the rappers fighting styles are based around their music and the beats of their songs instead of your typical power, speed, agility type ratings. So if you are fighting with Ghostface, you are going to fight better to his songs. If you are fighting with Mike Jones, his style will be best suited to fight to his beats.

Operation Sports:  Are there any differences between the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions?

Kudo Tsunoda:  The major difference is the My Soundtrack mode is an Xbox 360 exclusive.

Operation Sports:  Will we still see the random weapons in the environment, or is the game strictly going to be hand-to-hand fighting? Could you give us some details about the environment and how it interacts with the fighters?  

Kudo Tsunoda:  In DEF JAM: ICON, music is your weapon. It is what you use to lay a beat down during each fight and it is what you use to raise yourself up to ICON status in the Build a Label mode. The toe to toe fighting is only a part of the fighting. The main fighting mechanic is based around using the music and the environmental hazards to do damage. Each environment has hazards in the environment – the hazards all animate to the beat of the music. For instance, in our 106 & Park venue, there is a giant light boom that comes swinging down on the big beats of the song. You can kick or throw your opponent over by the light boom and on the big beat – blam!!! – it knocks the crap out of you.

Operation Sports:  Will the fighters still have their blazin’ moves (finishing moves), if so will the selection for the created player still be as large as it was in FFNY?  

Kudo Tsunoda:  We have a ton of over the top moves in the game although they are not called blazing moves. And our main finishing moves are the damage done to you by the environment. Each created character has the same depth of moves as any of the licensed fighters in the game.

Operation Sports:  Will there be an option to play without the foul language or turn off the cursing? If I want my kids to play, I don't want them to have to hear all the bad words. In this day and time, it's really not always practical to ask half the family to leave the room so you can play a game.  

Kudo Tsunoda:  All of the dialogue in music is authentic to the way the artists rock it in real life.

Operation Sports:  How many players (offline) will be able to play on the screen at once in single or multiplayer mode?  

Kudo Tsunoda:  DEF JAM: ICON is all head to head fighting.

Operation Sports:  Was anything brought over from Def Jam: Fight for New York or was it completely rebuilt from the ground up?  

Kudo Tsunoda:  ICON was build entirely from scratch. We wanted to do something new and innovative – something that really created a cohesive world with hip hop driving our core gameplay. To achieve this,  we needed to build everything from the ground up.

Operation Sports:  DJ: FFNY had an extremely underrated create a player element in it, especially in terms of "pimping out" your character. How much of that will we see in Icon? Can you give us a little more detail about what we can implement? 

Kudo Tsunoda:  The DEF JAM: ICON Create a Fighter is one of the most extensive and most customizable create a characters seen in any video game. First of all you can sculpt every single feature of your fighters head, face, and body. You can also customize hair style, facial hair, eye color, tattoos, etc. There is also enormous customization depth in how you can deck your character out. Anything from shirts, jackets, pants, kicks, glasses, and jewelry – there are over 1,000 different items you can put on your character to create your own style.

Operation Sports:  How dynamic is the story mode in Icon? Will the player feel like the results of his "matches" actually effect the direction of the story? 

Kudo Tsunoda:  The Build a Label mode not only is affected dynamically by each fight – determining who you can sign, the satisfaction rating of the artists you already have, who you can sign, etc – but there is also a big cause and effect to what songs you release and how you release them.

Operation Sports:  Any thoughts on making the Def Jam series a yearly release?  

Kudo Tsunoda:  Ha ha ha ha!!! We always want to make sure the games we release from EA Chicago bring something new and innovative to the table every time out. More than worrying about putting it on a time schedule, we figure out how long we need to create a kick ass game and take that long.

Operation Sports:  How much input do the actual performers get on how their in-game character is created? 

Kudo Tsunoda:  The great thing about working with the rappers is that they not only know hip hop, but many of them are hard core gamers as well. The rappers had huge input on the game – not only in getting laser scanned, photoshoots done, and dialogue sessions recorded but in the actual creation of the features in the game.

Operation Sports:  We would like to thank you for your time with this interview, is there anything else you would like to add?  

Kudo Tsunoda:  Just again, big thanks to Operation Sports for letting me do this interview. I love your site and it is always a thrill to see information about an EA Chicago game posted there. DEF JAM: ICON hits stores March 6^th for XBOX360 and PS3. The demo is also available on Marketplace. If you want a revolutionary fighting experience that deliver addictive multiplayer play as well as a deep and dynamic story mode check it out!! Hope you have as much fun playing it as we had making it.