15 Most Headscratchingly Awful Video Game Redesigns
12. Def Jam: Icon
The Def Jam franchise, published by EA, made strange bedfellows out of mixing hip-hop and wrestling bodyslams. Any other developer couldn't have done it, so EA enlisted AKI Corporation, developers of esteemed wrestling game WWF No Mercy.
Once EA was planning a third sequel, however, they decided to drop AKI Corporation and keep development in house to EA Chicago. The new director of the game, Kuno Tsunoda, believed that wrestling and hip hop didn't mix.
So the entire game was thrown out of the window and rebuilt from scratch, because that's what you do when you're building a sequel: throw out everything about the previous games.
Def Jam: Icon was a one-on-one brawler with no wrestling moves or special moves at all, instead grounding combat to slightly more 'realistic' street fighting. Brawling to the beat of the music would power you up, send opponents flying, and destroy the arena. Y'know? Like a music video.
All the focus on the "music video" element, however, meant the actual brawling turned out far worse for wear, playing like a sloppy wannabe of the previous games.