by Gary A Swaby (The Koalition)--Def Jam Interactive and 4mm have designed Def Jam Rapstar to allow people to rap along with classic Hip Hop tracks from a range of artists. So no this is not another game where you can take some of the hottest rappers, and bust their heads. Def Jam Rapstar is a fully interactive experience that all hip hop fans will certainly enjoy.

During E3, The Koalition team got scooped up and taken to a penthouse to preview the game personally. The 7 Dawg will tell you that he completely annihilated me (Swiff) in a battle on the Young Jeezy hit ‚ (Video will hopefully be available soon). However that's only because this build of the game didn't have much selection yet, and we all know that I'm all about my East Coast and UK rap.

That's where Rapstar will please everyone, because the way it was explained to us is that there is going to be a vast selection of different styles included in Rapstar. They are grabbing up every classic Hip Hop song they can think of, even ol skool that may have not had an official video. They will compensate this with adding exclusive concert footage, so even if there was a classic Hip Hop song that deserves to be added to the Rapstar library, but has no visuals or video, they can still make it happen.
It's clear that even once Def Jam Rapstar has shipped, that the game will be consistently expanded to include fresh new cuts for people to enjoy.

So just how great is the player interaction in Def Jam Rapstar? Well let me ensure you, they didn't call this game Rapstar for nothing. This game is designed to really make you feel like a superstar. Not only does the game have the ability to capture your audio renditions of all the available music videos in the game, but it will also allow you to capture your own music video for each track.

Doing so will then allow you to upload this to Def Jams designated website feature (which will basically be Rapstar's version of Youtube), this will ensure that Rapstar will be heavily community orientated. There will even be charts so you can see who is. This week's hottest Rapstar.

To go even further, you wont even be limited to the provided music videos offered to you. Def Jam Rapstar will feature exclusive beats from some of Hip Hop's biggest producers, allowing all Def Jam Rapstar owners to lay their own vocals on them and share across the community.

To summarize, This is not just Singstar with a Def Jam logo slapped on, full of Hip Hop music. This is a legitimate effort of an interactive Hip Hop game, built from the group up with the Hip Hop community in mind. Not only that, but 4mm and Def Jam interactive are going the extra mile to ensure that every type of Hip Hop fan will be happy. As one of few UK editors on The Koalition, I am happy to say that they are even looking into pull some international music for the game. Rapstar has some excellent and creative solutions, and we should all be looking forward to more on this game as the months go on up until it's release.