Forget anything you might be thinking about the EA's Fight Night series of boxing games, or indeed the previous Def Jam urban fighter titles -- we're waaaaay past that, here. Def Jam: Icon for Xbox 360 is a game all about rising up through the ranks of hip-hopdom, starting in the humblest of ghetto circumstances and moving up to the status of, well, icon, chiefly by wailing on other rap/hip-hop faces of note, and -- more to the point -- utilizing the beats themselves to rearrange the other guy's face. That and most of the living landscape while you're at it.

Even if you've never cared much about the Def Jam series, Icon is noteworthy in that it's not like what you didn't much care about previously. "Music is the weapon" is the tag line here: Just as players naturally choose their particular fighter in regular fighting games, Icon players also choose the songs to which they'll be handing out the beat-downs. And "beat-down" is the exactly-appropriate terminology: The chosen songs don't just merely play in the background -- they transform the game world.

Icon sneak peeks have revealed seedy, grotty front yards like something out of Boyz N the Hood, a low-rent gas station, and the rooftop of an inner-city building so far, with the later promise of nightclubs and other, more upscale venues. Anyway, each possible fighting arena in the game literally, physically throbs to the beat of your hip-hop track of choice, with environmental hazards going off on the big downbeats. In the aforementioned front yard, for example, a rust-paneled muscle car endlessly spins its wheels in place, a seemingly-innocent fire hydrant squats in a corner, and the gray skies scud with fast-moving clouds like something out of a pretentious music video.

Suddenly, on the downbeat, the world freaks out: The muscle car whips violently to one side, the fire hydrant explodes in a gout of water, the very foundations of the house (and the water tower in the background) seem to shudder and flinch. If your opponent is near one of these environmental hazards when it goes off, he'll take the appropriate throw through the air, the appropriate damage.

If you're on the aforementioned rooftop, as another example, a helicopter hovering nearby suddenly thrashes its tail, dealing damage to any nearby combatants. In the night-city background, the lighted windows of buildings across the way jump to the beat, a glowing, audio equalizer readout on a Trump Tower scale.

Importantly, you needn't wait for the "big beats" in any given track to trigger the hazards: Using the control sticks, your urban fighter can "scratch" in the air (as though laying his hands on invisible turntables), and either flip the vinyl back to your chosen music-track, hijack your foe's music, or back-and-forth the current beat to artificially trigger the hazards that you wish to kick or punch your opponent into. The better you know your chosen beats, the better you'll be able to manipulate both the environment and the opponent facing you within that environment.

(All of this, you understand, is in addition to the good old-fashioned approach of punching and kicking your foe silly. Word).

The best, unspoken part of this scheme is this: It's a provable fact that if you've got the music you love playing, you've got a bit of mental-game momentum, that much more of an edge (better still if your foe hates the music you're digging), and the better you know your chosen beat, the more effectively you'll be able to fight.

And get this: You can attach your MP3 player of choice to the Xbox 360, and use any music to shake up the game-world. Kudo Tsunoda joked that a fellow team member would slap some Sade in there, just to throw off his opponents' groove -- at least, I think he was joking... come to think of it, brawling to "Smooth Operator" is really more frightening than funny.

Though players can create their own fighters, the Def Jam schtick is to let gamers fight as their favorite hip-hop stars. Icon will feature the likes of Big Boi, Ludacris, T.I., Fat Joe, Redman, Method Man, Paul Wall, Ice-T, The Game and more -- EA has yet to confirm the full roster, but there will be more name brand faces available, some from the get-go, and surely some unlockable characters and surprises.

The idea of gamers fighting not merely to their favorite music but with their favorite music is as simple as it is brilliant; there's definitely gonna be bandwagoning after this baby. Icon ships in early March -- plenty of time to fine-tune your ideas on music you love and your friends hate.