Def Jam Rapstar

Def Jam Rapstar is hoping to take the idea of meta-games much further once a video is uploaded to the website, where it can be viewed and rated by other users. Twitter, Facebook and MySpace are integrated from day one, and the idea is you can rise in status once people start nodding heads and approving your performance.

Badges are dished out for first upload, highest rated video of the month and various other criteria, much like Achievements or Trophies. Players can choose to battle others with viewers judging performances over a set period of time, and there's the ability to form crews online and have one person represent in one-on-one battles against rivals. Another user will technically become your rival if you battle 20 times. If you get chucked out of a crew, everyone else in that crew automatically becomes a rival. As Dr Dre said, don't be turning into Benedict Arnold.

As well as licensed tracks, there will be unlicensed beats to freestyle over. There's no scope to use or upload any of your own music due to sampling issues, although 4mm did hint that they could look into creating software that could detect whether something is a sample or an original production.

Speaking of policing, there's flesh detection technology so you can't hold a mic in one hand and your schlong in the other. If any users have issues with content, be it language or anything else offensive, it can be flagged for a moderator to check over. However, the emphasis will be on the community self-policing itself, because 4mm believes users are intelligent rather than morons. We'll have to see how that goes...

This being a collaboration with a real music and entertainment company, Def Jam is promising to use the community aspect to find talent, particularly those that shine lyrically over freestyle beats. The best of the best will be pulled out to get proper studio time with professional producers, the online community acting as another promotional tool for talent in the same way that MySpace and other sites that help that DIY attitude of reaching a global audience.

Provided it's a success, 4mm is looking at this as a franchise. Alongside DLC and themed genre packs, there's some potential there to incorporate motion controls to extend the performance elements - with a particular interest in Kinect.

As I said I'm a massive rap-nerd, but I'm no apologist. Def Jam: Icon was a stinker, Get on Da Mic was an atrocity. But there's every reason to believe Def Jam Rapstar is 100 per cent honest. It's a game split into two significant halves. The simple rap-along-to-your-favourite-music game, which should be as entertaining and as fun any in the genre can be - it's you goofing off to your favourite tunes, after all.

The online elements will be judged over time, and hopefully the competitive spirit there will be more in the vein of traditional back and forth battle raps and "your Mom" jokes rather than escalating into anything unpleasant or dumb.

Hip-hop has had a pretty chequered history in videogames. DJ Hero, Def Jam Vendetta and its sequel, GTA: San Andreas and the soundtrack to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 are the high points in a world of exploitation, painful efforts to appropriate a culture that can't be faked. If it's not genuine it will get sussed out and torn apart. But Def Jam Rapstar comes across as the real deal, and 4mm Games could be about to step up, stand centre stage and set the roof on fire.