West Coast rap legend Snoop Dogg is one of the world's most important cultural figures. Beginning with his career as one of the West Coast's greatest MCs, the Dogg has since appeared in many other forms of media, including video games.
Granted, Snoop's video game cameos are few and far between when compared to his appearances in movie and TV, but there's still a lot more than plenty of other celebrities (especially ones as high-profile as him). Over the years, he's appeared in almost a dozen games. Most of these appearances are simply voice contributions, but there are a few exceptions to this rule. In the best of these cases, Snoop contributes both his voice and likeness towards an awesome playable character.
Not counting simple musical track inclusions, Snoop has been in a total of ten games over the years. Of those, his weakest game cameos are usually ones where he only contributes his likeness as an NPC, such as Tekken Tag 2. There, Snoop is nothing more than a background character in his own custom pre-order bonus stage. He also offered up some original music for the soundtrack, which is extremely cool, but doesn't contribute much to his cameo. A similar situation occurred in the mobile game, Family Guy: The Quest For Stuff, where Snoop appears as an unlockable character during the game's Peterpalooza event. Players could take control of the Dogg here, but because The Quest For Stuff doesn't focus much on characters, Snoop's personality is a bit lacking.
The Best Snoop Dogg Game Cameos
The next best Snoop Dogg cameos are games where he contributes his voice a substantial amount, allowing some of his infectious personality to reach players. For instance, Call Of Duty: Ghosts included him as a DLC multiplayer announcer. Likewise, UFC3 included Snoop as a fight commentator. In both examples, Snoop adds a decent amount of levity to the games, throwing gangsta-isms and rhymes left and right. However, none of them measure up to the role he played in his own game, Way of the Dogg. This Rhythm/Fighting game for the Xbox 360 and mobile platforms cast Snoop as the protagonist's kung-fu master, guiding them through fights set to some of the greatest hits off Snoop's hip-hop discography. Unfortunately, there is a massive drawback in that Snoop unplayable despite Way of the Dogg being his own game.
Ideally, video game Snoop is at his best when players actually get to control the Dogg himself. Some games simply include him as a fun celebrity cameo without much contribution. Turbo: Super Stunt Squad, a racing game based off the popular DreamWorks film, is likely the least exciting example of this. Snoop appears as a playable character named Smoove Move, but his performance is limited by the context of being a cartoon snail in a child's racing game. NHL 20 and Madden NFL 20 also include Snoop as playable characters, and NHL 20 even gives him a separate spot in the commentator's booth. All of these examples put players in Snoop's shoes or at least close to them, but none of them are anything close to a real Snoop simulator. That title belongs to the open world crime game, True Crime: LA. It's the only game that lets players roleplay Snoop Dogg as the hardcore gangster he presented himself as in his music.
Even still, even True Crime: LA only includes Snoop Dogg as a simple cameo with little influence on the game's events. For a fully-realized character played by Snoop, players should look to the timeless PS2/Xbox/GameCube title, Def Jam: Fight For New York. This classic wrestling game saw some of America's best rappers, including Snoop, appear as original characters duking it out in New York's seedy underground fighting arenas. Snoop Dogg played the dastardly antagonist, Crow, whose high-flying kung-fu stylings in gameplay more than make up for Way of the Dogg's shortcomings.