True Crime: Streets of LA

"An okay clone of a better game."

Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular franchises on the market now. And for a good reason, GTA combines awesome gunplay and driving with the freedom to do anything in a giant city. After GTA 3 came out, there have been many games that have tried to capture the freedom of GTA. Simpsons: Hit & Run was good, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction was awesome, and Gun was a great western game. But, what if you got to be the cops? True Crime: Streets of LA answers that with mixed results.

Graphics: 5
The character models are great and the graphics indoors are awesome. But outside things get bad. Buildings don't have too much detail in them and neighborhoods are bland and repetitive. But with the enormous size of the game world, you can forgive some of the bad details. Still though, it gets very unattractive in spots.

Sound: 8
Great voice acting from stars like Christopher Walken. Cars sound realistic enough and weapons all have different sounds. I took a couple points off though because some phrases are overused a bit and the dialogue can get stupid.

Story: 4
The story revolves around Nick Kang who was suspended from the police force due to repeated incidents of excessive violence and property damage. So he joins the E.O.D. ( Elite operations division) to solve a case involving money heists. That would suck if there weren't 3 branches of the story. Each one has a different way of contributing to the story. That also means that there are 3 endings! But the story gets really far fetched and the story is very unoriginal.

Music: 4
I'm not much of a rap fan. Unfortunately most of the sound track is rap. Luckily there are some pretty decent tracks that fit well into the overall game experience. But a lot of the tracks are crap and don't get you pumped up to shoot some fools which is what a good sound track should do. The music just lacks, well, a quantity of good tracks.

Gameplay: 8
This game is just like GTA in mostly every category. It is a sand box game in which you can go everywhere you want and ignore the missions, you can cause some major chaos, and there are some sweet cars. But True Crime does something new. You're a cop. If you arrest people, solve street crimes, and not cause any chaos, you will become a good cop and earn points which gain you access to training facilities, health, and car repair shops. If you kill everyone you see and cause destruction, you will lose points and get crappier endings. But you get better weapons. The good/bad factor works overall and is an innovative idea.

Gunfights are fun and very crazy. You can dive in slow motion and shoot at the same time. You aim automatically and just press the fire button. It's easy enough and very fun. If you hold the R button you will enter the first person precision aiming mode. It makes head shots easy but is hard to do in the middle of a gun fight. Gunfights though are ruined by a sometimes awful camera that makes it so you can't see where to shoot.

Hand to hand combat is fun too. When you beat someone to some extent, you can do a sweet grapple or fighting combo. You can also pick up hand weapons like knifes, pipes, and swords. With knifes and swords you can even throw and impale people with them! But the combos aren't put to good use and there isn't too many of them.

Driving is fun too. You can steal any car and shoot out of cars. If you find any big hills (only a couple in LA) you can fly off the edge and do some neat crashes. You can also unlock really fast cars and store them in parking garages.

Though the game is violent, it's not as violent as GTA. There is hardly any blood either. There is some strong language though. People scream 4 letter words at you if you hit them. There is also some strong sexual content. One mission you fight strippers that have whips as weapons. And a couple city crimes show the rape of hookers. Yes M rated, but not GTA.

Controls: 5
At first the controls are really awkward because the Z button is used to arrest fallen foes and L is use to get into cars. It is weird at first but you do get used to them, but they never feel right..

Replay: 4
There are training facilities to improve gun combat & hand to hand fighting. Also driving courses give you new driving techniques. Street races give you new cars, you can fight people for new combos, and go through shooting courses for new guns. (Last three are only available through bonus cruising that you unlock by beating a chapter 100%.) But there is a lack of side missions and you won't be dying to play the story mode again.

Buy or Rent: Rent
It should be really cheap now but there isn't too much to do with it after a weekend rental. The second true crime, True Crime: New York City, is also out and is very cheap too. However, that game is really glitchy and isn't all that fun.

ERSB Rating: Rated M for Blood & Gore, Mature Sexual Themes, Strong Language, and Violence.

Overall Rating: 6.3/10 (rounded to a 6).

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/26/06, Updated 07/09/08

Game Release: True Crime: Streets of LA (US, 11/03/03)