True Crime: Streets of LA

"A little bit of a lot of games..."

True Crime is an above average game, with a rather short story and limited replayability, however, given that, it's still a lot of fun, and worth the time you'll spend beating it.

Story: 8/10 - The story is nothing original. Bad cop, sent out to achieve things no non-vigilante cop could dream of. Endings based on how you behave, 3 different plot paths that end different based on whether you're a jerk or a nice guy. As many have said, Nick Kang's dialogue is cheesy at best. The acting overall and cutscenes are decent, and the voice acting is solid. Christopher Walken, as always, steals the show as a mentor. The story might be cliche', but it's solid enough to keep you wanting to see the next plot twist.

Gameplay: 7/10 - It's GTA meets Shenmue meets Max Payne, and that's all there is to it. It doesn't make any particular facet as good as the originals of the genre (in other words, the freedom of GTA and variety is more limited, the martial arts is not as sophisticated as Shenmue, and the bullet time maneuvers aren't as polished as Max Payne). Still, each aspect gets the job done, if only just. My biggest gripe is that I had a hard time using the slow mo targeting system most of the time. It's not fast enough, even with upgrades, and you'll find it's hard to drive, go into slowmo, and shoot out tires or a gas tank. Being a good cop is a bit more difficult than being bad. Killing people is very easy to do, and you can rack up negative karma quickly. In all honesty, I didn't find it hard to be good, either, just a bit tougher than being bad. The driving is smooth, and I found myself easily able to pull off most stunts and maneuvers. The martial arts is basically a button masher with some interesting slow-mo moves once your opponent is dazed (after 3-8 consecutive hits, depending on the toughness of the opponent). The moves look good, and are fun to execute. You'll be doing a lot of hand to hand fighting if you are going for good cop. Less so if you are going for bad (killing people dead is a good way to go bad cop.)

Graphics: 7/10 - Not great, a bit grainy, but they do the job. You probably won't ooh and aah much except for the models of the people, which move normally, and have good facial expression. The rest is standard fare, and the load times are pretty long (mainly because the moving through LA is basically seamless, so there's a lot of things to load, and the pop in of objects isn't bad).

Sound: 9/10 - Decent stuff... good voice acting, good sound track (if you like rap, and if you don't you'll still probably get into it, as it fits well with the theme of the game).

Final word: It's too short to warrant buying. As a Greatest Hit, sure, but not worth $50 by a longshot. GTA has probably 5x more replay value to it. It's definitely a great rental, with a good story, some fun diverging missions (which give you worse ending depending on how soon you split from the main path), and multiple endings. Give this very solid game a try, and while it might not go down as the best you've ever played, you will probably not consider it to have been a waste of time.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/03