True Crime: Streets of LA

"Pirahna's review of : True Crime: Streets of LA"

When Grand Theft Auto 3 was released on the PS2 more than two years ago it introduced gamers to a new genre of gaming. A genre that combined adventure, shooting and driving in a way that had never before been seen in full 3D. Sure it's predecessors had offered a similar experience, but not nearly on the same scale. If you got stuck on a mission, you could simply wander/cruise around the huge, interactive town the game was set in, exploring it and finding all the secrets it had to offer.
The game broke all sales records and so it was inevitable that someone else was gonna try and copy it. One of the games that was initiated by this phenomenon was True Crime:Streets of LA. Developed by Luxoflux (Vigilante 8) the game was promised to combine Shooting, driving and Kung Fu action so perfectly that it would make GTA3 seem mediocre. Now it's here, hot off the press, does it deliver? Read on.

True Crime:Streets of LA puts you in the role of Nick Kang, a stereotype anti-hero, badass cop and martial arts specialist. Nick has just been recruited as the first agent in a new sector of the LAPD known as EOD (Elite Operations Division). An agency that has been granted clearance from the highest levels to battle crime by any means necessary (Read: License to kill). However, unlike in GTA3 pointless killing is not without consequences. TC introduces players to a good cop/bad cop system very much like the Dark side/light side system found in Star Wars:Knights of the old republic. While quite simple, this system work very well, giving the player a choice of how he/she wants to play the game. Basically, good deeds such as freeing hostages and neutralizing rather than killing enemies, awards you with good cop points, and evil acts of authority such as killing innocent civilians and generally shoot first ask questions later behavior gives you bad cop points. When all is set and done, this determines which of the game's three endings you receive. One point for originality there. Like the name suggests, the game is set in the capital of America's west coast, Los Angeles. But where GTA3 and it's follower Vice City only partly copied New York and Miami respectively, TC accurately recreates the entire city of Los Angeles down to every single street and avenue. In total, that is 240 square miles of roads and building, which is (no matter how you look at it) quite impressive. This also means that if you are familiar with or perhaps even living in LA, you will have a great advantage navigating around. Unfortunately, the game is lacking in other departments because of it.
TC is not a very pretty game, I would go as far as saying that it is on par if not worse than GTA3 when it comes to graphics, and that is a two year old PS2 game. Like mentioned earlier the game is split up into three categories: Fighting, shooting and driving.
Each of these work pretty much how you would expect. The fighting consisting of kicks, throws and punches, the shooting of firing all kinds of weapons and the driving of well yeah ... driving. Fighting and driving work excellently but the shooting has a fair share of problems. Drawing inspiration from games such as Enter the Matrix and Max Payne, TC features slow-mo shooting as well as precision aiming. Unfortunately, neither work very well which you have to blame a bad buttons choice to blame for. It is quite difficult to do exactly what you want to do since all buttons have several functions attached to them. Like when Nick starts to precision aim with four armed triads blazing the guns at him at blank point or when a bullet-time, slow-mo dive ends up being a mere roll leaving you faced away from your enemy. There are also occasional collision problems, the controls feels slightly awkward and Nick looks kinda stupid when he runs. The game must be given credit for it's RPG like upgrading system though. Scattered across the city are the 24/7 dojo which are places you must visit to gain new skills such as ground attacks, fast reloading and bonus cars. These will of course help you on your quest on solving the crimes in the city. And not getting them will of course result in the missions becoming harder. To gain entrance to the dojos you must have badges which are earned by solving crimes. But how can you solve crimes if you do not have the skills? one might ask. TC features a random crime generator. While driving around, you will frequently be alarmed to crimes happening as you go. HQ will beep in with a radio message informing you with the type of crime and where it is happening. A red dot on your radar shows the location. These tasks are optional, but of you are stuck on a mission, it is the only way to get badges. It all works in a nice circle, you see.

While driving around the many streets of LA your ears will be pleased by the game's fantastic soundtrack. With over 50 original songs from artists such as Snoop Dogg, Big Swoop and Westside Connection, the music matches that of GTA3 and Vice City which is a rare case, but also very important in a game where driving plays such a big part. The music is mostly rap, but if you don't like rap, then you'll just have to ignore it or mute it. The sound effects are quite good and the game has great voice acting. Not very surprising, since the voices are done by prominent names such as Christopher Walken, Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez and Gary Oldman. Another of GTA3's big plusses was the game's length. One could easily put 60-70 hours into the game just doing the missions and the sidequests. Unfortunately, it is just as big a minus in TC - The game is shockingly short. Fighting the game's final boss I had no idea I was so far, quite simply because I had spent no more than 3 hours on it. The game does have three endings but even with them included, we are looking at 7-8 hours max. There is always the random crime generator but it gets old soon. The game actually has quite a few missions, but most of them are very short and very simple (Just driving from one spot to another with no time limit occasionally!). In the end we have a product that is quite good but only in little bits and pieces that there are not nearly enough of. True Crime: Streets of LA is not a GTA beater, even though it does have some original ideas.

Graphics: 6/10 - Even for a PS2 game the game is not very pretty, undetailed except for the well done face animations.

Sound: 10/10 - Fantastic voice acting and awesome music. But if you do not like rap, you have to bite the bullet.

Gameplay: 8/10 - Fighting and driving works well. Shooting doesn't even work as well as in GTA3 even though it's far more complex.

Lifespan: 6/10 - Collecting secrets and solving random crimes is only fun for so long and you get get all three endings over a weekend (I know because I did)

OVERALL SCORE: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/16/03