True Crime: Streets of LA

"True Crime is truly fun!"

Graphics

True Crime is a mixed bag when it comes to graphics , the draw distance is pretty good considering you never see a load screen when driving through LA which is pretty amazing all by itself, every street, alley and building has been recreated to deliver the most realistic free roam game yet. Textures for the most part look good, they never look muddy or blurry like some other games, in fact some of them are high res and really nice but for the most part they are of a medium quality, which is acceptable considering the frame rate is consistent and the world so detailed.

Character models and animation is a step above other games in this genre as well, face’s have much more detail as do the clothing, the only real problem is start and end animation for Nick when running or getting out the car, it just happens to slow which gives the bad guys a head start you sometimes really wish they didn’t have..

Cars look good, they all are modeled after real vehicles and they have decent reflection mapping, not like Project Gotham, hell not even close, but they get the job done. Smoke trails, debris, fire, sparks it all looks good, really good in fact, there is so much stuff to break on the road and in buildings you might think this game came from a different genre. The one thing I don’t like is lack of traffic and variety, you will see the same car way to often, and there are never enough cars on the road, one more thing which brings my graphical dislikes up to 2 (I know I said 1 but shh!) is the fact that things disappear far quicker then the GTA series, if you drive by a car and don’t turn around as soon as you see it will go be gone for good, which kind of sucks when your looking for a certain car, im sure this was done to help keep the frame rate up but this is xbox, use the hd as a paging file and lets keep these cars and objects around for longer periods of time.

The camera however could use some work, since this is a free roam game the camera has lots of places it can get hung up on, so to help solve this problem they pulled the camera in close, which as we know from playing GTA can cause running in circle and losing your targets, you do get used to it, but it could have been better.

Sound

The sound in True Crime is spot on, if you like the music it’s great, if not use the custom soundtrack like I did and you wont be disappointed. Music is broken up into sections, Driving, Fast Action, and Slow Action so you wont hear the same songs over and over and over, it’s a nice touch but to be honest I do like the Radio station feature in GTA much better, if they had put a button to skip songs It could have alleviated the problem but they didn't, sure it’s a small gripe but this is my review!

Sound effects are good too, crashes and bangs sound about right, I've never fired most of the guns in this game, nor have I driven my car into someone else but I assume that’s pretty close to what they sound like. Voice over's are really nice too, no B movie Resident Evil crap here, and best of all we have Mr. Creepy Christopher Walken!

Controls

The controls are decent, id say they are as good and as bad as the GTA series. Nothing is exactly spot on, but it’s never way off either. One of the finer points is aiming, the game uses a auto aim system which targets a threat, it can be changed with the right stick, and if you want to get down and dirty you hold the shoot button which throws you into bullet time for about 5 seconds, this gives ample time to aim which is important because your rating depends on where you shoot the perp, headshots take points away and give you bad ratings, but a shot to the legs will stop the criminal in their tracks and allow you to arrest without killing, which in turn gives more points and karma which can be used to earn skills.

The combat system is a lot like Shenmue but a bit smoother, its not as deep as a fighting game, but far better then most games of this type, you have punches, kicks (high/low), blocks, and throws, all which can be execute with ease, and best of all the farther you get and the more you do in the game you can unlock more.

Game play

Think of this game as a refined GTA, it does everything GTA does, but for the most part it does it better. Not only do you have free roam abilities where you can drive around solving random crimes, or…if you want run over people/beat the down, but you can also search them for illegal items like drugs and guns and then arrest them right on the spot. Another nice touch is the random crimes, you can be driving or walking and you will hear dispatch call all units to an area and give a description of what’s going on, arresting those involved earns you points and karma, killing them earns just points but not as many, for every 100 points you get a badge which can be used to train and unlock new skills. The skills are really a nice feature because at 1st Nick Kang kind of sucks, but as you unlock more the game play gets smoother and you get better since you have more stuff to do, early on you can unlock things like ground moves, burnouts in cars and things of that nature, all very nice.

Another cool feature is the Civil Unrest meter, basically the more bystanders you kill the higher the meter goes, when it gets full the police chase you, if you kill even more then swat comes a callin. You can evade both but it does take time and skill, that fact alone adds a touch of realism, I mean what kind of cop stop chasing you when you change you clothes or pick up some icon?

The main story is branching and broken up into chapters and missions, if you fail a mission the story may change, you don’t have to repeat failed missions but you wont earn a bonus mission where you unlock new cars and things unless you get 100% on a chapter which means beat all the missions or get the bad endings! Finally Luxoflux has chosen a great way of ending the game, depending on how you play it can last 6 hours, or however many hours as you want, if your a bad cop and fail a lot you wont see the true end of the game, so play hard and win or your going to feel cheated when you get game over and no resolution to the main story.

Overall

True Crime is a nice addition to the genre, could it have been better? Yes of course, but it has enough to do to keep just about anyone amused for many hours

Graphics- 8
Sound- 8
Control- 7
Game play- 9

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/07/03