"You fought the law, and the law won..."

Dead to rights and GTA combined... with constant vigilante mode on. Awesome.

Graphics

Let's get things straight, free roaming games like True Crime, like GTA, don't exactly have relatively great graphics. However, in comparison to games like it, it has awesome graphics. The city of LA is reflected in the hood of your car, it doesn't get more detailed than that.

Character models are pretty good looking, though I'm tired of seeing a male cop in his late 20s to early 30s in a leather jacket acting like a bad ass. Jack Slade, Max Payne and the like...

Sound

Gangsta rap... yea...gangsta rap. Very fitting for the game though. I'm not a big fan of it, still. That's we XBOX people can scoff at the people with other systems and laugh as we listen to our custom soundtracks. What else, there are three different categories for music, cruising, slow action and fast action.

Cruising, of course is when you are in your car, you can set certain songs to play when you are driving around. Then there's slow action, basically fighting, and you can put some music you want for fight music. Finally, there is fast action, which is car chases and shoot outs. You can use your own music to set the perfect mood for a perfect situation.

Good sound affects and celebrity voiceovers bring life to the game. Russel Wong, Gary Oldman and the great Christopher Walken use their voice in this game.

Story

Meh, it's been done. Loose cannon cop... relatives in unfortunate situation... blah blah blah... turkey...

Gameplay

A fighting game, driving game, and shooting all in one? Short answer yes... this game does each of this feature well. The shootouts are reminiscent of Dead to Rights. Even can do a short bullet time by pressing and holding down Y.

Punch. Kick. Jump Kick. Throw. Block. With all these buttons, this game is almost a fighting game. Also when you get an enemy dazed, you can do a devastating finishing move by pushing certain buttons in a row. Why fight when you can shoot? You don't want to be a bad cop don't you? It's bad for your karma.

Unlimited ammo. Yes that's right. You have a main gun, which is a .38 Revolver. And don't panic it can be upgraded to a better gun later. You can pick up other guns that are dropped which are better and have limited ammo.

You can get more moves through an RPG like system. When you solve crimes and complete missions, you get some police points, basically experience points you can spend at places in the city to learn new things, like the shooting range, dojo and driving tracks.

What kind of new moves you ask? New combos for fighting, some gun skills to help you shoot, like dual aiming and the pit manuever for driving and more.

You do missions to progress through the real story but in a city like LA, random crimes happen all the time. These optional crimes will be the bulk of your time when you play this game.

Final Thought

The best of it's class. And believe it or not, more open ended than GTA. Think about it, someone steals a car, you can do the pit maneuver, shoot the cars tires out (while driving), hit it a lot, shoot it a lot, force the car to stop by making it ram against a wall, or shoot the guy. The city is also HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE! It's Gihugic. You need to take the freeway to get around. No kidding.

Buy it. Buy it now!!! Fine don't buy it. Why do I care? I have the game, I'm enjoying it. It's your lost. I mean I don't really care what you do. Buy it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/08/03