True Crime: Streets of LA

"A good title, but it has its share of flaws."

True Crime is one of those games where almost everyone is like ''OMFG ITZ LIEK A RIPPOF OF GTA!!!11one!!1'', but it's really not. True Crime is really a driving/fighting/shooting game with a lot of free roaming. And now, the review...

GRAPHICS 7/10

They're good, but not great. Most of the textures are grainy, and they really don't live up to Xbox's graphical capabilities (or PS2's capabilities for that matter.) Sometimes, the game will pop-up with some dumb glitches, like where you throw or punch an enemy and he goes through a small wall (not by breaking it, but just going through it.) The characters move pretty well, but the voice-acting is rather off-sync. A lot of the characters look the same. This normally isn't a problem in action games, but a lot of the time, the same character model will be used at another time to represent a different character. I'll give this a 7/10.

GAMEPLAY 8/10

This is where it matters the most. The gameplay is good, which is expected from free roaming games. You have the entire City of Angels at your disposal. You can commandeer any generic vehicle you want. You also stop random crimes on the roam (which is only optional) to get badge points and Good Cop points or Bad Cop points. The shooting missions are fun, the driving missions are decent, and the fighting missions are good. But, the does have some flaws. Like when I'm chasing down a perp driving car, then I precision aim at the back of his/her car, and shoot not even 5 times, and the entire car explodes thereby flipping 3 times. But, if you shoot the crap out of the back of his by locking onto it, it takes a lot more shots. Strange, huh? The fighting is good--there's a lot of combos you can do, but only when your opponent is dazed. And, all the characters fight the same way. The shooting is very good--you can do plenty of mixing n' matching with different guns, but how the hell can someone shoot so fluently with an AK47 in one hand, and a 12 Gauge shotgun in the other hand? With any kind of pistol, you can go into precision aiming and either kill the enemy, or incapacitate him. The driving is decent--the car chases are very action-packed, but easy to climax. The gameplay gets an 8/10

SOUND 7/10

95% gansta rap. If you love hip-hop/rap, you'll fall into pure bliss but...if you don't like it, you use the Custom Soundtrack feature. The gunshot noises are okay, and the same one-liners are repeated a lot. Tha sound getz a 7, yo! Fo' sheezy my neezy!

STORY 7/10

You are Nick Kang, an LA cop whose mother died when he was young, and whose father mysteriously went missing. You confront different crime bosses to try and figure out what happened. It's much better than it sounds, but the story's so damn short! The game would have been better if there was more of a story. A 7/10 here.

OVERALL 7/10

In conclusion, a few dumb flaws prevent this game from utter perfection. If you like to free roam (who doesn't?), then buy this. For I'm smashfan 2nd, good night. *exits through the background*

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