City of Angels
Nick Kang-Wilson is a loose cannon. He lost his mother at an early age, and when his father completely vanished while investigating a mob case, any semblance of stability and normality in his life was gone. Nick and his younger brother Cary were forced to move to Hong Kong to live with relatives after their father's disappearance. Never really feeling at home in Hong Kong, Nick longed to return to LA, and discover his father's fate. He did so as soon as he was able, and joined the LAPD to follow in his dad's footsteps. Unfortunately, Nick's reputation for being overly rough with criminals soon landed him a suspension from the force. However, Nick is about to receive an offer that he can't refuse - an offer that could help him track down the people who know the fate of his father.
Cracking Skulls
True Crime is Luxoflux's most ambitious project to date. They've painstakingly re-created 240 square miles of the City of Los Angeles for the game - from Downtown to Venice Beach, all from GPS data - meaning that you can grab directions from sites like MapQuest, and they will be relevant in the game. The city is not 100% accurate however, as obtaining licenses from businesses and corporations would have been a retched task, but some unique LA land marks, such as the Staples Centre, are present in the game. The city also seems a bit less lively than the cities in the GTA games - traffic is fairly minimal, there aren't a lot of pedestrians around, and they don't talk as much. The other main problem lies in the city itself - using a realistic location just doesn't click sometimes, as the opportunity for crazy stunts and an interesting layout just isn't there (unless you use Brisbane as your city). The positives really do outweigh the negatives, as the sheer size of the location is enough to please the most discerning of gamers.
The general action and flow of play in True Crime is its greatest asset. You can drive around the city, doing pretty much whatever you wish to do, be it story missions, random crimes, training or just causing a ruckus. The story missions work very well. They're much like any normal mission sort - drive here, sneak through there, shoot these people - but the story can be altered based on your performance. For instance, if you are doing a sneaking mission and you get caught, you can choose to replay the mission, or just continue the story. The cutscene that follows the story will be slightly altered based on the decision you make. However, choosing to continue the story results in missing a lot of missions, and the game will ask you go to back and replay some chapters to completion before allowing you to move on.
As previously mentioned, you can choose to solve random crimes on the streets instead of doing missions, though you will be required to solve these random crimes during intermissions if you do not fully complete a chapter in the story the first time through. A radio dispatch will pop up while you are driving, informing you of the type of crime taking place, be it a mugging, attempted rape, bank job, street race, or one of many others. The way in which you solve the crime will earn you badge points for spending at the 24/7 training centers, and affect your good cop/bad cop rating. While this rating was a good idea, it seems rather inconsequential throughout the game. Acting as a bad cop will increase your civil unrest meter, making civilians and cops attack you. It would have been better to see your karmic disposition have a greater impact on the narrative, but I guess we'll have to wait for the sequel.
Gameplay is really broken down into three different sections - driving, shooting and fighting. Driving may feel relatively awkward to gamers who've been brought up on GTA, as the cars seem a lot heavier and generally stick to the ground a lot more. Finding a car with a decent turning circle which can go at a good speed is a difficult task early in the game, and can in-turn lead to a bit of frustration. True Crime's shooting mechanics should be relatively familiar to anyone who has played Dead To Rights, but it has a few more tricks up its sleeve. Nick can fire at a rather fast speed (faster with upgrades), he can dive around in slow motion, and can also utilize a precision aiming mode, which will slow down time temporarily and give the player a reticule to assist in making a precision shot. The auto targeting mechanism in the game can be a hassle at times, but most will be used to that from playing GTA. Fighting is the component of True Crime's action that is truly above the rest of the competition. Nick can utilize four different attacks - punch, kick, jump kick and throw. When an opponent becomes dazed, combinations of button pushes can be strung together to execute a finishing move. The environment in the fighting sections (and throughout most of the game) is almost fully destructible. There are other minor sections in the game, such as a few stealth bits scattered through the game - these are quite an annoyance, but nothing too bad.
Getting Nick's skills up to scratch is the main thing which sets True Crime above the competition. This may seem like a catch-22 to some, as the fact that Nick starts off as a complete retard will put a few gamers off. Once you obtain some badge points, you can visit 24/7 centers scattered around the city to train Nick's abilities in three areas - fighting, shooting and driving. There are also bonus 24/7 centers which you can visit upon 100% completion of a chapter. Visiting a martial arts dojo will allow you to obtain new fighting moves such as ground attacks, back attacks and new throw types. Going to the police driving range will help you to develop new driving skills, such as driving on two wheels, immobilization techniques, peel outs and more. The police shooting range is arguably the most useful of the three centres, as it allows you to improve your precision aim abilities (targeting body parts for non lethal takedowns), reloading time and more. The Bonus centres will allow you to unlock new cars and new guns for use around the map.
Despite being a free form game, True Crime's main section is rather short lived. The narrative, including all story branches, will take the average player somewhere around 15 hours to complete. The difficulty level is fairly moderate - most of your frustration will come as a result of questionable control mechanics or the camera in certain sections. Random crimes are a lot of fun to begin with, but you will find that they begin to repeat after a couple of hours. For players really looking for a challenge, there are 30 special "Dogg Bone" icons hidden around the city. Collecting these will unlock the Dogg Patrol mode, where you play as rapper Snoop Dogg. You get to use his special pimp-esque car, complete with hydraulics. Your mission is to patrol a certain section of the city for one hour, solving any random crimes that occur in that area. It's a nice little extra, but not everyone will see it.
Poking Eyes
To be honest, True Crime isn't aesthetically impressive. Rather, the technical aspects of the game is the most impressive part. There's 240 square miles of city in there, filled with people and vehicles. It does look a lot better to the naked eye than GTA, but most will immediately notice that the city is not as lively. The design and modeling of the characters is quite good (though there are a few questionable animations), and texturing of the buildings is definitely a step up. The game features a full day/night cycle and weather effects, but the cycle takes a lot longer to run through than the standard GTA one. There are a few special effects scattered throughout the game, such as real time reflections in car windscreens, but nothing over the top. Framerate is smooth for the most part, running at 30 frames per second outdoors and 60 frames per second indoors, with a few hitches when the action becomes too much for the system. A 60 Hz mode has been provided for those wishing to play the game the way it was designed.
The main strength in True Crime's presentation is its sound. First off, there's a massive soundtrack which was assembled by famous rapper Snoop Dogg. The soundtrack consists mainly of West Coast rap, with a few bits of rock here and there, but custom soundtrack functionality has been provided for those who do not like rap. A radio would have been a good addition to complement the soundtrack, as it seems a little empty without a DJ. The next big strength is the cast of voice actors. Activision and Luxoflux have managed to acquire an ensemble of Hollywood stars to play parts in the game, including Christopher Walken, Michele Rodriguez, Michael Madsen and more. Dialog can be cheesy - especially Nick's one liners and jokes made by the radio dispatch lady, but it shouldn't grate on your nerves for the duration of the story. General sound effects are also good, but some gun sounds are a little off.
Kicking Arse
True Crime: The Streets of LA is a very rewarding gameplay experience, offering up the best parts of free form gameplay, improving the no-so-good parts, adding a lot of depth, and managing to do a good job of justifying its own existence. Potential problems can arise from the fact that you have to put a bit of time into the game before it becomes really good - Nick is useless to begin with, but is really great to control after you've gained a few abilities. The city could also have used a little more life, and the narrative could have been a bit longer. Xbox or GC owners looking for an alternative to GTA on their system should snap this one up straight away, and PS2 owners needing a free form game with a bit more depth should take a look. True Crime is a game that everyone should look into.
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