True Crime: Streets of LA (PS2, XBOX, GCN)
Publisher: Activision Developer: Luxoflux
When I first caught wind of True Crime: Streets of LA, I immediately thought that this would be nothing more than a rip off of Grand Theft Auto. Well, I was half right. While the previews for the game show something similar to GTA, they're a little deceiving. In True Crime, you're actually a cop, so you're on the side of good for once. Instead of robbing banks, you're stopping robberies. You can still steal any car on the street, but now it's because "The police need this car." It still feels all too similar, and I hate to compare games to each other, but GTA really set the bar pretty high.
Gameplay: 5
The gameplay is pretty bad for anyone who is used to the control scheme used in other driving games where you get in and out of cars. They've put buttons in awkward places, and I'm always hunting for which button to push. There isn't really any "tutorial level" that most games have, but they do pop up with hints (which button combos do what) during one of the several hundred loading screens you'll have to endure while playing.
The game seems like you're playing a bad crime drama. You're a renegade cop (Nick) who nobody likes, but you seem to get the job done. The game starts with an immediate mission of driving somewhere, and things go downhill from there. Each "Episode" is broken down into several missions, each of which is less important (and shorter) than the previous one. For instance, one mission is called "Drive to the Restaurant." Sure, you might think that there's a sting going down there or something, but there's not. You're actually meeting your partner for lunch. Of course, something happens in the place and you have to get into a fist fight with a guy, but that happens every 5 minutes in this game.
The game plays like a fighting game, except for the fact that you've got a really limited selection of moves. Sure, there are guns, but since you're a cop in this game, things look better on you if you take down all the suspects with your fists (which takes forever) and handcuff them. The LAPD seems to like beating people with their bare hands, rather than shooting them.
When you start an episode, you can simply dash through every mission, or stop in the middle and solve street crimes. Before I figured out that solving street crimes was useless, I solved several of them. (They're not totally useless. They raise your good cop/bad cop stats, but they don't seem to do much else.) They were actually much more fun that the rest of the game. I like the idea of driving around and catching crooks on the street! Even though the fighting takes a long time, it was still satisfying to put them in handcuffs and watch them disappear into thin air.
One other quirk I have with the game, was a minor problem that occurred while I was solving a street crime. When I was fighting with a crook, and I stepped too close to a lit door, I ended up with the game stopping, pausing, auto-saving, and taking me into the impound garage. When I came out, the street crime was gone. This was kind of an annoying feature which actually bothered me more than once. I didn't realize that you could accidentally step inside someplace else while you were fighting.
Graphics: 6.5
The graphics were definitely sub-par. While I don't always expect everything to look perfect in a game, this one wasn't exactly done right. There were lots of lag times while I was just driving my car. I don't mean lags between areas of the city, but lags just driving down the street where the action would freeze for a split second before continuing. (It wasn't the machine or disk either. We tried several.) Other than that, the graphics weren't terrible by any means, but things tried to look too realistic in some areas, while other portions were just left blocky.
Sound & Music: 5
The first thing I immediately noticed about the voice acting was the accent that everyone used. Nick walks into the station, and he immediately starts talking with a New York accent. I think nothing of it until the two guys he's talking to also have thick NY accents. Hey... isn't this game called True Crime: Streets of LA? Why the hell does everyone sound like they're from New York City? In any case, it certainly was odd. I wonder if the game was originally supposed to be about New York...
The music also was a little bothersome to me. I'm a big fan of rap music, but there's something I just don't get about the game. Why is it that every time you get into a car, there's rap on the radio? I'm not talking about that pop rap that you hear on the real radio either. I'm talking about regular rap, complete with swearing and everything. Like I said before, I'm a fan of rap, and I wasn't offended by the music in any way, but I fail to believe that every single person in LA listens to hardcore rap 24/7.
Story: 5.5
As stated earlier, True Crime plays out like a bad crime drama. Nick is a renegade cop who works alone. He is assigned a partner who actually uses the words "loose cannon" to describe him. She refuses to work with him and tells him that he's "bad news." They agree to disagree, as Nick feels that he can find the guy he's looking for on his own. He's looking to bust the local gang, and he doesn't need anyone's help. It was a midday Saturday movie kind of story.
Replay Value: 7
True Crime is actually fun to play if you can get used to the poor controls. One nice feature that they've actually added to the game is multiple endings. If your ratings are pretty high (you're a good cop) then you get a better ending. If you have a lot of pedestrian casualties and shoot lots of people to get the job done (you're a bad cop), then the ending is worse. I'm not sure how many there are, but I'm thinking that there at least 3 from what I've seen.
To buy or to rent?
Well, unless you've got an endless supply of cash, I'd rent this one first. It's got a lot of good ideas, but it's not one that you'd want to play forever. Try before you buy.
Overall: 6.5
Overall, the game has a lot of neat features, but it simply wasn't put together very well. If you've played everything else of the like, then this game might kill some good time until the next GTA comes out.
Additional Information:
Genre: Action/Shooter
Players: 1
Memory Required: 119K (PS2)
Rating: M (for Mature)
Extras: Dolby Pro Logic II
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