To Live And Die In L.A.

It would be impossible to do this review without constantly mentioning Grand Theft Auto III, the game that breathed more life into gaming than any since Doom. True Crime is an unembarrassed rip off of the whole GTA III concept, with a couple of new ideas thrown in (more to them later). But its one thing to copy a genre defining title, its another whole ball game trying to unseat it for the title of 'greatest'. So with little more to say I head into the world of True Crime: Streets Of LA...

The story line is brilliantly bland, you play Nick Kang, a recently suspended cop who gets thrown a life line by the newly formed agency E.O.D that sets out in its mission statement "To protect the citizens of Los Angeles, at any cost". And thats the catch you see, the part where it says "at any cost". So rather than being some straight policeman doing goody things (lets face it after GTA III do we really want to be a good guy?), you can choose your path of moral policing. And I know 95% of you, with even the best intentions are gonna be like a Dirty Harry or Denzel Washington in 'Training Day', to get the results by any means neccessay. Well thats how I played it.

With some side kicks and stereo-typed villian characters you (Nick) attempt to clean the dirty streets of L.A. Which involves a full story mode, made up of smaller missions, and integrated with some slick cutscenes. You don't have to strictly follow the mission structure however, so you can go off and do what ever you want over the sprawling city of LA. And big is an understatement, if you don't use the freeways it can literally take you 30 minutes to drive acroos the entire game world. The city is exact replica of LA, mapped with brilliant detail. And there are plenty of other 'smaller' crimes to solve while your cruising the streets.

Graphically the game is fairly good. A step up from the PS2's GTA III, and a solid draw distance. While i haven't been to the city of angels, it is what i would imagine it to be, certaintly as far as aesthatics go. A couple of blights do emerge however. Firstly where the hell is the traffic, i mean there is traffic, but more of the kind you'd see in a large country town, not the type of traffic that LA is famous for. I can't be too harsh on this though, as too much traffic would of severly restricted the gameplay fun. Secondly however are some of the bugs, that will see you crash through a fence one moment, and than unable to crash back through it again. These moments will definetely test your patience, and should of been weeded out before release.

Sonically the game is a huge highlight... that's if you like west coast hip hop. Featuring some of the West's biggest stars (Westside Connection, Ice-T, Snoop Dogg) and a few of there lesser known brethren, the beats fit the game perfectly. However a few more famous commercial tracks wouldn't of went astray, and if you don't like West Coast hip hop you will turn it off very quickly. Personally I was in my element. The speech is also very good featuring the talent of Christopher Walken and Gary Oldman to name but a few.

Beside the standard drive, run and shoot your way around town, True Crime also offers a couple of innovations, such as stealth missions which play like a watered down Hitman 2, and cool fight scenes (think Shenmue) that will see you carve up a bar or two. While neither of these are amazing they do add a little extra variety to the rest of the game.

The gameplay is not far off the dizzy peaks of GTA III, very importantly the vehicle control is good, and while on foot isn't perfect, I found it to be just as good as GTA III. How you go about completing this game is upto you, whether you go in guns blazing (killing crims and innocents with no mercy) or attenpt to bring live criminals back for the courts to dispense judgement. This is good in theory, but being a good cop in this game is very hard (near impossible), and the ability to just run over the criminals, is an unfair cheat, that is too tempting to use.

The gameplay could of been tweaked to offer more rewards for those that follow the 'good' light, as well as making it a tad easier to complete missions that way. However that fault aside, True Crime is a damn fun game to play, completing missions is satisfying, and the open ended structure will offer many hours of frivilous violent gameplay. What more could one ask for?

So this is a fine game, still not as polished (or fun) as the GTA III games, and lacking the variety that GTA offered. But it is fun, well made, and extremely cool. Now evryone can live and die in LA, over and over again.