True Crime: Streets of LA

Just played "True Crime" and even though its most obvious inspiration from a gaming point of view is the ever popular "Grand Theft Auto" series. From a movie point of view, this action title seems to be a throwback to those wildly absurd, but oh so entertaining martial-arts thrillers from the 1990's.

Like Dirty Harry, the lead character, Nick Kang, voiced by Russell Wong ("Romeo Must Die") is a cop who doesn't play by the rules. He was raised in Japan, where he and his younger brother learned the martial-arts. His father, also cop from LA, was killed in the line of duty under mysterious circumstances. The police department still wonders, was he a dirty cop?

With a little help of his unwanted new partner, voiced by Michelle Rodriguez, and an old timer who knew his dad, voiced by Christopher Walken (where have he heard this before), Nick is determined to solve the mystery and avenge his father's death. But in order to this, he must survive both the Triads and Russian mob, who seem to up to something fishy in the streets of LA.

Unfortunately, midway through, the story pulls a 180 and starts to involve the supernatural that's right out of "Big Trouble in Little China". It doesn't mix with the rest of the story and seems a bit contrived. Still, as a gaming expierence, I enjoyed this title, although it's a bit brief. It involves a little bit of everything action-oriented, although it doesn't tower over the competition in any of the genre it delves in

Wong's cliched cop reminded me of the Brandon Lee character from "Showdown in Little Tokyo" and the areas in which build up your fighting skills in various dojos seemed right out of Jeff Speakman's "The Perfect Weapon". I loved the fight sequences in this game, more so than the "Max Payne"-esque shooting segments, which are also fun. Dozens of firearms and melee weapons are up for the taking and the indoor enviroments are fully destructable.

The "drive anywhere, doing anything" aspect from "Grand Theft Auto" is a bit limited, but is entertaining. You can play as good cop or bad cop, though I wish there was more variety to the random crime acts that occur. Also, the "choose your own adventure" branching storylines is welcomed and I also liked the soundtrack, which was appropriate, given that LA is a mecca of hip hop culture.

Still, as a whole, the game isn't up to the standard of Rockstar's "Max Payne" and "Grand Theft Auto" franchises. Few games are, but I felt this game was too short and the Chinese ghost story twist in the middle, was, well it was bad. But, its a hit with American gamers and I can see why, since I am one. I do hope the sequel is better and more worthy of a purchase. As far as this title goes, I think you should rent it before you buy.

I'd give it two and a half stars out of four. Not bad, but not really good, it's just fun.

True Crime owes a lot, if not everything, to the Grand Theft Auto series. Indeed it is very difficult these days to have a free-roaming action game and not compare it to GTA but True Crime is so alarmingly similar that I'm surprised Rockstar didn't try to sue.

The story of True Crime is right out of a direct-to-video action film of the late 80s. It starts out as your typical renegade cop shoots first and ask questions later kind of pulp but ends up being about ancient Chinese wizards, huge fire-breathing dragons and sewer-dwelling zombies. If it began far-fetched then what it ends up as is just plain weird. However, that's not to say you'll not have fun. The plot is spread out over 9 different stages each with about 10 individual missions. It's possible to replay your favorite missions too.

True crime has 5 different styles of play. First their is the free-roaming bit where you can run all over LA solving street crimes. There there's the car chases in which you run bad guys (and sometimes airplanes) off the road. Third is the stealth missions in which you must sneak into places unnoticed and render unconscious anyone you see. Fourth is the one on one combat and fifth, my favorite, is the shoot-em-up levels, where you can do loads of stunts and diving through the air blasting away at bad guys. The slow motion as you zero in on the targets is brilliant. But I would have preferred if the game was bloodier. A few splatters here and there ain't enough.

But much of this game is boring, aesthetically at the least. The geographically accurate LA is impressive but it's so unbelievably bland. The dullest colors are used to paint the environment and the city is pretty made up of grey-scale. The cars also cannot do stunts. Which is crap. How brilliant would it be to drive right off the freeway and fly into the sky before plummeting 100 feet? Too bad, you can't do it because of the pointless invisible wall.

Pros:

Loads of action.

Blowing up stuff is fun.

Cool cut scenes with funny dialogue.

Great tunes.

Cons:

Some missions are boring.

No stunts.

LA is bland and thoroughly NON-interactive.

The fights with General Kim are IMPOSSIBLE!

Loads of very long loading times!

No matter how disappointing some parts of the game are I will still be getting the sequel, True Crime: New York City. But please do not make as boring as LA was and cut out those awful loading times!

Graphics B+ Sound A Gameplay A- Lasting Appeal A-

True Crime is the type of game that you sit down at, have a good time and then you want to play it again. It isn't Grand theft auto and it isn't driv3r but it has some cool features that none of those games have. So if you want just a good, easy to pick up game which has no real depth or heavy plot then choose True Crime: Streets of L.A.

Graphics: 6/10 (big city but spread out and dull) Sound : 10/10 ( Loads of hip hop gangster music) Gameplay: 9/10 ( Some cool features but some flawed controls) Overall: 8.5/10 (A good game to sit down and play for a while)

"Aw diggity damn I gotta go" A game I first discovered years ago on my dads ps2 and had fairly great memories of it. Coming back to it in my 20's, I'm finding out a lot of this game was fogged up by my nostalgia. While yes, I enjoyed this game a lot, and found all 3 storylines fun and exciting, I also found that this "open world" doesn't feel very expansive or even interesting. The only thing you can do, side mission wise, is finding random crimes (which I should mention, are recurring and don't have any ounce of story of completion). Now, the reason you want to do these is because you get reward points, and after 100, you earn a badge which you then can use to get an upgrade of your choosing (weapon, fighting, or driving). It's pretty boring ngl, especially since the open world is kinda big, just absolutely nothing to do in it. So in that aspect, the game feels pretty linear, which isn't the worst, but not great either. The poor ending was kinda lame, but the average and good endings were fun stuff, although the story doesn't get memorable until near the middle/end of the game. The missions were fun for the most part, I even enjoyed trying out the alternative missions too. Got like 93% of my upgrades until I beat the game all the way through, so I'd say I did a pretty thorough job with this game. In all, I can't say True Crime: Streets of LA held up my expectations for it, but it's a very fun if maybe slightly average game that feels different enough from GTA to feel like it's own thing. Recommended.

I really enjoyed playing True Crime it plays out like grand theft auto, but having you take the position of being a cop the creators did a very nice thing you go up to peoples cars and go police need to borrow your car. The game also isn't perfect it's kind of short not to short just don't think it's going to be as long as the grand theft games and you'll love it. Ok to the story it's about a cop who is assigned a new partner. They don't get along at first, but then they start to get used to one another. The levels are really fun you can drive around destroying most of the city, you can make arrests which is cool, and for the people that can't pass a level and are tired of playing a level you can start another one. my advixe is to rent it first because you migh beat it and get bored of it I just rented it and I am going to tell all of my friends to buy this game and give it a try. *** and a half out of **** really good game.