True Crime: Streets of LA is a
great example of a game being greater than the sum of its parts. The
driving, fighting, and shooting sections in the game are only average at
best, and the story is rather lame, but it is the combination of all of
these aspects along with an absolutely huge city to explore that make
True Crime an enjoyable experience. True Crime does as much to make you
feel like a police officer as GTA did to turn you into a criminal, and
it is an interesting change of pace to play the role of the good guys.
It isnt the greatest free roaming action game on the planet, but the
overall experience is surprisingly enjoyable and well worth checking
out.
The story in True Crime
follows a Los Angeles police officer named Nick Kang, a loose cannon cop
on the edge who does what he wants when he wants. At least, that is the
line the game constantly crams down your throat from the moment it
loads. It is up to Nick to discover the reasons behind two rival gangs
suddenly working together, and along the way hell uncover some of LAs
darkest secrets as well as learn the truth about his long lost father.
Pretty typical action movie stuff, and not terribly well written, but it
does its job. There are several different endings and depending on your
success in each mission, the story will change slightly, so it is fun to
be able to test out some what if scenarios before you knuckle down and
beat each mission the right way. One of the missions does go all crazy
and features the walking dead, but the story isnt all that good before
that so I say have fun blasting zombies.
The gameplay is similar to
the last two GTA games, but rather than being one seamless experience,
the gameplay is broken up into three different types. The driving aspect
of the game isnt all that extraordinary because, despite the fact that
you have some 240 square miles of accurately modeled Los Angeles to
explore, there really isnt anything to see or do. You can drive to
different places and get training to improve your driving, shooting, and
fighting skills, but there isnt much else to do. The handling of the
cars is stiff and navigating the narrow side streets is more trouble
than it has any right to be. Also, stealing cars isnt as much fun in
this game because there are so very few actually out on the road that
more often than not youll have to run back to the car you just jumped
out of two blocks back because all of the other cars have disappeared.
The traffic also seems to continue on no matter what might be in the way
so expect to get run over at least once every time you step out of your
car onto the street. The driving pretty much sucks and the city is too
big for its own good.
Shooting makes up the second
gameplay type, and it is just as unimpressive as the driving. You have
pistols with unlimited ammo at your disposal in every mission, but you
can also pick up new weapons along the way. You automatically lock on to
enemies and most of the gunfights in the game boil down to nothing more
than smashing the fire button as quickly as possible. There is a precise
aiming mode that allows you to make more accurate shots, but the control
is too spastic and aiming and even entering the mode itself is far too
slow to be of any real use.
Most of the combat in the game
is done with hand-to-hand fighting rather than guns, but the fighting
isnt put together any better than the driving or gunplay. You have
grapples, low kicks, high kicks, and punches, and you can also form
combos and use throws. The problem with the fighting is that it isnt
all that interesting, and all you really do is just smash buttons and
hope to land more hits than your opponent does. You can earn new throws
and attacks as you play through the game, but they dont help to make
the combat any less tedious and repetitive. One neat thing about the
fight sequences is that the environments are completely destructible,
and it is fun to be able to throw your opponents through tables and
chairs and anything else you can find.
One interesting thing that
True Crime does is that when you arent already in a mission, you are
given the opportunity to be a normal cop and go on patrol. You get calls
in on the radio and then you have to drive to the location and try and
resolve the situation. You can fire a warning shot or flash your badge
to try and solve the problem peacefully, but you can also choose to use
more violent means if you want to. A little meter in the bottom right
corner of the screen keeps track of your good cop / bad cop ratio at
all times, and when you kill suspects instead of arresting them or run
over people on the streets as you drive your rating will go down. At
certain points the story will change depending on whether you are good
or bad. Also, there is a civil unrest meter that is sort of like GTAs
six star system in that the more bad things you do the more heat will be
on you. It takes a lot of bad stuff to make the meter rise, and at first
the public will start to react differently towards you until finally the
police have to come in to stop your rampage. This whole good versus bad
scenario and the fact that everything you do has an impact on the story
is easily the best part about True Crime.
So lets add everything up. The
driving, shooting, and fighting elements of the game are only average at
best. The story is lame and incredibly short, but the branching missions
and multiple endings make the game a bit more exciting and fun. And,
finally, the cop simulator aspect of the game is surprisingly enjoyable
and the good cop / bad cop aspect that governs your actions really
spices everything up. What we have here is a game where the different
parts are little more than mediocre and would be downright crappy on
their own, but when they are all added together the resulting game
provides a satisfying enough experience that the problems with it can be
forgiven. It is sort of hard to put into words, really, but for all of
the frustration that you have to put up with it is hard to put this game
down and when you finish it you cant help but look back on it as being
something special.
Graphically, True Crime is
impressive. The city of Los Angeles looks absolutely amazing and it is
possible to drive around and find landmarks just where you expect them
to be, right down to the convention center where E3 is held each year.
All of the neighborhoods and commercial sectors and everything else are
all varied and look great. The car models look very good and, even
though they arent officially licensed, it is easy to tell what each car
was supposed to look like. The character models are equally as
impressive. They look like real living breathing people instead of the
stiff cardboard cutouts that some games try to fool you with.
The sound is also very good,
but youll like it more or less depending on your taste in music. The
soundtrack features fifty-licensed hip hop and rap tracks, and this can
either be a blessing or a curse. I have to admit that I am not a big fan
of the soundtrack, but the game was fun enough that I put up with it and
I expect that will be the case for a lot of people. The real stars of
the audio portion of the game are the voice actors that brought the
characters to life. Christopher Walken as an older police officer and
the narrator of the story in particular did an awesome job, but almost
all of the lines in the game were delivered in a believable way that
really immerses you into the game. The only real problem with the audio
is Nick Kang. He is constantly spouting one-liners, both original and
ripped straight out of popular movies, but he comes across as an
annoying jerk instead of a loose cannon cop on the edge like the game
wants you to think.
Overall, True Crime:
Streets of LA is a game that is an enjoyable experience that is truly
greater than the sum of its parts. It doesnt really do anything
particularly well, but the gameplay is tied together by a good cop / bad
cop system that takes a mediocre game and turns it into something good.
Also, playing the role of the good guys is a nice change and actually
having to go out onto the streets and do some normal police work really
immerses you into the characters as well as the city of Los Angeles. The
production values in the game are very high and the game looks gorgeous
and sounds amazing. True Crime is less than ten hours long, however, and
even though it features a huge city it isnt really all that much fun to
explore, so it is hard to recommend it for a purchase. It is enjoyable
while it lasts, but give True Crime: Streets of LA a rental and save a
few bucks.
Eric Qualls
(01/01/2004) |