True Crime: Streets of L.A. Review

City of Angels…with horns and a tail.

We all know that the streets of L.A. are tough. From riots to gang warfare to

high-speed freeway chases, the media portrays Los Angeles as a city of chaos,

where the scumbags outnumber the good samaritans about 10 to 1. And of course,

the LAPD is nowhere to be found. Probably off eating at a doughnut shop or beating

someone up.

Well,

I hate to burst your bubble, but I grew up in Los Angeles, and it is far from

the pit of hellfire most people think it is. Sure, there are some areas (like

the Rampart district) where you wouldn’t find me walking the streets without

a Kevlar vest, but for the most part, L.A. is just like any other big city.

But that doesn’t make for a good story.

And True Crime: Streets of LA is all about the story. You are Nick

Kang (I voted for “Kodos’), a “loose cannon” on the force with his own particular

style of street justice. For some unknown reason, despite your poor attitude

and tendency to destroy things, the chief likes you and puts you on an elite

crime-fighting squad. You have a partner, who promptly gets shot the first time

you meet her. Instead of punishing you, they give her a desk job as your backup.

Dirty Harry meets Lethal Weapon with a little bit of T.J.

Hooker for flavor.

The story is straight out of a B-movie action film. Unfortunately, since the

story is the central part of this game, that makes this a B video game, too.

For all the cool attempts at upgradeable skills, hand to hand combat, free roaming

capability and a branching storyline, this game is remarkably linear and follows

a plot that at time makes very little sense.

As it is set in Los Angeles, True Crime includes various

L.A. landmarks. Ever want to go to E3?

Well, now you can at least pretend. Just head down Figueroa Street until you

see the Convention Center and the Staples Center. Good luck finding parking.

They properly rendered all of downtown and some of the outlying areas in very

sharp detail, with enough building differentiation that the city truly looks

real, albeit empty. Anyone who’s ever driven in L.A. knows that the traffic

is nowhere near this mellow, especially downtown. Obviously, they reduced

the traffic to make the game more playable, but they should have included a

“Rush Hour” where the streets are packed with cars. Trust me, driving through

L.A. traffic is a game all its own.

The

graphics really help bring out the realism of the location. The draw distance

is good so there’s very little pop-up. Explosions are big and fancy and the

cars look cool. The characters are modeled very nicely, though they all seem

to suffer from the same medical problem – their middle, ring and pinky fingers

are firmly connected to each other. Obviously, this was a shortcut so that all

the models could use guns (the index finger is free to wrap around the trigger)

but the hands do end up looking rather strange. The PS2 version also suffers

from some typical anti-aliasing problems, but by and large the game looks good.

The gameplay is an amalgam of some of the most popular games from the past

few years. You can run and drive around a huge, living city (Grand

Theft Auto). You can fight kung-fu style and take down enemies with your

superior martial arts (Dead to Rights). You

can use two guns and limitless ammo to kill bad guys while jumping to the side

and slowing down time (Max Payne).

I suppose if you’re going to steal, you might as well steal from the best.

But while having all these abilities is cool, each one has its own drawbacks

and none of them feel as polished as they should be. It’s the same problem that

GTA had with the sniper weapon (hard to use), but magnified

threefold. The camera can get wily, particularly during close-corridor combat.

And while there are lots of kung-fu moves to learn, the melee fighting usually

devolves into so much button-mashing.

That being said, the game is still remarkably fun. Driving around town fighting

crime outside of the missions is very satisfying and you can even decide whether

you want to be a good cop or a bad cop. You can solve crimes any number of ways.

For instance, to stop a suspect that’s running you can A.) Shoot to kill. B.)

Shoot him in the leg. C.) Shoot in the air and hope he gets the message and

stops. D.) Chase him down and open a can of melee whoopass. E.) Run him down

with your car. All suspects can be arrested instead of killed. Both how you

solve a crime and the number of random crimes you solve affects your good/bad

status and the upgrades you can get. It’s very slick and gives the game a really

nice sense of freedom.

While

most of the time we here at Game Revolution promote the use of zombies in video

games, I have to say they feel a touch out of place in True Crime. I

mean, I know crime can be bad in LA, but zombie crime? Exactly how is that True

Crime? That’s just unfair to zombie culture and, frankly, downright

bizarre in this game. Imagine your favorite cop action movie, now add zombies.

They’d fit just as well there as they do in this game.

The sound is also done well. The voice acting is good, but you sort of wish

they used Christopher Walken, the Creepiest Man Alive, more than they did. I’ve

had my own issues with Mr. Walken ever since I saw him in Puss-In-Boots

when I was a kid. I thought Puss-In-Boots was the scariest fairy tale

ever after seeing him in the title role. After The

Deer Hunter and the Weapon

of Choice video, I’m firmly convinced that I’d never want to meet Mr. Walken

in a dark alley. But I would liked to have heard more of him in True

Crime.

There are about 50 different music tracks of west coast rap and hip hop, with

a dash of heavy metal thrown in. More variety would have been nice. Xbox users

can create their own soundtrack, but if you don’t like rap and you don’t own

an Xbox, you may just want to turn off the music. L.A. has such an eclectic

music scene; bands like No Doubt, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hepcat, X, and

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy all call L.A. home. Heck, half the radio stations in L.A.

are Hispanic; only featuring rap does an injustice to the culture of L.A. At

least they used good rap, for the most part, even including Snoop Dog as an

unlockable character.

In the end, it’s the little things that hurt True Crime: Streets of LA.

The game tries to be everything for everyone by offering a great variety of

gameplay styles, but doesn’t quite succeed at any of them. Each facet of the

game has minor issues that hurt an otherwise enjoyable experience. If you have

any doubts about this title, rent it first. What could have been a great game,

a masterpiece even, is reduced to just a good game that’s well worth checking

out.