pavona21's Full Review: True Crime: Streets of L.A. for GameCube
How 'bout that?
Look what we have here...Pav found some time in his busy schedule(IE, he has no life) and has decided to come back to epinions and hopefully reclaim some of what he had long ago. The circumstances and rules are a bit different(the one person that may care can read the profile), but the goal is the same. Major epinions games contributor Slusy once said: "I play bad games so you don't have to."(or at least something to that affect) That said, True Crime is a "bad" game that you shouldn't be bullied into buying, and I'm going to tell you why.
More hype than Lebron James
I was sitting around one day, watching some TV, when I saw a commercial that rekindled some past interest. The ad went something like this: "The best fighting game, the best driving game, the best shooting game, is one game, that is the best game ever." Pretty damn bold statements if you ask me. This game, of course, was True Crime: Streets of LA. I remembered hearing something a while back about this being a GTA killer, and possibly the Second Coming of Jesus Christ himself, and I figured that I should finally give it a shot. That said, it was rental time.
Story
Nick Kang is an LA cop. His dad was an LA cop. His dad disappeared mysteriously years ago. All of that said in the beginning, Nick Kang is one of those hardass cops that keeps getting himself in trouble with the internal affairs people. He is so valuable though, that his discretions, be they talking smack to the higher ups, damaging the city in a big chase, or killing innocent civilians for no apparent reason, really don't matter. He gets suspended for god knows what, but is eventually re-instated by the chief of police because they need of cop of his style and skill to take down a group of mob bosses. The game sets up the plot as if you’re not only going to complete your mission, but also find out what happened to your father. But just when you think that this game may be an epic, you finish it 5 hours later and realize that no dots have been connected, and that there is probably going to be a sub-par sequel in the future.
Gameplay: Why this isn’t GTA True Crime, in its simplest form, is a linear version of GTA. Unfortunately for both Activision and gamers as a whole, Grand Theft Auto’s best attribute is its “free to choose style”. Like GTA though, True Crime is a game full of different story sections, and smaller sub stories on top of those. Typically, the game will proceed in this fashion:
1. Begin a story section, race against time to drive somewhere, like a strip club, or a bank holdup.
2. Second sub story, fight a villain, such as a prostitute, or member of a gang.
3. Third sub story, drive somewhere else, maybe timed, maybe not.
4. Fourth sub story, get to your location, work your way up to a boss.
5. Last sub story, fight the main boss.
If you don’t complete any one or more of these missions, you are punished by having to actually fight street crime at the end of a story section. Once you make 8 street busts for breaking up street fights, arresting or killing armed muggers, or stopping car thieves, you will be lucky enough to advance to the next story section.
Along with all of this rousing, linear mission style gameplay, True Crime also has some more deeply nested gameplay elements. First off is the good/bad cop ratio. Taking a page out of the books that are good games such as KOTOR or Black and White, you can choose what kind of a person you are(good or bad), based on your actions. For example, there is street fight breaking out on Main Street. By simply arresting the criminals involved, you are awarded a good cop point. But if you decide to kill them or any surrounding civilians, you will get a bad cop point for each death that you’ve caused. All and all, you can view the summation of your actions in the bottom right hand corner of the game screen. In reality, these ratings matter very little. Sure, you can unlock some “cool” bonuses at the end of the game if you’re a good cop that has 100% mission completion, and if you’re a bad enough cop, there can be civil unrest which leads to civilians trying to kill you, but these are generally non factors.
So I’ve gave this game a moderate bashing for the early duration of the reviews. I will concede though, True Crime does sport it share of positives. For starters, True Crime allows gamers to travel miles upon miles of “real” LA area. I’ve never been to LA before(although I’d like to go), so I can’t tell you how “realistic” this title’s portrayal of the area is, but any game that sports 25 miles of real city land mass is impressive. This feature is especially good for gamers that live in the LA area, or are familiar with LA, because one can only imagine the nostalgia and joy that gamer would feel seeing his or her old house in a video game. I don’t live there though, so I don’t care that much for the realism. Also on the positive side is that this game does have some decent replay value for those who want it. To be completely honest, I put 6 hours into this game at the most, and I completed the entire story line. Those that actually like what they see though could potentially finish all alternate missions, build their character up by using points to unlock new fighting moves or cars(some of which are sweet rides), and maybe get 12 hours out of the game. Finally, for those who don’t like high learning curves, playing the game is pretty easy. Sure, some of the more advanced fighting combinations and shooting strategy can be difficult, but you won’t ever need any of this if you don’t want to use it. You can beat any enemy in the game by simply mashing buttons when fighting them, or running at them and shooting them. For advanced gamers, I guess this would be seen as a big negative, but for the 6 year olds that shouldn’t be playing TC anyway, and for new gamers, it could be seen as a plus.
Graphics: And the mood shifts
Although I considered the gameplay to be just short of horrendous, there’s no disputing the fact that this game shows off some seriously solid graphics. As I stated before, any game that can “correctly” draws out the landscape of a huge city such as Los Angeles, and makes it look good, has achieved quite an accomplishment. Beyond the huge scale of the game, the character models are smooth and fairly detailed, the cars, as a whole, look great, and many of the cut scenes are well detailed and animated. Add in the fact that this game runs almost completely without any slowdown in the framerate, and you have a finished product that just about any design studio would be impressed with.
Audio: Good, if you like Hip Hop
Along with True Crime’s extraordinary graphics, is a fairly impressive list of sounds. The in game music, as a whole, is pretty hit or miss, depending on what kind of music you prefer. It comes down to one simple question: “Do you like rap?” If your answer is yes, you will be pleased with the music selection, if your answer is no, you’ll probably hate the play list. That aside, the rest of the audio aspect is pretty solid. The sound effects, as a whole, are believable and exciting. The voice acting is above average, but not quite GTA: Vice city quality. Nick Kang’s character and some of the other main cast do a pretty good job, which is mixed with some below average supporting cast work. On the plus side, this audio can run in full surround sound if your system can handle it.
Summation
All and all, True Crime is an average, if not slightly below average, title. While I do commend Activision for obviously putting a lot of time and money into the game, I can’t help but be mad at them for producing an essential GTA knockoff, minus 60 hours of gameplay. As you can tell from reading the review, I enjoyed the “supporting cast” of the game.(graphics, audio, ease, ect) But if I wanted see something visually exciting, but poorly executed, I’d watch a cheap porno. When all is said and done, the meat of the game, the gameplay, is too underwhelming to make this game anything special. Mix a linear gameplay with an embarrassing replay value and mediocre battle elements, and you get a bad game. “A mediocre fighting game, a decent driving game, and an easy fighting game is all one over-hyped, typically average game.” Rent it if you want 6 hours of moderate enjoyment, otherwise stay away altogether.
Thanks for hearing the rant,
-Pav
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