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.

I have True Crime Streets of La for PS2. Believe me or not, this is the only video game that I have for my PS2. I literally play this game every single day. What I like about this game is that if you collect 30 dog bones, you can unlock and play Snoop Dogg as a undercover cop. All he have to do is solve street crimes. It's really nice that True Crime Streets of La is the GTA clone, which means similar to GTA, except that in True Crime, you have to play as a law enforcement officer. In GTA, you can do whatever you want like missions or killing people, stealing cars, robbing places, One of my favorite police undercover game ever!

Don't listen to frank gifford. I don't know who gave him a computer to use, but he's wrong.

Sure, there are games that will and have taken the GTA go anywhere, do anything gameplay and the attitude that keeps you playing, but there was so much put into True Crime that you have to applaud it. Russel Wong must have gotten a lot of cash for lending his voice to this game, because he's all over it. There are hours of his dialogue, wisecracks and his grunts and groans as his character, Nick Kang, fights. Christopher Walken is in here as well, playing the old friend of Nick Kang's father.

The major similarity to GTA is that you can do what you want when you want, and you can go on to the next mission when you feel like it. The twist is that you're a cop and if you act violently, you become a bad cop, making cops your enemy as well.

There is a large soundtrack- about 50 songs or so- that are unedited. There are also some nice cheats and options as well for replayability.

So If you're looking for a game to hold you over until the next GTA, this is definitely it.

Sound: 8/10 Graphics: 8.5/10 Gameplay: 8.0

Some comments already referred to this game ripping off GTA, and that's basically its only appeal. It's missing a lot of the things that made GTA great, though. The radio only plays rap music, there's no humor, you only get one gun (unless you kill somebody and take theirs, but then it's only until it runs out of ammunition--then you lose it), and the story is really lame and hackneyed (so are GTA's, but there the references are at least tongue-in-cheek). Also, the game was pretty clean-cut and had this stupid Karma system that punishes you for breaking the law. "He's a cop. He's supposed to always obey the law." Well, ok, but that makes for a really horrible game premise. The whole thing seemed a lot like Activision was trying to capture the GTA market while avoiding the backlash from religious groups and over-the-edge "WHAT ARE WE TEACHING OUR CHILDREN??" housewives that Rockstar received for their games. Unfortunately what resulted was a huge piece of boring, bug-filled **** that was just barely interesting enough to let the plastic on the Vice City CD cool off for a week.

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.