Great fun, if flawed

I was slightly sceptical about this game, I had never really got into the whole Grand Theft Auto thing since the first game, and this game was essentially built up to be a GTA clone, but when someone bought it for my birthday, I had no choice but to give it a try…

Going over the game’s story in any great depth would be silly, seeing as it can branch into a good few different tales. But the basic rundown is that you are Nick Kang, a rogue police officer(think an Asian Steven Seagal in nearly any of his movies) who has been suspended from the LAPD for his over the top methods.

Nick’s dad was a great cop in LA, and he went missing after being fingered for being crooked, and Nick is out to find out what happened.

He gets offered a job in the Elite Operations Division (EOD), who work outwith the police, and use unconventional methods to solve crimes. This suits Nick just fine as he sets out to take down the Triads, the Russian mafia and to find out the truth about his father…

The game plays fairly similar to the 3D GTA’s in that it is viewed from third person and any car in the city is fair game for the taking. To spice things up a little, Nick is a martial arts expert, so he can actually handle himself in a scrap, which is good, seeing as coincidentally all of LA seem to be competent in Kung Fu, even the old ladies.
The fighting system is actually pretty cool, and I looked forward to getting into punch ups more than the shoot outs.
To further add to things, the game also features a stealth mode, in which you creep around taking down enemies without getting noticed. Being rubbish at stealth, I wasn’t looking forward to this, but it actually isn’t too tough.
One thing that bothered me about the modes is that sometimes it was impossible to break from the set rules.
So what if Nick is seen during a stealth mission? He is a good fighter, and carries guns, so why should he have to sneak around?

The game offers one of those good/bad points systems similar to the one found in the Star Wars KOTOR game, where good deeds earn good points, and bad ones earn bad points. This affects how the public treat you, and can even alter the storyline.


The basic controls for the game are that A is low kick, X is punch, Y is high kick and B is frisk/grapple. Pressing the R trigger brings out and fires your guns, and holding it brings up the precision shooting view.
When in the cars, A accelerates, B is the emergency brake and X is regular brake. You can also shoot while in the car, working with the same method as the normal shooting.

These are just the basic controls, and on the whole they all respond and work fine. My only complaint isn’t really with the controls, but precision targeting in car is horrendous. You cannot see properly, so its fairly pointless.

Along the course of the game, you can earn new fighting moves, guns, shooting skills and cars by completing little mini-game esque missions, these are of your choosing which you do. Being rubbish at racing, I finished the game with only my starting car, but with a plethora of new guns, techniques and martial arts moves.

The game’s graphics are alright, but they aren’t anywhere near the Xbox’s best. The intro movie has the worst looking cars since the PS1, but the in game models are far more satisfactory. Its all in all good Multiplatform, but not improved for XB graphics.

The sound can be broken into two sections, music and voices.
The music is of your choosing, and its one of the best utilizations of the custom soundtrack feature Iv seen. You can choose certain songs from all your soundtracks, and even mix them with ones already in the game. You can also make 3 soundtracks. One for in the car, one for stealth and one for shooting/fighting. Sadly the music on the soundtrack of the game is pretty horrible. Not being a fan of rap by any means, the only joy I got was the hilarious ‘Peace Sells’ by Megadeth.

Only a fool would doubt the voice talent. Christopher Walken (Sleepy Hollow),Gary Oldman(The Fifth Element),James Hong(Big Trouble in Little China),Ron Perlman(Hellboy) and Michelle Rodriguez(Resident Evil) are just a few of the names on the highly impressive cast.

The game’s story is fun, if it is just like any cheesy action movie you will see. The 100% complete last battle reminded me of the last fight in the movie Cradle 2 the Grave, and at some points the story takes a turn for the Big Trouble in Little China, as you meet David Lo Pa- sorry Ancient Wu, who is even voiced by Lo Pan himself.

While I enjoyed the Ancient Wu bits, they did seem slightly out of place, and were dropped with almost no reference as quickly as they were brought up, only to resurface again at the end.

But how does the game play? It plays incredibly well. I actually found myself enjoying it a lot, despite having a lot of problems, which Ill get back to later.

On the way to some of your missions, you can opt to solve some basic street crimes, some of which are actually based on real life crimes. Eg. Halle Berry’s hit and run incident and the hugh grant thing.

But the general feeling I got from the game was fun. There really isn’t much that can beat cruising around listening to the tunes of your choice, only stopping to get into a kung fu brawl or bullet riddled shootout.

The game does have its faults. It is packed with glitches. People go flying through walls, as do cars, with alarming regularity.
Other problems I have include the fact that you lose all picked up guns at the end of a shootout, and the fact that you have to daze your opponent before you can pull any cool fighting moves on them.
Another problem is that it isn’t exactly the hardest of games. I completed it 100% perfect in about three weeks.

But at the end of the day, True Crime is a really good fun title, and a great time can be had with it. If you like action movies, its probably as close to capturing one of them in a game as you can get, and if you like movies like that, chances are a game filled with Kung Fu and mass shoot outs is probably right up your street. The game seems to know it is like a cheesy action movie, and actually revels in it.

The game isn’t anywhere near perfect, but even in its state, its better than a lot of the game that Iv played recently. And no one should write it off without trying it first.