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True Crime: Streets of L.A. Review - Xbox

Has the GTA killer finally arrived? We've seen challengers come and go such as Mafia and The Getaway, but True Crime is possibly the biggest challenge the GTA series has come up against in its genre, and Luxoflux look like they've done a fine job in creating a successful competitor for Rockstar's golden series. The missions are more complex, the graphics are finer, and the damage to L.A. and the cars is much more extreme than anything seen in GTA. Hold on to your lollipop Fred, because True Crime is coming your way.

Your name is Nick Kang, temporarily suspended detective for the E.O.D. (Elite Operation Division), and you have a new partner named Rosie. You put on the whole macho character and say you don't need a partner, and Rosie seems to think that you're the worst cop in town, but of course like every story you know, she eventually comes around. Even at one stage the game seems so much like a common American movie that your character says 'That sounds like a line out of a bad video game!'

Gameplay

True Crime is basically a cross between Max Payne and GTA3. It has all the driving, crashing and bashing grandmas that we love so much from GTA, and then it has the fighting and shooting antics that we all loved from Max Payne. It even has a little Bullet Time here and there. What separates it from GTA is the fact that you are a cop. This means you can bust people on the streets for holding illegal weapons, drugs, or just being a general pain. What makes True Crime different from Max Payne is that it's nowhere near as linear. Sure, there's certain things in True Crime that you must do if you want to move on, get better weapons and better vehicles, but you don't have to do these things.

Cruisin' around L.A. will never be the same for those that have been there on holidays, or those fortunate enough to live there. If you know your way around Los Angeles, you?ll be in heaven with True Crime as it features over 230 Square Kilometres of it. From Hollywood to Brentwood, with a freeway that takes 15 minutes to get from one end to the other, speeding! If you like any American Cop show that you might see on television, then you?ll love the storyline in True Crime because if you get every single episode of NYPD Blue, put it all onto a custom gaming DVD, then put it in your console, the end result will be True Crime: Streets of L.A.

For the new reader that really doesn?t know much about these types of games, in True Crime you take control of one person, and make them do pretty much whatever you feel like doing. You can?t go and have conversations with people like (continued next page)