True Crime: Streets of L.A.

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $5.99

Features:

• Action adventure game
• Play as an undercover cop trying to avert a gang war between Chinese and Russian gangs
• Open-ended gameplay with branching storyline
• 8 unlockable characters exclusive to this PC version of the game
• Single player and online/LAN multiplayer modes

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

WARNING!!!!!!! [Posted on 2004-09-04]
DO NOT BUY THIS GAME FOR THE PC!!!!! You can't use a joystick, and Activision is no help at all. I wish I could give it zero stars.

Wow, a contender for worst PC game ever! - FULL REVIEW [Posted on 2004-10-24]
This game is so bad, I don't even know where to begin...

Plot - Something about Triad gangs and the Russian mafia... it was hard to follow, and not very original. Way to many cliche police drama crime elements -- "I told you I work best alone" - ack, gag! Single plotline, WAY to linear.

Sound - Half the time I wasn't sure if it was MY character having one of his "internal dialogue" moments (which happen too frequently), or another character in the game talking. Forget trying to figure out where oncoming cars are by sound alone, it's just not that advanced.

Music - Uninspired gangsta rap for the most part. Not sure if there was a way to "change stations" like in GTA: Vice City, but since all the rest of the music pretty much stunk (to my 34 year old ears), no loss there.

Graphics - I was impressed with a few things -- building detail, LA freeway system, human character models, roads with real "elevation" to them; items in the game can even take damage! Everything looks less "Cartoony" than GTA:3 and GTA:VC, which is good. However the car models were complete crud and looked terrible.

Contols/Camera angles - This is what really killed this game. It seems that most of the time I would end up punching a wall instead of my intended target, or I would be fighting an enemy that was mostly off screen. Sneak missions are almost impossible due to the bizarre camera angles (not to mention the game is WAY to dark).

Hand to hand combat - I'm sure if I picked up the manual, I could make more sense of the combat system... I ended up just kicking and punching till I stunned the enemy, then mash all the attack keys till my character did some "super move" or the other. I admit, I was amused by my character's use of "Finish Him" (from Mortal Kombat) during some of these moves.

Gun combat - Simple, just aim and shoot. Picking up dropped weapons is more difficult than it should be. Not only that, most picked up weapons seem to have limited bullets. It probably would have been easier to have your guy automatically pick up better weapons and auto discard them when they run out, instead of having to look down, (in the dark while being shot at), find the new weapon, and hit the "E" key. The ability to shoot and auto-aim from moving vehicles is very good, works better than the system used in GTA:VC in my opinion.

Computer AI - Pretty stupid, but the enemy does occasionally duck behind things. The AI of computer (non-criminal) drivers was terrible. In GTA:VC, the drivers will usually stop for pedestrians (meaning YOU), not in this game. The problem with AI drivers is exacerbated by the fact that most of the time the camera angle is wrong for you to even see the oncoming cars!

Missions - As mentioned before, very linear plot. Missions follow one right after the other, apparently they change when you play "bad cop" as opposed to "good cop"; however I played the entire first two Missions as a "bad cop" and saw no difference in the outcome. Between driving to diffrent locations for missions, you'll hear requests over the police radio for "police patrol" sub missions. This feature is kinda cool, and it breaks up the monotony of having to drive from one end of the map to the other between missions. (However the sub missions get repetetive quickly.) If you fail part of an episode, you will be forced to play these "police patrol" missions. One fun thing to do is to grab random people off the street and "frisk" them for drugs/weapons. ;)

Pros - Decent graphics (for the most part, except for the car models), "frisking" citizens, interesting concept.

Cons - Worst control and camera angle system I have EVER seen. Cheesy plot, bad voice acting, too linear, terrible music (in my opinion), repetative "police missions"

Overall - Bad port of a console game. I hoped this game would "fill the void" for me until GTA: San Andreas comes out for the PC (Rumor has it that it will be out in March). However, this game does not fit the bill, not even close. Good thing I waited for the price drop...

The title of this game says it all!!! TRUE CRIME!  [Posted on 2004-11-20]
A blatant GTA style rip-off with no joystick control option. Might have been slightly amusing if ya' didn't get carpel tunnel from trying to play it. And it took darn near fifty times to install the sucker... (Finally figured out it did not like some cd-software I had installed). So after clearing my HD for this game, the first few hours were enough for me to uninstall this dog and fire up "GTA Vice City".
Don't buy this game.

Frustration Ensues [Posted on 2005-04-27]
At first this game should be at least somewhat fun to play. If you continue playing you'll start to realize this game is really thin on mechanics and fairness. I don't have the patience to go very far in this game so I can't comment on the plot. Anyway, you'll run into plenty of frustration playing this game. I don't even think Lemmings gave me this much stress! Gunfights? More like firing squads! The chance of you winning a gunfight is small, especially when more than one criminal has a gun. Unlike you, they don't miss. Hand-to-hand combat takes forever. Beating down an old lady shouldn't be so hard. There's no difficulty setting either.

Stick with GTA. It's more popular for a reason.

absolute trash!!!!!!!!! [Posted on 2006-09-27]
what a piece of krap! I thought it was a bargain at $5.99 but it still was a ripoff. Game couldn't even be completed. Get it for free and play it while your waiting for a real game.

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