People jumped the gun when True Crime was announced. Many deemed it as a Grand Theft Auto rip-off, some claimed it would be better than GTA, and others thought it would be terrible. Just about all of those were wrong in all aspects -- True Crime is far from the GTA series. While they can be compared in many aspects, the story and overall feel of the game is very different, so if you loved Vice City and buy this game thinking they will be similar, you will be disappointed.

Unlike Tommy Vercetti of Vice City, Nick Kang is a “loose cannon” officer who is suspended from the L.A.P.D. Instead of being fired, “The Chief” of the Elite Operations Division (E.O.D.) offers Nick a job, hoping he can stop the Triads who are causing havoc in L.A.. E.O.D. officers have jurisdiction over the entire city of Los Angeles and are allowed to do just about anything to get their job done. After Nick accepts the offer from The Chief, he sets out into L.A. to begin his undercover work to stop the Triads.

One big difference from GTA3 and Vice City is that the game is more linear -- Nick doesn’t have a choice in which order he does his missions. Instead, there are many episodes, and each episode has a certain amount of missions. Nick can roam around Los Angeles stopping random crimes during most missions, but you won’t find other mission opportunities like you would in GTA. If Nick fails a mission (and this will likely happen to you during the game) you are asked if you would like to continue or replay the mission. Selecting continue will affect your storyline and the cinema for the next mission, but you can always go back and play the mission over and complete it.

Random crimes are a way to build up your “reward points” and your Good Cop / Bad Cop rating. Instead of having cash, Nick uses points he earns. For each 100 points he earns -- by shooting an arm or a leg or arresting a bad guy -- he gets a badge, which he can use for learning new battle techniques, upgrading his guns, and learning driving techniques. While those take one whole badge (100 points), Nick can use a few points for healing his wounds or repairing his car. Be careful with your points, though -- if Nick loses all of his health, he gets points taken away, and he can even have negative points, too.

As mentioned above, there is a Good Cop / Bad Cop rating. If you hit a pedestrian with your car and it kills him or her, obviously you get minus 1 point. However, if you walk up to a pedestrian and frisk him or her and find a weapon or drugs, you get positive 1 point for arresting him or her. What makes the game more realistic with crimes is if someone robs a civilian and you gun them down and the criminal has no weapon, you are deemed minus 1 point because you did not arrest him or her and the crime was trivial compared to a hostage situation. So, before gunning down villains, you have to take a look at the situation instead of going into a battle with drawn weapons ready to kill.

Driving is a big part of the game, and while you can and likely will steal civilians’ cars, Nick owns his own car. Nick’s car also has sirens, so you may want to keep it around instead of ditching it so you can get "traffic" (the game features little traffic) to move out of your way (although usually it doesn’t help much). Also, at the end of episodes, there’s a bonus mission, and Nick has the ability to upgrade his weapon, learn a new battle technique, or earn a new car. So if you have the need for speed, you should probably try and get Nick’s newer cars -- they are a lot better than his first car.



The weapons system is not all that great. Nick never runs out of ammo with his guns, which is fine by me, but he also never actually keeps other guns. If you defeat or arrest a criminal with a gun, Nick can take it by pressing X, but once the gun runs out, he has to drop it and stick with his weapons. Thus, the game really only offers two guns most of the way through the game, and it can be difficult to take on enemies with machine guns. However, Nick has some cool moves he can do while shooting -- he can jump to either side, behind, or forward in slow motion, all while shooting guns. These moves are pretty cool to execute. Using precision aiming is a good way to shoot a criminal in the leg or arm to gain some points because the first few seconds are in “slow-mo.” One last unique shooting technique is actually shooting from a car. Nick can shoot vehicles in front, behind, or beside him, and he can even shoot running criminals or pedestrians.