Streets of LA in the LA Convention Center

Our history with True Crime stretches back all the way to E3 of 2002. We remember first seeing it there in its early stages, and thinking that it was a mix of Max Payne and Grand Theft Auto.

After facing some delays, as most games usually do, True Crime made its second E3 appearance in 2003. The game still carried its “mix of Max Payne and Grand Theft Auto” flavor, but was obviously much closer to release.

True Crime finally hit stores (and the Streets of LA) in November, and we’ve played it all to find out if it’s more than what met our eye.

All 240 Square Miles

As the name suggests, True Crime takes place in Los Angeles. While I do not live in La La Land, the game’s rendition of the City of Angels seems to be fairly accurate. You probably won’t be able to find your favorite neighbourhood game store, but all streets, avenues, and freeways are accurately named and mapped out in relation to each other. My LA experience is mostly limited to the yearly E3 experience, and surely enough, I was able to navigate my way down to downtown Los Angeles to find the convention center, right where it should be, next to the Staples Center. Too bad the Lakers weren’t playing.

Gameplay mix

True Crime: Streets of LA is a mix of four gameplay types: driving, shooting, sneaking, and fighting. The fighting is your standard beat-em-up variety with a buttons devoted to punches, kicks, jump kicks, and grapples. Sneaking just involves moving from point A to point B without being detected. While any third person action game where the main character wields two guns at a time is immediately compared to Max Payne, the only similarities to our favorite New York cop (aside from the dual guns) are the slow-motion shoot dodges.