"This is the city of the angels, and you haven't got any wings."

Activision and Luxoflux, Incorporated (developers of the games Star Wars: Demolition and Vigilante 8) wanted to create an interactive action film and it shows. True Crime: Streets of L.A. borrows many ideas from the action films we have seen many times in our lives and therefore it is nothing new to us as far as storytelling goes. That is not to say that True Crime: Streets of L.A. is not worth playing at all; it’s quite the opposite. With its intriguing features of gameplay, entertaining characters that help make the story interesting, True Crime: Streets of L.A. is a game that should be played a few times.

The player controls Nick Kang, a half-Asian and half-Caucasian suspended police officer who is recruited into the Elite Operations Division. The E.O.D. has jurisdiction over the entire city, and for someone like Mr. Kang it plays very well. Los Angeles, highly accurately recreated, will become both his playground and yours. Nick does not give a flattering first impression personality-wise, but as you play the game you may find that you can’t help but to like him. His backstory is one of tragedy. As a young boy, he had lost both of his parents (his mother died and his father mysteriously disappeared, which is explained in the game itself) and that meant he and his brother would have to live overseas in Hong Kong. Kang did not have a pleasant childhood, as his racial mix did not play well with the natives. Surviving was the key, according to Nick, and by the time he became an adult he moved back to the city he loves more than most: Los Angeles. The death of Kang’s father Henry plays a significant role in both storytelling and defining Kang’s character (the cliché ‘loose cannon cop’ character that would not see it any other way but his own. The personality is developed nicely this time).

Nick is not alone in his fight for justice. He turns to his confidant, a veteran officer voiced very nicely by actor Christopher Walken. Kang’s partner (actress Michelle Rodriguez) assists his leads and feeds him information while his chief (C.C.H. Pounder) supervises the operation. Other actors lending their voices for this action-packed game include Michael Madsen, Gary Oldman, and Ron Perlman. Nick Kang is voiced by Russell Wong, who appeared in the Vanishing Son films but may be mostly recognized by American film audiences for his appearance in the 2001 film Romeo Must Die.

There are three main playing modes advertised in True Crime: Streets of L.A., which are shooting, hand-to-hand fighting, and driving. Each mission in the game will utilize each method. The game is primarily mission-based, but most of the missions do not require any completion right away. True Crime: Streets of L.A. allows you to drive through each district in Los Angeles, displaying famous places such as the Staples Center. As you cruise in your convertible, your police radio may deliver reports of crimes in progress. They range from the low-class mugging and drug-dealing to full-blown shoot-outs between gang members for example, or between other criminals and police officers. Once in a while, you will receive reports of a rape in progress. How you handle these crimes will have an effect on your karma meter and either increase or decrease the amount of shield points. Your karma meter, represented by a yin-yang symbol, determines whether you are a good cop or a bad one. Karma points can be earned by solving crimes without resorting to violence: flashing your badge to the perpetrator or firing a warning shot into the air can get most of them to surrender immediately. Run up to them and arrest them. Problems can occur from time to time. Sometimes the criminal will run away, leaving you no choice but to run after them and either take them down with a sliding kick, a clothesline, or with the precision aiming feature shoot them to neutralize. The biggest problem is based on your desire to be a good cop. You want those karma points, but when the enemy begins firing his weapon at you there is no choice but to take them out. Not all crimes happen on the sidewalk, however. Heck, in the crimes that do take place on the sidewalk, one does not even have to leave their car if they wish (like when a good song begins to play on the radio, but more on this in a bit). Sometimes reports will come in about crimes taking place with the use of automobiles. These crimes range from street racing to heists, and it’s up to Kang to stop them. Activate the siren and assist the police cruiser already in pursuit. Precision aiming is a good idea if you want to earn karma points. Shooting two or more tires will usually convince the criminal to stop the vehicle. Be aware that the criminal can do anything from there: surrender, start firing his weapon, and even find the nearest vehicle to escape—even yours. Eventually it will come to the point where you receive the same crime reports over the radio, but which character models you run into is usually a surprise (I received a report of a hostage situation and I saw at the scene of the crime that the criminal was a businesswoman taking a big biker hostage. I couldn’t help but laugh.). Sometimes the crimes will be committed by movie stars (whose names bear similarities to Halle Berry and Steven Segal), corporations (the game goes as far as to mock the Enron Corporation), fashion designers, and other celebrities. This is L.A. after all!

You will earn shield points for solving crimes, whether through violence or negotiation. These shield points act as lives and credits. A solved crime earns you ten shield points. 100 points earns you a new shield. Should you be killed any time in the game, you lose 50 points; there go five solved crimes down the drain. Gather enough shield points and you can upgrade your fighting, driving, and shooting skills anytime throughout the game. They will usually come in handy later on in the game, dealing more damage. Some vehicle techniques are both useful and useless. The most useful ones can be found in various turns and, if you’re looking for a non-lethal way to stop a criminal in a vehicle, in the ability to disable vehicles by ramming them from the rear at a 45-degree angle. Fighting techniques can be learned and can help inflict much more damage on your enemies than previous techniques. These include combos that can be performed when Kang has knocked his opponents into a state of dizziness. This can be seen during the actual fights with a meter of exclamation points that drop in number when the enemy is really taking a beating. Shooting techniques call for certain ways to neutralize wooden targets in the shooting range. Rewards include faster aiming, the ability to distinguish neutralizing shots from deadly ones, and the ability to aim at two enemies at once (since Mr. Kang is always packing two handguns).

The main story involves Kang versus the Russian mafia (the “Russkies” as Nick puts it), the Triads (the Chinese mafia), and the North Korean Army (specifically a lethal general voiced by Mako). Nick is brought out of suspension out of the belief that he is a man that can get things done. The game’s missions can be accessed simply by driving to the destinations mentioned in the cutscenes that are acted out very well, albeit a tad cheesy. The cheese, however, is entertaining in this case (kind of like Rocky 4). Watching the story progress and playing the game, you will come across a few profane words, some sexual innuendos, and the not-unusual-these-days blood—hence the M rating. Once at the destination, Nick will either have to shoot his way to the goal, fight his way, or as a suspect escapes, chase him by vehicle. Other kinds of missions will be a race against time, a stealth mission (sneak by thugs without being seen, then knock them out by hand or with your tranquilizer gun), or a tailing mission (follow a suspicious vehicle without alerting them). Here is where the story mode becomes interesting. Whether you succeed in your mission or fail it, you have the choice of either replaying the mission (at the cost of shield points) or to continue on with the story. Either choice will get different results and lead to other missions. Completing these missions (as in succeeding in all of them) will unlock a bonus upgrade mode. Here you can unlock new fighting moves, new weapons, or new vehicles. All of them are nice and worthy of unlocking. The vehicles include a Mustang (renamed “㥍 Muscle Car”), a Dodge Viper (renamed “Roadster Car”), and more. The weapons deal more damage and become louder than their predecessors. They assist you in completing missions a great deal in the game. Depending on which route you took to complete the story, you will be treated to three different endings. Each mission’s end usually involves Nick exclaim some kind of victorious one-liner. A majority of them usually are amusing as are Nick’s lines in the entire game (True Crime: Streets of L.A. even references The Matrix in a shoot-out mission at a bank). My favorite is Kang singing, “You fought the law and the law won!” It doesn’t sound as amusing on paper, but one needs to listen to it. The missions are fun to play if you have the right music in the game; since I’m reviewing the Xbox version of this title, I refer to the custom soundtrack feature which helps a great deal in enjoying the game. I do not know if I could have played the Gamecube or PlayStation 2 versions of this game in all honesty.

Learning to play True Crime: Streets of L.A. requires a bit of dedication. I’ve tried to avoid this so far, but I suppose it can’t be helped: most of us are already familiar with the Grand Theft Auto games and how they control on the PlayStation 2. The system’s controller and the Xbox’s controller have the same number of buttons, but I suppose we’re spoiled by how we control in Grand Theft Auto 3 that some of us may actually play in that fashion. Pressure sensitivity is a factor in the controls. For example, lightly squeezing the right trigger will cause Nick to fire his weapon. Hold down the right trigger and Nick will enter precision aim mode and you can then aim for specific parts of a perpetrator’s body. Moving in a direction and tapping the Y button will cause Nick to roll in that direction. Move in a direction and press the Y button down and enter, yes, Bullet Time mode. The left analog stick moves Nick, and the more lightly it’s pushed, the slower Nick moves. I found it rather difficult to move diagonally in stealth missions when I have to move through obstacles that could produce a sound, therefore giving me away to criminals. The A button has Nick ducking, an effective technique in stealth and shoot-out missions. The directional pad puts Nick into stances where he is ready to fight, ready to shoot, or just standing still. When you are directly viewing the crime, you push in the left stick and push the X button to flash the E.O.D. badge, or press the right trigger to fire a warning shot into the air to alert criminals. Driving techniques can take time to learn because one will usually need the right amount of speed and position to pull the stunts off, and some of them aren’t very necessary to get through the story.

True Crime: Streets of L.A.’s visuals are not revolutionary in any way, but they aren’t horrendous. Luxoflux did a very good job recreating Los Angeles for this game (minus the inclusion of things like fast food chains, which is rather understandable), without a single load time in the way during your travels. There isn’t a large variety of vehicles in this game, and there aren’t a lot of details into them. Character models, especially the main characters, have looked better before in other games. Some of them looked as if they were still in the testing stages; some characters’ eyes looked like they were opened so wide it was as if placed in a permanent state of shock. Regardless, the game is found among three other platforms, and most of the time developers can’t just put that much dedication without having to delay the release of the final product. I, along with a few others, have discovered that some copies (if not all) of True Crime: Streets of L.A. tend to crash after certain areas are reached in the game. There are also quite a few bugs found in some instances: getting stuck, jittering characters, etc. Overall, the visuals are average and a minor setback from appreciation.

West coast hip-hop fans can rejoice at the large number of licensed and original tracks found in True Crime: Streets of L.A. The inclusion of a few rock songs (especially one from The Matrix Reloaded) should also please fans of that genre. I myself am not a fan of hip-hop, so this is where the Xbox stands above the PlayStation 2 and Gamecube versions (the PC version will likely include the custom soundtrack feature also). The Xbox version of the game features the custom soundtrack option that will recognize 120 songs inserted into the game. Not only are these songs played while on the road, but during the actual missions themselves. This is a redeeming factor for me as one who tends to avoid hip-hop. The sounds of the game are also appreciative, from the massively loud bullets flying everywhere to the engines of the vehicles and the footsteps running from the law on the sidewalk. None of them sound in any way strange. The cast of the game does a very good job with their characters, giving them their respective personalities and helping the story progress. The most notable of the actors has to be Christopher Walken as Kang’s best friend.

In the end, True Crime: Streets of L.A. ends up being an entertaining action film that we can play. It features enjoyable characters, a very easy-to-follow story where you choose what you want to do next, the ability to add your own music (Xbox version-only), and the overall factor of having Los Angeles as your playground. True Crime: Streets of L.A. does not revolutionize the genre in any way, but it’s worth a try.