When “True Crime: Streets of LA” hit the shelves, it wasn’t just another open-world action game. Activision made a bold move, aiming to recreate a staggering 240 square miles of Los Angeles. As someone living in LA, the sheer scale was instantly intriguing. Coupled with a promising all-star voice cast, the game had all the hallmarks of a blockbuster title. While “True Crime” delivers on some of its ambitious promises, a closer look reveals a mix of impressive features and noticeable drawbacks.
Recreating the City of Angels: Los Angeles in True Crime
The most immediately striking aspect of “True Crime: Streets of LA” is undoubtedly its sprawling rendition of Los Angeles. Stretching from the skyscrapers of downtown to the sun-kissed beaches of Santa Monica and Venice, the game map attempts to capture the vastness of the city. Driving across this digital LA, even virtually navigating the infamous 10 Freeway, eerily mirrors the real-world experience. A fifteen-minute in-game drive from downtown to Santa Monica roughly equates to the same commute time in reality, traffic permitting – a detail any Angeleno will appreciate, albeit with a knowing chuckle about the ever-present gridlock missing from the game.
However, while the game captures the general layout and feel of Los Angeles, it’s far from a perfect replica. Beyond key landmarks, the building placement feels somewhat arbitrary, creating a surreal, dreamlike version of the city. Iconic locations like the Shrine Auditorium, Dodger Stadium, and the University of Southern California (USC) campus are conspicuously absent. In fact, players might find themselves driving through residential streets where USC should rightfully stand. Conversely, other landmarks like UCLA, Beverly Hills High School, Santa Monica College, and even Activision’s own headquarters make it into the game, albeit the developers stopped short of branding their own building. The street grid also takes liberties, with missing streets and freeway exits, leading to disorientation, especially at the map’s edges. A particularly humorous example is the 110 Freeway splitting into two generic streets, a geographical anomaly that’s sure to elicit a laugh from local players. Another immersion breaker for LA residents is the limited draw distance. Accustomed to long vistas, seeing only a block or two ahead on familiar streets can be initially jarring.
Despite these inaccuracies, the sheer scale and level of detail in “True Crime’s” Los Angeles are undeniably impressive. Few players will likely explore every nook and cranny of this virtual city, making it a playground ripe for exploration and discovery.
Gameplay Mechanics: Driving, Shooting, and Fighting Through LA’s Underbelly
“True Crime: Streets of LA” primarily unfolds through open missions, allowing players to freely roam the city. While objectives guide you, the game encourages exploration, letting you soak in the sights and even tune into a police radio to engage in random crimes. These spontaneous encounters range from minor offenses like drug deals and street brawls to more intense scenarios involving shootouts or recovering stolen goods, sometimes hilariously including truckloads of Activision games. The driving force behind tackling these crimes is earning badge points, the game’s currency for upgrades. Badges are essential for accessing upgrades at specialized facilities, replenishing health at clinics, and repairing your vehicle after those inevitable high-speed chases. Apprehending suspects typically nets you ten to fifteen badge points, and accumulating 100 points earns you a badge, granting entry to 24/7 upgrade facilities scattered across the city. Each facility offers a unique skill enhancement, pushing players to explore and strategically choose their upgrades to master driving maneuvers, shooting techniques, and hand-to-hand combat skills. The open mission structure thus becomes a loop of earning badge points and seeking out upgrade facilities to enhance your abilities.
Gameplay in “True Crime” is built around a seamless trinity of fighting, shooting, and driving. Switching between these modes is instantaneous during missions. You can transition from a high-speed car chase to a street brawl with the press of a button. If a suspect attempts to flee in a vehicle, you can commandeer your own car, pursue them, and disable their vehicle with gunfire. Each of these gameplay pillars receives equal attention, both in terms of screen time and control mechanics. While each mode has its initial quirks, they all contribute to a generally enjoyable experience. However, the initial hours of “True Crime” can feel somewhat clunky. The first few upgrades in each category are almost mandatory to make the controls feel responsive and fluid. Without basic enhancements like precision shooting or the ability to counter attacks from behind, the controls can feel frustratingly stiff. Fortunately, as you invest badge points and unlock more advanced techniques, the control scheme evolves, significantly boosting the game’s fun factor. Eventually, you’ll be executing nitro boosts and rapid 360-degree turns while driving, mastering a diverse array of punches, kicks, and grabs in combat, and achieving deadly accuracy with your firearms.
Story and Missions: From Realistic Crime to Lava Pits?
Beyond the free-roaming gameplay, “True Crime: Streets of LA” features a series of more structured, linear missions with specific objectives. These missions vary from races to reach a location to close-quarters combat with groups of enemies, stealth infiltrations through alleys, or intense shootouts in multi-story buildings. While these linear missions are more numerous, they tend to be shorter, offering bite-sized chunks of action. The game shines in gunfight and chase sequences, delivering adrenaline-pumping moments. However, attempts to diversify gameplay with stealth and tailing missions fall somewhat short.
Stealth sections, intended to evoke titles like “Splinter Cell” or “Metal Gear Solid,” lack the nuance and challenge of their inspirations. “True Crime” stealth proves far too forgiving. Simply approaching an enemy closely allows you to dispatch them with a single, unrealistic karate chop to the chest. This feels particularly jarring in a game where even elderly civilians can put up a prolonged fight. Consequently, stealth missions become trivial, easily overcome with minimal strategy and an abundance of overpowered karate chops.
Tailing missions, presented as “stealth on wheels,” veer in the opposite direction, becoming frustratingly difficult due to poor execution. The objective is to follow a target vehicle at a specific distance without being detected. The flawed AI of the target vehicle becomes the primary obstacle. The target car frequently gets stuck in traffic without warning, requiring you to abruptly brake and maintain distance. Then, often, the target vehicle will suddenly accelerate around corners, leaving you struggling to catch up. Furthermore, the detection radius for being “too close” can be inexplicably sensitive. Even when visually obscured by buildings after the target vehicle turns sharply, you can still be flagged for being “too close,” regardless of your actions, leading to unfair mission failures.
The overarching story in “True Crime” is relatively straightforward, lacking truly dramatic peaks, but engaging enough to propel you through the game. The narrative’s strength lies in its integration with gameplay and the consequences of player choices. Even mission failures don’t halt progress, with branching cinematic scenes reflecting your performance. The game also features a good cop/bad cop morality system, tracking your actions and significantly altering the storyline at key junctures. This system leads to three distinct story branches, introducing different characters and drastically changing the game’s finales, adding replayability and player agency.
However, the narrative takes a bizarre and jarring turn with a series of missions that undermine the game’s attempt at realistic crime storytelling. The protagonist, Kang, pursues the leader of the Triads, Ancient Wu, a 340-year-old character with impossibly long fingernails. If that wasn’t outlandish enough, Wu resides on a throne above a lava pit beneath Chinatown. Wu then subjects Kang to three “tests,” beginning with waves of generic, flaming skull “demons” reminiscent of “Doom.” Following this, you engage in martial arts combat with Wu’s teleporting concubines, adorned with tattoos. The climax involves a shootout against a giant Chinese dragon. Thankfully, after this surreal interlude, the game abruptly returns to its more grounded crime narrative, as if the fantastical events never occurred, creating a tonal disconnect that’s hard to ignore.
Mature Content and Rating: Is True Crime Too Real?
“True Crime: Streets of LA” earns its mature rating definitively. Playing as a rogue police officer, while not as extreme as portraying a criminal, still involves navigating a morally ambiguous world. While not excessively gory, the game’s realistic tone amplifies the gravity of shooting enemies and running down pedestrians, making these actions feel consequential. Profanity is prevalent throughout, both in character dialogue and the soundtrack. Additionally, the game features strip club scenes and a mansion populated by leather-clad “S&M Freaks.” These elements are crucial to consider for players who prefer to avoid mature content for any reason. The game does not shy away from depicting the seedier side of Los Angeles, contributing to its mature and gritty atmosphere.
Conclusion
“True Crime: Streets of LA” is a complex and somewhat uneven game. It’s driven by ambitious goals: a vast, detailed open-world Los Angeles, a blend of gameplay styles, and branching storylines. Yet, this ambition also seems to be the source of its flaws. The game is plagued by frustrations and technical shortcomings, including lengthy loading times and game crashes. While the sprawling recreation of Los Angeles, the fluid transitions between gameplay modes, and the branching narrative offer compelling elements, the technical issues, uneven mission design, and the jarringly out-of-place fantastical story arc detract from the overall experience. “True Crime: Streets of LA” is best approached as a rental, allowing players to experience its ambitious scope without a full financial commitment, to determine if its unique blend of gritty realism and technical imperfections aligns with their gaming preferences.
