Activision’s ambitious title, True Crime: Streets Of La, initially caught my attention for two compelling reasons: its audacious attempt to recreate a staggering 240 square miles of Los Angeles, my own city, and the promise of a stellar narrative delivered by an all-star cast. Despite my general disinterest in the GTA-esque genre, the sheer scale of digital Los Angeles and the hype surrounding this game were enough to pique my curiosity. While True Crime undoubtedly achieves moments of impressive grandeur, it’s also riddled with flaws that prevent it from reaching its full potential.
One of the first things that players will notice, and should be aware of, is the game’s well-deserved mature rating. Stepping into the shoes of a renegade LAPD officer might not be as overtly criminal as playing a rampant outlaw, but the game doesn’t shy away from mature themes. While not excessively gory, True Crime adopts a realistic tone that makes actions like shooting and running down pedestrians feel weighty and consequential. Profanity is rampant, both from in-game characters and within the soundtrack itself. Furthermore, the game includes scenes set in strip clubs and a bizarre mansion populated by leather-clad figures, elements that players sensitive to such content should consider.
Alt text: Night aerial view of the sprawling Los Angeles cityscape, capturing the vastness and urban sprawl relevant to the game’s setting.
The digital recreation of over 240 square miles of Los Angeles is undeniably the game’s most striking achievement. Spanning from the urban core of downtown to the glitz of Hollywood and Beverly Hills, and extending to the coastal vibes of Venice and Santa Monica, the sheer scope of the game world is breathtaking. A drive from downtown to Santa Monica, mirroring the real-world experience on the infamous 10 Freeway, realistically takes around fifteen minutes – a time frame that feels eerily accurate, at least on a day with the mythical “minimal traffic” that LA residents rarely encounter.
However, it’s crucial to understand that while the streets of LA are rendered with a degree of accuracy, True Crime is not a perfect replica. Beyond key landmarks, buildings are often randomly generated, creating a surreal, dreamlike version of the city. The omissions are particularly jarring for locals. Iconic locations like the Shrine Auditorium, Dodger Stadium, and the expansive USC campus are not just missing; entire residential streets occupy the space where USC should stand. Conversely, UCLA is largely intact, along with Beverly Hills High School, Santa Monica College, and even the business park housing Activision’s headquarters (though, humorously, they stopped short of including their own logo on the building). The street layout also takes liberties, with missing streets, altered freeway exits, and increasing geographical confusion towards the edges of the game map. The 110 Freeway comically splits into two smaller, arguably non-existent streets, eliciting a laugh of disbelief. Another immersion breaker for LA natives is the limited draw distance. Accustomed to the sprawling vistas of Los Angeles, the restricted view of only a block or two ahead on familiar streets can feel disorienting initially.
Alt text: Car driving down a sunny Los Angeles street, showcasing the typical palm trees and urban landscape often seen in representations of the city.
While these geographical liberties might go unnoticed by players unfamiliar with Los Angeles, residents will inevitably spot the discrepancies in their deeply familiar neighborhoods. Despite these inaccuracies, the sheer scale and level of detail remain impressive, ensuring that even the most dedicated players will struggle to explore every digital nook and cranny of this sprawling virtual city.
The core gameplay of True Crime: Streets of LA revolves around open missions. While objectives guide you, the game encourages exploration across the vast city. Tuning into the police radio allows players to engage with random crimes scattered throughout Los Angeles, ranging from petty drug deals and street brawls to intense shootouts and even recovering stolen Activision games – a touch of self-referential humor. Successfully apprehending criminals rewards badge points, the primary currency for character progression. These points are essential for upgrading skills at specialized facilities, replenishing health at clinics, and repairing damaged vehicles. Each captured suspect yields ten to fifteen badge points, and accumulating 100 points earns a badge, redeemable at 24/7 upgrade facilities dotted around the city. These facilities unlock new driving maneuvers, shooting techniques, and fighting moves, with each location offering only a single skill. Consequently, a significant portion of the open-world gameplay loop involves accumulating badge points and actively seeking out these upgrade facilities to enhance your character’s abilities.
Gameplay is fundamentally divided into three distinct styles: fighting, shooting, and driving. Players can seamlessly switch between these modes at any point during missions. Choosing to disarm a criminal with fists instead of gunfire is as simple as pressing a button to initiate a fight. However, adversaries might attempt to escape in a vehicle, prompting a high-speed pursuit where you’ll need to commandeer your own car and utilize shooting skills to disable their vehicle. All three gameplay modes receive equal emphasis in terms of screen time and control mechanics. While each mode has its quirks, they can be genuinely enjoyable. The initial hours of the game, however, present the gameplay at its most challenging. The first few upgrades in each discipline are practically mandatory. Without basic enhancements like precision aiming or the ability to counter attacks from behind, the controls can feel unresponsive and frustrating. Fortunately, as more techniques are unlocked, the control scheme becomes more refined, and the overall enjoyment of the game significantly increases. Eventually, players gain access to nitro boosts and rapid 360-degree turns in vehicles, master a diverse martial arts repertoire, and achieve deadly accuracy in gunfights.
Beyond the free-roaming missions, True Crime: Streets of LA also features a series of more linear, goal-oriented missions. These structured scenarios might involve racing to a location, engaging in close-quarters combat with groups of enemies, navigating stealth sections through alleys, or participating in intense shootouts to ascend high-rise buildings. While more numerous, these linear missions are generally shorter in duration. They offer moments of thrilling gunfights and chases, but Activision’s attempts to diversify gameplay with stealth and tailing mechanics fall short of the mark.
Stealth missions, seemingly inspired by titles like Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid, are surprisingly forgiving to the point of being trivial. Instead of emphasizing genuine stealth and evasion, True Crime allows players to simply approach an enemy and instantly incapacitate them with a single karate chop to the chest. This mechanic feels jarringly out of place in a game where even elderly civilians can put up a prolonged fight. As a result, stealth sections become easily exploitable, requiring minimal planning and relying heavily on repetitive karate chops.
Tailing missions, intended as a “stealth on wheels” experience, are frustratingly flawed in their execution. Players must maintain a specific distance from a target vehicle without being detected. The problematic AI of the target vehicle is the primary source of frustration. The car being tailed frequently gets unexpectedly stuck in traffic, forcing the player to abruptly brake and stop, only to have the target vehicle suddenly accelerate away at the next turn, making it difficult to keep pace. Furthermore, the detection system is overly sensitive. Even when maintaining a reasonable distance and being obscured by buildings, players can inexplicably fail tailing missions for being “too close,” particularly when the target vehicle turns sharply onto a perpendicular street.
The narrative of True Crime: Streets of LA is relatively straightforward, lacking truly dramatic moments, but it’s engaging enough to propel players through the game. The story’s strength lies in its integration with gameplay and the consequences of player actions. Missions can be failed without halting progress, and numerous cinematic scenes have multiple variations reflecting mission outcomes. Furthermore, a “good cop/bad cop” morality system, influenced by player behavior, significantly alters the storyline at key junctures. In fact, the game features three entirely distinct story branches, introducing new characters and offering dramatically different finales, adding replayability and player agency to the narrative.
However, the narrative is marred by a particularly bizarre and immersion-breaking story arc. In a game striving for a degree of realistic crime drama, a series of missions involving the Chinese Triad leader, Ancient Wu, veer into the absurd. Wu is portrayed as a 340-year-old figure with foot-long fingernails, residing on a throne above a lava pit beneath Chinatown. His “tests” involve fighting generic, flaming skull “demons” reminiscent of Doom, battling teleporting concubines covered in tattoos, and culminating in a shootout against a giant Chinese dragon. This supernatural detour feels incredibly out of place and tonally inconsistent with the rest of the game, even if the narrative quickly reverts to a more grounded reality afterward.
Alt text: Ornate dragon statue marking the entrance to Chinatown in Los Angeles, symbolizing the cultural richness and potentially fantastical elements within the game’s portrayal of the area.
True Crime: Streets of LA is a challenging game to definitively categorize. It showcases commendable ambition in its vast open-world setting, diverse gameplay mechanics, and branching storylines. However, this ambition seems to come at the cost of polish and refinement. The game suffers from various frustrations and technical issues, including lengthy loading times and occasional crashes. Ultimately, True Crime: Streets of LA is worth experiencing, especially for players intrigued by exploring a digital recreation of Los Angeles. However, a rental is highly recommended to determine if its ambitious scope and unique features outweigh its inherent flaws before committing to a full purchase.
