Anyone play True Crime: Streets of LA yet?

[jerkov]

Doesn't this game come out today? I would like to try it but no local Blockbusters have gotten it in and I don't want to buy it in case it sucks like The Getaway (glad I rented that one first!). I just want to know if True Crime can hold a candle to GTA.....

[Darth Sensei]

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22192&highlight=crime

I posted about it already, but didn't get much of a response.

D

[jerkov]

Hmm, maybe no one is interested in this game. One guy did compare it to The Getaway, which isn't a good sign. I'd still like to hear from anyone who has actually played through a good chunk of the real game.

Otherwise, yeah, I guess I'll be waiting on some reviews then....

[tholly]

I personally thought that The Getaway was one of the better games I have played. I easily played through it in a day or two and loved every second of it. Everyone that did not like it compaired it to GTA, which is where they went wrong. Too many biased opinions made people dislike that game, which I can never understand because it was such a good game, IMHO.

[Neil Koch]

I really liked Getaway also, but there isn't much to do once you beat the game -- the free roam mode is fun for a little bit but gets old and having to sit through the cutscenes again kind of kills the replay value.

[tholly]

yea, once i beat it i never played it again.
it was fun while it lasted though.

[Darth Sensei]

Let's be real tho, The Getaway couldn't hold a candle to GTA VC or GTA 3 for that matter. Driving was less intuitive and the missions seemed more cookie cutter. There were less ways to win the missions.

D

[Neil Koch]

I actually liked the driving a bit better -- it's a lot more traffic-filled and tougher. But I agree with you that the mission weren't as good, especially those damn stealth ones.

[petewhitley]

I personally thought that The Getaway was one of the better games I have played. I easily played through it in a day or two and loved every second of it. Everyone that did not like it compaired it to GTA, which is where they went wrong. Too many biased opinions made people dislike that game, which I can never understand because it was such a good game, IMHO.

There wasn't anything really wrong with "The Getaway", it was just too damn clunky. Controls were clunky, graphics were clunky, missions were clunky, etc. I wouldn't compare it to GTA, except to say that GTA was a far more polished game.

[Darth Sensei]

I just saw the advertisement for True Crime and it looks like a GTA clone to the extreme. I'm going to rent this one before buying it because I was very disappointed with The Getaway.

D

[Oobgarm]

Saw this on Nintendo.com today:

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Activision, Inc. announced that Snoop Dogg, the "Dogg Father" of hip-hop, is an unlockable, playable character in the company's upcoming True Crime: Streets of L.A. videogame. When players unlock his character in "Dogg Patrol" mode they can play as Snoop and roll through the streets in a custom convertible, complete with hydraulics, while looking for random crimes to solve and criminals to take down.

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WTF? That'll get me to at least try the game out, I suppose.

[Darth Sensei]

Saw this on Nintendo.com today:

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Activision, Inc. announced that Snoop Dogg, the "Dogg Father" of hip-hop, is an unlockable, playable character in the company's upcoming True Crime: Streets of L.A. videogame. When players unlock his character in "Dogg Patrol" mode they can play as Snoop and roll through the streets in a custom convertible, complete with hydraulics, while looking for random crimes to solve and criminals to take down.

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WTF? That'll get me to at least try the game out, I suppose.

Yeah, it's mentioned in the other thread.

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22192&highlight=crime

D

[Neil Koch]

I think the game is coming out next week (the 11th). All of the reviews I've seen so far markit as pretty average. You have to learn moves and shooting techniques, and once you have those new techniques, it's a pretty ccol game, but getting up to that point is kind of boring.

[tholly]

The game is out already. My roommate just went to go pick it up. After I get back from the Matrix Revolutions I will let you guys know how the game really is.

[YoshiM]

Well, I gave it a spin. My brother in law picked it up and we cracked it open for Xbox. Basically you play a cop who was suspened (didn't catch why) but is offered a position as an EOD agent. If you've seen Mulholland Falls, I have a feeling the EOD is kinda like Nick Nolte's character's team of cops-no restrictions so crime can be dealt with. You can stea....er..."commandeer" vehicles to traverse the fairly accurate model of L.A. When on foot you can walk/run, switch to hand to hand combat or switch to your guns. The hand to hand combat involves kicks, punches and throws that can be upgraded by the points you receive by bagging criminals. Guns, of course, can shoot holes in most anything and comes with auto lock on or a more precise (and slowed down) controllable targeting mode that can be done on foot and in a car.

The main game is set up in chapters with smaller missions mixed in between. The map guides you to the next location and you'll hear your radio squak from time to time about some sort of nearby crime that you can take care of. The missions start with some in game cinema and either follow with a quick drive to another location (either free roaming or timed), some sort of fight or a stealth mission. That's all I know thus far as I haven't gotten too far into it as of yet. As you drive about, L.A. is a somewhat living and breathing city with pedestrians walking and driving about. Unlike GTA where you were typically cast as a "bad guy", you have the choice to be "good cop/bad cop" which is indicated by a Yin-Yang symbol and a status number. Take down crooks and arrest them, the number goes up which is good. Kill crooks and you don't get penalized. Kill innocents (on purpose or not) and you hear a deathly deep bell toll and your status goes down. When you reach the negatives, you are a "bad cop" and the police and citizens will treat you poorly.

With that out of the way, the next question is "how is it"? Obviously GTA is going to be compared and rightly so. True Crime is not as good as GTA. While driving and seeing LA was a treat it doesn't seem to be a very good place to model a game. The fictitious cities in GTA were designed for racing about and doing things you really couldn't do in real life like building jumping (thanks to ramps). In many places the streets were so tight it was hard to do a chase, except for the computer who seemed to barrel through crowded suburb streets with ease. The areas you could damage also seemed rather inconsistant. For example, I could take a small sedan and plow through big mail boxes, park benches, trees, fire hydrants and huge potted plants without slowing down much but a line of shrubs stops my car instantly like I hit a brick wall. Wassup with that? Speaking of damage, the cars have a "life meter" that measures overall damage. Even the smallest vehicle is a tank. When bashed up it seemed as if the vehicle still handled like it was brand new (or I just drove crappy cars).

One of the things that set GTA apart was the general AI. True Crime is somewhat devoid of it. If you are speeding down a roadway sometimes some lone idiot will literally jump INTO your path which usually results in instant death. If they do live, they yell at you to watch out where you are going. When something tragic does happen people just keep milling about their lives unlike GTA where people will flock to the scene like real humans. While it "looked" like LA, it just didn't feel believeable.

GTA and Vice City both had the magic of a "sandbox world". Do almost anything you want and you won't botch the game. Don't want to the missions? Fine. True Crime attempts this but saddles the player with the niggling responsiblity of taking care of crimes. While you don't have to do them you can't really improve (ie get points for more goodies) unless you do. You feel obligated to do what a cop would do even though it's just a game. I guess that's where GTA spoiled me. Along with the responsibility you also have to follow mission agendas close to the letter. On a stealth mission I had to not be seen. I could tranq dart a bad guy or judo-chop 'em to knock 'em (or kill 'em if I was a "bad cop"). When I got to the end I was bombarded with gun toting baddies. Why the hell did I have to sneak into this section just to start making some loud bang bang noises? Again GTA spoiled me: I could approach most missions how I saw fit and could complete them if the "recommended" approach didn't work out.

GTA also kept things a tad more on the simple side when it came to control. True Crime does not. You have different modes of fighting (your character is trained in martial arts), you can shoot, you can do tackles when running-all modes that have to be switched to. It's a level of complexity that doesn't seem to work, at least for me. Car acceleration is handled with either A or the right analog stick. Um, why the stick? Reason: so you can control HOW you shoot from your car. The game does go into a pseudo "bullet time" to give you a chance to aim the recticle but it doesn't do a whole lot as you can't frickin' see what you are shooting at (unless there is a camera move mode I'm not aware of-not that it'd help any). Why make it complicated just to one up the competition?

Finally, the game just feels unfinished and unpolished. Weird graphic glitches were evident within the first half hour of play. A woman kicked our cop toward a tree. He kinda got stuck and jittered in place like he was humping it. After some button mashing and then having him stand absolutely still fixed the problem. In even the fastest car you can find there was no sense of speed. For me it wasn't all that fun, it was merely okay. Worth a rent for something new but the game doesn't really bring anything new to the table.