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Terrible, supremely disappointing

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 19 / 40
Date: November 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In the wake of the revolutionary Grand Theft Auto 3, there were a horde of pretender games released that couldn't come close to GTA's audacity and style. True Crime: Streets of LA was actually one game that came close in this sense, which is why this sequel, True Crime: New York City, was so looked forward to. However, not only is this game supremely disappointing, it's almost unplayable. At first glance the game looks slick enough, but once you engage in the game's storyline and horrible dialogue along with the unbelievably choppy frame rate, you'll wonder how this ever got released. The story of the game is you play as Marcus; an undercover cop looking to clean up the streets, one way or another. No matter which route you take: good cop or bad cop, it's going to be hard to get past the fuzzy graphics, the clunky controls, the derivative gameplay, the inane collision detection, and bugs that plague True Crime: New York City throughout the game. There's hardly anything good worth noting about True Crime, other than a somewhat decent soundtrack (featuring punk favorites the Misfits as well as the godfather of ghoul rock Danzig, and naturally plenty of hip-hop, ugh...) and a surprisingly solid cast of actors supplying their voices (including Christopher Walken, Laurence Fishburne, Mickey Rourke, and Mariska Hargitay among others) who are sadly wasted with the cliche dialogue. Also, it should be noted that the game will crash randomly, a lot. It's a wonder how this game ever got past quality control, but then again, I guess everyone's got to make a quick buck these days. Do yourself a favor; stick with GTA, any GTA for that matter, even the original one for the PS1. Just whatever you do, leave this game on the shelf.

The Truth About True Crimes: New York City...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: November 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The only true crime here is the shoddy work done on this title. True Crimes: Streets of LA was like many Grand Theft Auto rip offs. Big city, plenty of running around to do. Except instead of working for the mob or whatever, you're actually a cop. It may not have been the best game, but it was a start. Some of the mechanics weren't bad. Some were actually fairly well done. I guess one could only expect a sequel. In hopes that True Crimes: New York City would be better, I seem to have had my hopes up.

You play as Marcus Reed, a gangster who has just become a cop so he can clean up the streets of New York. And as Marcus you'll take on the assignments given to you by the police department. They're all pretty straightforward. Each mission is divided into parts. Each part consists of you gunning down all the thugs, and finding the bad guy. Rinse and repeat. The missions, like Streets of LA, are very simple and don't really call for any real strategy at all. And the bad guys are as stereotypical as the main character himself.

The game is pretty simple, and should you only do the missions, you'll complete it in fairly short time. The same thing plagued the first True Crimes game, and I was hoping there would be an improvement here. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.

If you don't want to do the main mission though, there are alternatives. Much like GTA there are side missions you can do. You can street race, go off and stop other crimes, and you can frisk people for contraband, including drugs, obscene pictures, weapon parts, stolen license plates... and the list goes on. You can either turn these things into the station for Career Points, which help your rank.

There are five ranks in True Crimes 2, and they're all based on whether or not you're a good cop or a bad cop. Unfortunately, there's nothing special about the ranking system until you become an extremely bad cop, and that will overall lower your ranking.

Being a good cop simply means you've taken the proper precautions such as frisking your suspects, clipping them in cuffs and not killing anyone needlessly. Bad cops are obtained the exact opposite way. It's a lot easier to be a bad cop than a good cop, but it is still one of the points of True Crimes that sticks out as being plesant. You just won't notice until you're an extremely bad cop, or an extremely good cop.

The gameplay is simple. You shoot or strike down your enemies to death. You can lock on to them, but for some reason Marcus isn't always accurate in doing so. You can also pick up weapons your enemies drop but there isn't much variety in them, and in the end you'll most likely find yourself picking them up because you're low on ammo in one weapon, so you need more.

Melee combat isn't bad. You'll probably only do it because it looks cool, but it's almost suicide in some cases. You can pick up objects and lug them at your enemies and whatnot. You can also snap their necks if you're good enough, or throw them up against the wall. There's a lot of variety there. Hey, you can even do it to random pedestrians, but it isn't much fun (especially when they, for whatever reason, don't die).

The vehicles you drive around in are pretty realistic, based off of real cars, but you can't help but look at how messed up some of these mechanics are. A slight tap on another car will send it flying into traffic, without a doubt. It doesn't matter what the car is, it sends it out there! You'll also run into a moment or two of floating cars, and that's another of many bugs this game has.

There are more bugs than one can imagine. For example, you may just randomly fall through the ground into eternal darkness. You'll eventually die, but you'll wish you hadn't stepped on the crack when you do. Some of the scripted moments for whatever reason just stop, cars changing colors... the list goes on and on and on.

Surely the graphics will save this game right? Naw, and if you think they do, something is seriously wrong with you. This isn't up to the standards of this generation at all. The character models are blockier than a cube of ice, and the framerate is terrible. Every five seconds or so the game will freeze and then resume. This very apparent when you're roaming the streets of New York. In the indoor areas it's less frequent, but you'll lose several boss fights because of that. The game freezes for that brief moment, but the action does not. Not only that, but sometimes the sound will cut out.

As far as the music goes, it really isn't too bad. You can rank your songs so that the ones you want to play actually play, and if there's a song you completely hate, you can rank it a zero and it'll never play.

The voice acting isn't bad. Christopher Walken lends his voice, but sometimes the celebrity voice actors feel like a waste. Especially with the poorly written script. Now, I can be a good sport about cusswords, but not when they're used as senselessly as this. They come as sounding like little middle school kids saying these words just to "be cool" rather than to be serious or tough.

Truthfully, I think this is a game that isn't worth getting. Way too many bugs, the game is short, the dialogue is bad, is there really any reason to want to get ths game? Even the graphics lack. This isn't worth your time. Even if you like True Crimes: Streets of LA this just isn't worth your time.

The Good:
+The sound, for what it's worth, isn't bad.

The Bad:
-Choppy graphics
-Terrible framerate
-Bad dialogue
-Way too stereotypical
-Way too many bugs to enjoy

Just avoid it. Not worth your time.

Should not have bought it!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: January 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I will get straight to the point.....the game freezes constantly...how did this game with all its glitches get released? I can't believe I spent money on this trash!

You would think a game would get more fun as it went along...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: February 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

True Crime 2 is just plain awful. It starts interesting, yet it doesn't present anything original or interesting.

The gun play just isnt that good compared to True Crime 1. True Crime 1 had you flying in different directions and doing slow motion dives behind cars. When cars would explode, you would be thrown backwards. In True Crime 2, you basically just point and shoot. There are different weapons that let you take people down non-lethally that you are given. There's no point in using targeting.

The melee fights aren't that cool either. In True Crime 1 you were doing all kinds of kung fu moves while breaking everything around you. In this game, you press a button 3 times and the combo is executed.

Also, the actual feel of the game has been lost a little bit. In True Crime 1, you had no map and were basically cruising to a destination unknown. It was fun driving to new objectives at night during the rain. In this game, you aren't quite as lost, but then again, that isn't a great thing. I enjoyed getting lost in True Crime 1 and I enjoyed feeling out of place everywhere. It was weird cruising as far as I could go and feeling like i should turn around.

One of the more interesting features about True Crime 2 is the fact that you can enter any building. This isn't a bad feature, but it doesn't make up for the limited gameplay.

I would skip this game and go for GTA 3.

True [...]: New York

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: May 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Both games in this series are horrible copies of Driver 3, which is a horrible copy of the Getaway, which is a horrible copy of Grand Theft Auto.
TC: New York starts off forcing you to participate in a two-hour long "training" session that gets worse and more boring by the minute, then its another 30 minutes of "drive here, do this" before you can even start the game. Horrible, sloppy controls (such as having seperate buttons for firing a weapon and firing warning shots) and some of the worst video game acting I've ever seen totally destroy this game before it even starts.
This game is such a waste of money, its a true crime.

A True Crime

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: February 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

(Brittany Spears song) Ooops, they did it again. They made a new game, and it plays like crap. I'm not going to waste time with details, you'll get that from the other reviews. This game has been out for a while now. It's just funny to me how Activision has the balls to make wise cracks about GTA within the dialog of the character. The real "True Crime" is that Activision packed do-do in a box and tried to market it as entertainment. Pathetically, its clear that the jokes are nothing more than jealous mud slinging. HA,HA!

Great game, but too many bugs

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: November 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First of all, I loved this game. I'm not an avid gamer, and this game wasn't too hard for me. I would otherwise have given it four stars if it weren't for the number of bugs this game has, but more on that later.

TRUE CRIME: NEW YORK CITY follows in the popularity of the GTA series, but setting it in New York City. You can travel anywhere in the borough of Manhattan, which is a huge map. I live in NYC and I'm mostly pleased with the fidelity they have given to the city. There are times when I've been so busy admiring the scenery that I've crashed into people.

The story of the game follows Marcus Reed, a reformed (possibly?) gang member who has joined the police force at the behest of his mentor. After his mentor was killed, he decides to follow the track of crimes and see who is behind it. This leads him to a series of meetings with some colorful characters.

If you're not interested in the story, there are other things you can do, such as cleaning up the city, racing around Manhattan, participate in fighting arenas, etc. You can also be a bad cop and exhort vendors and such.

Graphically, the game is beautiful. The physics seems a bit weird, but you should get the hang of it. You have a cool selection of weapons and cars to choose from. I also liked the way they drew the characters, making them look quite real.

OK, about the bugs. They suck. I've checked with others who have Xbox and GameCube editions, and it's the same. I HAVE NEVER ENCOUNTERED A GAME WITH SO MANY BUGS. That requires emphasizing, as I hope the folks at Activision would hear about this and never put out a game as buggy as this one. The customer support forum is not helpful. They just ask you to reset the console. Well, duh.

Most of the problem has to do with the game freezing in the middle of gameplay. You just have to save a lot because if you don't, you lose all your progress. It's still a pain because you have to begin at the start of the mission, but since the missions aren't overly long, that's not that bad, but still annoying. Other things have to do with poor gameplay design. For example, in one of the street races, every time you lose you have to go back to a police booth to get your car because the one you just raced is too battered and there isn't a garage in sight to fix it.

It's a shame that this game had so many bugs because it was truly one of the most addictive games I've ever played. Rumor has it that they're making True Crime: New York City 2. A word of advice to Activision: FIX THE DANG BUGS!

Not much better than Streets of LA

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I rented this game and I thought it was ok. The gunplay is the biggest dissapointment. The targeting reticles blow and the gunfights in the game are mediocore. Dissapointing sequel even though there's a large city it all looks the same. The things you do as a cop will get old fast and the driving is ok and the music isn't very good. It's a shame because i thought this game had potential. This series still needs lots of work.

Horrible Game!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 7
Date: November 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The reason i give this game a 2 is because first of all the control is horrible. The graphics are good, the music in the game is not so bad either. The levels dont make any sense and you have to play for like 1 hour in order for you to be able to save. In the begginig theres this whole test thing learning how to punch and drive which was just a wast of time. It has some concepts of GTA like taking the people car's although in this game he's a cop himself,so he's exactly stealing the car. By the time you get through those crowded streets on the slow cars to the robber or rapist you already lost. I give it a 2 just because of the graphics if the graphics sucked it would be a -1. So, this game is a total waist of $50,trust me, go and buy 50 cent rather than this.

In A New York Minute...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: December 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The major problem with True Crime: Streets of L.A. was the developers were out of their depth - trying to be clever by covering all bases. It was billed as a free-roaming shooting game, fighting game and driving game, but each individual element was poorly executed.

Fortunately, time has moved on, technology has improved and games like GTA: San Andreas have proved all this can be achieved - within limits (there's a reason the graphics are kept basic). Unfortunately, Activision weren't told this and have improved on NOTHING (in fact, the shooting element's WORSE)!

The shooting's bog-standard - hold L1 to lock-on and tap R1 repeatedly 'til everyone falls down - with a fleating attempt at some 'Hollywood-style' diving around, which is laughable. The fighting's cumbersome, and near-impossible if you're attacked by more than one person. And the driving is a joke. Rating bars display the differences between the various vehicles, but every one of them is slow to respond to any control input (and you'll marvel at the distance covered by a parked car when you glance it at moderate speed).

The controls are the major problem affecting everything. They are badly set-out (with no option of changing them) and slugish, making everything you do, however you do it, a chore.

However, I have to give this 2 stars purely for the map. The recreation of Manhattan is stunning! In a fast car, covering the island from north to south can take well over 10 minutes (assuming you're skilled enough to weave through the traffic without incident), everything you'd expect to find in the real city is there to be found and the inclusion of the useable subway is a nice touch (especially considering the scale). The map also evolves depending on how you play the game - solve crimes and the citizens will be affable, litter scarce and buildings clean; ignore crimes and the citizens will be testy, the streets litter-strewn and the buildings covered in grafitti.

Unfortunately this also creates another problem. Being a fan of Spider-Man 2, all I wanted to do was climb to the top of a building, jump off and swing through the streets, exploring, but since you're stuck to ground level, it never feels like you're fully appreciating the city.

Like its predecessor, True Crime: New York City looked great on paper - essentially GTA in a real city and from a cop's perspective - but, like its predecessor, the execution is pathetic.

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