True Crime: New York City
Truly disappointing.
Published: December 2, 2005
The first True Crime certainly had its fair share of problems, but as I wrote in our review the game had the makings of a very serious GTA-level contender. I no longer think that. In fact, for all the changes that developer Luxoflux introduced and for all the unlockable and earnable crap that was thrown into the game, they still haven’t fixed some of the biggest problems and now, inexplicably, there’s actually more wrong with the game than there was when it took place on the West Coast.
It isn’t just that the game is riddled with bugs (some of which are indeed game-breaking), or that the animations, sense of speed and storyline are so swiss cheesed with holes that the game feels like a pre-alpha build somehow mistakenly sent out to mass production, it’s that the whole thing just plain feels like a bad game. Every part of the experience save for the one thing that the Grand Theft Auto games have repeatedly botched – the on-foot shooting – just plain falls flat, and it’s unacceptable.
Though this is an indirect sequel to the first game, plenty was changed up in theme, overall mood and setting. Instead of a smart-ass cop who dishes out justice his way in Los Angeles, you play a smart-ass cop who dishes out justice his... way... in NewYork. Okay, so it’s really not that different. In fact, the first time you hop into a car and go granny-putting around the city, you’ll notice that the paint’s changed, but the interior is more or less the same.
New York’s protagonist, Marcus Reed, is certainly more street-wise than Streets of LA’s Nick Kang – being the son of the city’s biggest crime lord will do that to a kid – and it’s the crux of what makes the second True Crime at least more initially engaging than the first game was. Marcus climbed out of the hood to try to make it better, but there’s still that side of him that continually tugs at the other side of the law and it makes him more likely to forget some of the rules when dealing with perps as he tracks down the killer of his lifelong family friend and the cop that got him his blues.
It’s also the basis for the game’s slightly revised good cop/bad cop mechanic. The same basic rules apply Marcus’ standing with society; kill innocent people or even gun down bad guys with a lethal headshot and you’ll get dinged, use the slo-mo aiming feature to peg them in the kneecap or beat the snot out of them until they’re subdued enough to throw the cuffs on them and you’ll get rewarded.
Rewards this time around come in the form of cash, of course, which is used to buy new moves, fighting styles and weapons at dojos scattered all around the city. Turn in evidence from bad guys and you’ll also gain what amounts to experience, allowing you rise in rank as a cop. Gaining a higher rank gets you more pay per good deed and allows access to better, faster and more well-armored default rides stored in the police garage.
You can also collect paychecks, turn in evidence and spawn purchased rides (they just sort of appear) from police booths on the street, or turn to the streets themselves and sell off the evidence for some quick cash. Should you feel like it, you can actually plant evidence on, well, anyone passing by, and this is a perfect segway into everything that’s busted about the game.
To do anything with a suspect, be it planting evidence, patting them down first, cuffing them, grappling with them, any of this stuff, you’re supposed to walk up to the person and tap circle. Unfortunately, just as in the last game, actually interacting with something in front of you is hit or miss, often times you’ll be standing right next to someone or actually on top of them, and you can’t cuff them. Same with opening trunks, which hold all your weapons, no matter what car you’re driving; sometimes it takes a couple presses to make anything happen, and in the thick of a firefight, it’s not the time to have your controls crap out on you.
The lack of polish is everywhere, though. Kill enemies on fire escapes and their bodies will suddenly start spazzing out as if they were trying to vibrate through the wall. Cuff an enemy at an odd angle, and watch as both Marcus and the perp suddenly warp a couple of feet to a place where the animation is apparently a better fit. Cops will chase you down after a firefight, but flashing your badge does nothing to alert them to the fact that you’re an effing cop.
Nowhere is the game more wonky, however, than in the physics, which are an absolute joke. Excusing the fact that none of the vehicles give any real sense of speed (in fact, they all seem to go about 20 miles an hour, 40 and maaaybe about 50 in the fastest supercars), or that they have an atrocious sense of weight, there’s just no explaining how a motorcycle (which Marcus rides like a clown on a unicycle, by the way) can somehow turn on a dime at full speed and actually pogos into the air when you drive over a curb. Any curb.
It isn’t just that the game is riddled with bugs (some of which are indeed game-breaking), or that the animations, sense of speed and storyline are so swiss cheesed with holes that the game feels like a pre-alpha build somehow mistakenly sent out to mass production, it’s that the whole thing just plain feels like a bad game. Every part of the experience save for the one thing that the Grand Theft Auto games have repeatedly botched – the on-foot shooting – just plain falls flat, and it’s unacceptable.
Though this is an indirect sequel to the first game, plenty was changed up in theme, overall mood and setting. Instead of a smart-ass cop who dishes out justice his way in Los Angeles, you play a smart-ass cop who dishes out justice his... way... in NewYork. Okay, so it’s really not that different. In fact, the first time you hop into a car and go granny-putting around the city, you’ll notice that the paint’s changed, but the interior is more or less the same.
New York’s protagonist, Marcus Reed, is certainly more street-wise than Streets of LA’s Nick Kang – being the son of the city’s biggest crime lord will do that to a kid – and it’s the crux of what makes the second True Crime at least more initially engaging than the first game was. Marcus climbed out of the hood to try to make it better, but there’s still that side of him that continually tugs at the other side of the law and it makes him more likely to forget some of the rules when dealing with perps as he tracks down the killer of his lifelong family friend and the cop that got him his blues.
It’s also the basis for the game’s slightly revised good cop/bad cop mechanic. The same basic rules apply Marcus’ standing with society; kill innocent people or even gun down bad guys with a lethal headshot and you’ll get dinged, use the slo-mo aiming feature to peg them in the kneecap or beat the snot out of them until they’re subdued enough to throw the cuffs on them and you’ll get rewarded.
Rewards this time around come in the form of cash, of course, which is used to buy new moves, fighting styles and weapons at dojos scattered all around the city. Turn in evidence from bad guys and you’ll also gain what amounts to experience, allowing you rise in rank as a cop. Gaining a higher rank gets you more pay per good deed and allows access to better, faster and more well-armored default rides stored in the police garage.
You can also collect paychecks, turn in evidence and spawn purchased rides (they just sort of appear) from police booths on the street, or turn to the streets themselves and sell off the evidence for some quick cash. Should you feel like it, you can actually plant evidence on, well, anyone passing by, and this is a perfect segway into everything that’s busted about the game.
To do anything with a suspect, be it planting evidence, patting them down first, cuffing them, grappling with them, any of this stuff, you’re supposed to walk up to the person and tap circle. Unfortunately, just as in the last game, actually interacting with something in front of you is hit or miss, often times you’ll be standing right next to someone or actually on top of them, and you can’t cuff them. Same with opening trunks, which hold all your weapons, no matter what car you’re driving; sometimes it takes a couple presses to make anything happen, and in the thick of a firefight, it’s not the time to have your controls crap out on you.
The lack of polish is everywhere, though. Kill enemies on fire escapes and their bodies will suddenly start spazzing out as if they were trying to vibrate through the wall. Cuff an enemy at an odd angle, and watch as both Marcus and the perp suddenly warp a couple of feet to a place where the animation is apparently a better fit. Cops will chase you down after a firefight, but flashing your badge does nothing to alert them to the fact that you’re an effing cop.
Nowhere is the game more wonky, however, than in the physics, which are an absolute joke. Excusing the fact that none of the vehicles give any real sense of speed (in fact, they all seem to go about 20 miles an hour, 40 and maaaybe about 50 in the fastest supercars), or that they have an atrocious sense of weight, there’s just no explaining how a motorcycle (which Marcus rides like a clown on a unicycle, by the way) can somehow turn on a dime at full speed and actually pogos into the air when you drive over a curb. Any curb.
