My True Crime first impressions
I finally recieved my copy of True Crimes this afternoon and after a couple of hours play time here are my thoughts:
Lets go over the good points first:
Story- The story is totally the opposite of GTA in that you play the role of a "loose cannon" Vice Detective in LA. Much of the same things you are able to do in GTA (carjack, explore, side missions,etc) are all available in True Crimes. The shooting and fighting in this game is much improved over GTA's method and you can tell right away more attention was put into the action of the game. In some cases when you get into a major battle the game turns into a "Max Payne" type of game with the ability to use combos, matrix type moves, and interaction with objects around you. Firing weapons and aiming is much improved over GTA's method as well with the ability to go into a sniper view for those all important head shots on hostage takers and the ability to spray and pray when duking it out with gang members in the streets. Diving for cover and using objects for protection also make the street battles more interesting as the AI use the same tactics so before you go running down the street spraying bullets watch out for that bad guy behind the benz with a Mac10.
Since you play a cop you also have to pay attention where you drive, where you shoot, etc since any civilians you injure or kill will have a negative effect on your mission.
When on your main storyline missions you will get radio calls (dispatched) to different crimes in progresss along the way. Whether you accept these smaller missions on your way to your final goal is up to you, but they can range from fights to robbery in progress to pursuits.
The graphics are nice, but nothing special over what you can see in GTA. Xbox always has better graphics anyway.
Ok, now for the bad things and there are a few of them. Biggest complaint I have is Controls. The controls are clumbsy and hard to get used to. Driving vehicles well for me is taking a lot of time to master. While the controls are responsive they almost feel to sensitive if that makes any sense. When on foot walking around the camera angle does not stay focused forward when your character moves around. If you have the camera facing the back of his head so you can see out in front of him and you move your character around to face the opposite direction you will now see his face and not whats in front of him. The only way to constantly keep visual on what is in front of him is to manually move the right analog thumb stick around. When in the middle of the action its a royal pain trying to get the camera in the right spot to do what you need to do. When driving vehicles this isnt a problem, its only when on foot.
Another problem is the auto aim feature. It is very sluggish to lock a target. You can go into manual sniper mode to take a shot, but that closes off your peripheral vision and you miss anything going on around you. I will say that firing on vehicles is fun and cool to see because the cars literally have fragments of metal comming off, windows being shot out, etc and it looks like your really blowing away a car.lol
The first mission out of the gate is a firing range mission where you must hit every target, but even when I hit every target I still fail the mission. Perhaps I did something wrong, but I found this wierd. The game gives you the option to continue with the story even if you fail a mission so appearently whether you pass or fail any missions has no effect on the story.
I also found the AI good and bad. Enemy AI seem to do what they should. They are aggressive, sometimes they run-sometimes they fight-sometimes they start shooting. They duck for cover as well during gun fights to reload etc.
Friendly AI on the other hand such as other cops on the street do little more than get in the way or cause you pain. Many times I was run over by cops trying to chase bad guys and got into fights and watched the other cops just stand there and do nothing. Civilian drivers will also run you over so be carefull when taking vehicles, its a good idea to wait till they stop the car first.lol
Last, and this is a big negative for me, is the fact that you cant actually arrest anyone. This is a cop game with tons of criminals and crimes going on where you get to the area and the bad guy sees you and you dont have any control over him/her. Theres no list of commands to tell the criminal to lay down, or he is under arrest, etc. You get to the scene and the bad guys will start shooting and as soon as you fire back they take off running, well ok so I chase and when I catch him we fight for a little bit and the guy stops fighting and gives up with his hands in the air. But wait! I have no way to arrest him nor is there any other cops around so what do I do? NOTHING! there isnt anything you can do. What you do is kill him either buy beating him to death or shooting him multiple times then you get a mission completed messege. HUH? I am a Vice Detective and you send me to break up a fight and I have to shoot both people involved even when they give up to complete the mission? what kind of crap is that?
It may seem like a small detail, but trust me when you play the game and you go to handle a call and the bad guys are just standing there and the only way to complete the mission is to gun them down you will say "What tha!".
Since there is no live support for this game I dont see any updates becomming available for it so no way to add in the ability to place someone under arrest. not good.
Last but not least is the soundtrack or music. No this isnt GTA which is based in the 80s, but they could at least allowed us to use custom soundtracks, or had other options besides hip hop. Hip hop is nice for the first few minutes but then you just want to switch the station only to find out your stuck in Hip Hop hell.
The vehicles are also hard to control and so far I havent seen anything other than cars. No motorcycles, no scooters, no helicopters, planes,etc. Just a few different kinds of cars.
All this being said its still a pretty good game, but some of these things will annoy you. Everything I have said is based on only a couple of hours playing time so take it with a grain of salt, but so far if you were hoping for a GTA killer then you might be disappointed. It has a cool storyline (sometimes to heavy into the story,lots of cutscenes), graphics, action,etc but stuff like no ability to arrest bad guys, the sloppy controls, and camera system make me cringe sometimes.
True Crimes is at least a rental IMO and if your someone who gets a game and finishes the story pretty quick and then your done then True Crimes is better as a rental for you types. There is no Live options so no multiplayer and no updates.
True Crime plays like your in a movie so if you like those types of games then you will probably like it.
Oh BTW- I tried but could not pick up any hookers, I think it was my aftershave.LOL
on a 1-10 i give it a 7
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