For a long time, the GTA series was a PS2 exclusive that the rest of the gaming world envied and copied. The open-ended gameplay, crime-based missions, and ability to carjack virtually anyone, anywhere struck a chord in the game players of the world. The folks playing the Xbox, for instance, wanted a game like GTA for so long that the advent of True Crime was like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. It promised to out-play the GTA series, bringing phenomenal graphics and varied gameplay that would overshadow the Rockstar series. True Crime delivered a fun experience for the Xbox, and now for the PC, but few would claim that it truly eclipses the stardom of the GTA series, more like the Venus transit of the sun this week. So, how does the game stack up on its own merits?

You are Nick Kang, a rough and tumble cop who has trouble following the rules (stop me if you've heard this plot before) and is just getting back from yet another suspension. Of course, your methods do tend to get results and they get you noticed by the elite police detective squad, where you can roam the city and solve crimes at will. The main story line will take you from mission to mission, but unless you have a deadline to reach a destination, you are free to roam the city. Since 240 square miles of LA have been digitized and are available to roam, that is a lot of driving you can do. Along the way, you will hear the police dispatcher put out bulletins on crimes being committed in your vicinity. If you want to, you can hop into the situation and earn points for solving the crime. Many times, how you resolve the situation will affect your good cop/bad cop rating. If you arrest the perp, your cop rating goes up. If you shoot him in the head to make your day, your rating goes down. Your cop rating affects how the plot line plays out, so keep that in mind as you decide how to take care of business.

There are several different styles of gameplay wrapped into True Crime. When on foot, Nick can choose to focus on walking/running, fighting kung fu style, or pulling out his weapons and blasting away.  The kung fu fighting is your basic button mashing fighter with one key for punch, another for a jump kick, and a third for a standing kick. By tapping in various combinations, once you have an opponent wobbly, unleashes a devastating monkey paw punch (or other specialty move) that does extra damage. There are blocks and grappling moves as well, but most combat degenerates quickly into button mashing. Large numbers of opponents are not too much trouble, as long as you keep moving around and keep hitting the guy in front of you. Once you knock the guy down for good, you can press X and put the cuffs on him. The destructible environments add to the reality of your fights. Toss your opponent into the arcade machine, it will break and shatter. Often, this will do more damage to your opponent as well.

Gunplay in TC is pretty standard, using the mouse to aim and the keyboard to move around. The use of the crouch/cover key was pretty vague and hard to rely on, as it depends on where you are standing in relation to various items, walls, columns, etc as to what action you might be taking. The famous shoot-dodge move from Max Payne/The Matrix is included here to a limited degree, where Nick can dive in slow motion and blast away at the bad guys.  You will have the ability to target specific body parts, which helps you stay a good cop, because breaking up a street fight by capping the perps in the knees and arresting them is so much better than shooting them in the head. (The best way to break up a street fight is to run into it with your car, BTW. Most people stop fighting when they have a ton of garbage truck on their foot. And it still makes you a "good" cop)

Speaking of driving, this part of the game is really similar to the GTA series, though there doesn't seem to be any provision for switching perspectives from 3rd person to 1st person. The variety of cars in True Crime is decent, with a range of work vehicles to sports cars. The best part of the vehicles in True Crime is the damage model, where you can actually shoot out the tires on vehicles you are chasing in order to make them stop. You can stop speeders/street racers the same way, just blow out their tires and they can't get very far. That was the way I got my first Lamborghini look-alike car, by stopping a street race and then driving the broken-down car 2 miles to the repair station at about 5 miles an hour, sparks flying.

You can increase your martial arts skills, driving talents, or marksmanship by completing lessons at one of the sites scattered about the city. Keep in mind that you must use shield points earned by solving crimes to pay for these upgrades. This system provides a real sense of balance and purpose to the game, giving you both an incentive to go around solving the problems in the city as well as to build up your character's skills.

Many people will play this game and laugh it off as a campy take-off of B-movie cop flicks, and they would be right. With lines like "this is my BOOMstick", there is no escaping the sense that you are in a Lethal Weapon sequel. But is that such a bad thing? Video games are meant to be fun, and despite some mushy controls and difficulties, True Crime is a fun romp around LA.

Graphics: 8.4
Excellent graphics really look good on the PC. The level of effort to faithfully recreate 240 square miles of LA was quite an accomplishment. Hopefully, the makers of True Crime will be able to build on this base for a sequel that provides more plot and gameplay twists.

Sound: 8.3
Voice acting is pretty clichéd and predictable, but overall pretty good. Cars sound pretty much the same and special effects are nothing special. The music soundtracks are quite varied and interesting.

Concept: 6.9
True Crime follows a formula tested and tried in the movie theater over and over again. As a few hours of entertainment, it is pretty good, but certainly doesn't create a new genre or do anything too unpredictable, except by including zombies in one weird level. Why??

Multiplayer: 6.5
There are a few things to do in multiplayer mode, such as gun battle, dojo battle, or walk the beat, but the mode was just added on for the PC version and feels unfinished. Lag is a serious problem with more than 2 players.

Overall: 8.0
True Crime is one of those games that you will enjoy as a consumer, even though it has its flaws from a plot point of view. After all, though no one wants to admit it, the movies that do well in the box office rarely set new watermarks for literary brilliance, but are usually quite entertaining. After all, isn't that the whole point of entertainment?