True Crime: Streets of L.A. is one of the few open-ended action games that have been released lately (next to the GTA series and The Getaway) and definitely one of the best games of the year. True Crime is made by Activision and the company best known for its previous car combat hit Vigilante 8, Luxoflux, and follows Nick Kang. Nick’s not the kind of cop you see on the street, but more of the kind of cop you’d see in an action flick; his guns do the talking.

In the beginning you learn that Kang is called into action through a new division called E.O.D. (Elite Operations Division) that has a bit more authority than the average police. As you play, you learn more about each gang and what role they play in the huge plot going down in L.A.

The first thing you’ll notice if you’ve ever been to L.A. is that the city has been mapped out almost exactly down to the street names. I even loaded up Mapquest online, got directions from the L.A. Convention Center to the hotel I stayed at during E3 and retraced the route. This definitely creates an advantage for L.A. gamers since some of the missions require you to hurry from one point to another, sometimes even hopping onto a freeway, so knowing you’re way around can get you to your destination with no trouble at all. If you’re wondering how much of L.A. they actually created, it’s somewhere around 300 square miles (I checked).

Luckily Luxoflux has experience in vehicle-based games, so the driving engine is awesome. There are tons of cars to jack, but you can also earn cars that you can’t find anywhere in the city by completing side missions between story chapters. These side missions can also score you new guns and new take-down moves for hand-to-hand combat.

Don’t worry; you don’t have to wait until you’ve finished a chapter to get new stuff. Although you get the coolest stuff between chapters, you can visit 24-hour locations all over the map that specialize in driving techniques, weapon training, or martial arts. There are tons of things to unlock in each area that will help a lot during the game. Going through driving training will give you more vehicle maneuvers such as driving on two wheels or flipping quick 180’s. Weapon training will give you gun add-ons or more shooting techniques, and visiting dojos will reward you with new finishing moves.

To visit these facilities, one must earn badges. When doing good deeds you’ll receive award points, and once these points reach one hundred you get a badge. Getting these points is easy, and you have tons of ways to get them. One way is to just shake down random pedestrians for illegal drugs or weapons – if you find someone carrying something illegal, on go the cuffs and you get points. Another way is to respond to your police radio. The radio points you in the direction of random crimes happening throughout L.A., from shootouts to domestic disputes to street racers. Bag the criminals and you get more points. You also get tons of points for completing missions, so progressing through the story is a good idea as well.

Points aren’t the only thing that judge how well you’re doing; you are also being rated throughout the entire game. For every good deed you do, you get a good cop point, but for every bad thing you do you get a bad cop point. This rating is a big deal, because it decides which direction the story goes. If you’re a terrible cop you’ll find the game ending short, the story unresolved, and a bad ending. On the other hand, if you’re a good cop you’ll play the entire length of the game and see the good ending. Don’t worry, if you botch a mission you can always start over and try again, making the good ending fairly easy to obtain.

One of the really cool things about True Crime that most games don’t do is the fact that you can continue playing the game even if you fail a mission. So you don’t catch the bad guy as he flees town, you can actually continue the story as if you didn’t catch him, which even changes events later on down the road. I really think more games need to do this – it makes the game feel more realistic.

Although the controls for driving are extremely friendly, gun fights and fist fights take more getting used to. The controls sometimes didn’t seem too responsive when I tried to shoot an enemy without aiming. Other times, it would go into aim mode when I needed to dive and fire, resulting in my untimely demise. Hand-to-hand combat has some of the same problems every once in awhile, with buttons not responding. After awhile you learn ways around it all and as you learn more moves for your guns and fists these things become a lot of fun.

Most of the soundtrack is hip-hop, which might make a lot of people happy. I’m not a huge fan of hip-hop, so that really limited my choices of music. I understand that for a fan of the genre it’s got a huge (and probably good) selection, but for the rest of us there isn’t much else.

Overall this game is wonderful. While the driving is easy to pick up, running around on foot is fun too with the great fist fighting engine. Gun fights are reminiscent of Max Payne with the diving in slow motion making it all very cinematic and hard to dislike. This game should absolutely not be missed. Warning to parents: there is very harsh language and some scenes within a strip club, although there’s no nudity.   

Gameplay: 9.4
Aside from the few control gripes about hand-to-hand and gun combat, the game controls great. Having an accurate model of Los Angeles adds to the feeling that you’re playing within a living world, and the countless unlockables and abilities will add hours upon hours to the replay value. You can even play as Snoop Dogg as a secret unlockable!

Graphics: 9.5 
For the size of the game you’d expect lots of slowdown and such, but you won’t find much at all. The game looks excellent, and when you realize how big it is and that there’s no load times while driving around you’ll be even more amazed.

Sound: 8.6
Even though I’m sure it’s great music, fans of hip-hop will grow tired of the soundtrack quickly. Lack of variety hurts the score a bit, but all the voice clips and sound effects are great and sometimes funny. Snoop Dogg’s voice clips are my absolute favorite.

Difficulty: Medium
There are lots of missions that you can just blaze through with no trouble at all, especially the stealth missions, but there are others that will cause problems as well. The balance between easy and hard missions is done very well, so the game never feels too easy or too hard.

Concept: 9.0 
The GTA style genres are growing up, and each iteration offers more and more options. True Crime was definitely an improvement, more importantly in the areas of on-foot combat.

Overall: 9.5
This is a definite must-buy. True Crime offers a little something for everyone, from sweet gun fights to insane driving to killer fist fights. If you grow tired of missions, you won’t get bored by just driving around looking for crimes to solve. Even though the soundtrack is focused on a single genre, it fits the atmosphere of the game. Don’t miss this game; it’s easily one of the best of the year.