BUY IT

[by David Fu]

With its beautiful environments and many game play options, True Crime: New York City is out to get the GTA series. But it may end up falling short, due to unnecessary glitches and bugs that were probably overlooked as the game was rushed to the holiday shelves. Too bad, because the game had potential.

In True Crime: New York City , you play Marcus Reed, a former gangster turned cop out to clean up the streets with the brtual type of justice gamer like so much. Just a few steps out of the precinct and you're ready to fight crime, whether it's taking down a flamethrower-wielding arsonist, defusing bombs or making arrests for lewd acts in public. You'll have a riot running the NYC's streets. 

In total, there are four main cases to solve and, if you choose to play the game straight through, they should only take a few hours to beat; they're fairly easy. True Crime: New York City also gives you plenty of side missions and events to keep you busy, should you want to explore this fairly accurate representation of the Gotham metropolis in greater depth. Meet up with informants who will give you tips about crimes going on in the city and do a little dirt for them to earn some good cash. Join the street racing syndicate or throw down bare knuckles in an underground fight club. Cruise the city and be alerted to crimes being committed in your vicinity. 

How you handle the crime is where the fun is at. You can flash your badge to make an everyday arrest, or make it interesting one by simply beating the life out of every criminal you come across. Either way, you end up collecting career points which can be traded into the precinct for driving or shooting skills. The problems happen, as usual, in personal conduct: How you deal with crimes on the streets affects your good/bad cop rating. But since there's no reward or consequence for building up your cop rating, except loss of rank only for extremely bad cops, why would you even care? There are other issues. The graphics are solid, but constant frame-rate glitches and snags mar the experience, especially while driving. When you're about to crash, often the game will pause and the sound will cut.  

But aside from these minor issues, the scenery and variety of architecture is truly something to marvel at.  With such a destructible environment, you may just spend the day creating chaos. Plus, the sound is where True Crime: New York City truly stands out. With tracks from hip-hop greats like Redman, Grand Master Flash and more, the soundtrack is as compelling as the top-notch voice work from Christopher Walken and Laurence Fishburne.

In the end, True Crime: New York City is a great game to get lost in for hours. And, if not for the glitches, it could have been one of the great games of 2005 and 2006. 

January 18, 2006

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DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE:
"Soul Meets Body"
From: Plans
AUDIO: WMA REAL
See Also: Transatlanticism