MEMBER PROFILE FOR Eagle357
Average Overall Score Given: 9.00000 / 10
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Reviews
True Crime: Streets Of L.A.
Overall: An excellent combination of Driving/Shooting and Fighting, in the one of the world's great cities, LA. 240 square miles accurately mapped, assortments of weapons from knives, katana blades, wrenches, 9mm Pistols, Assault Rifles and even a grenade launcher. A variety of cars to 'jack' for police business, for car chases, for car shootouts for escaping from pursuers. Fighting with Kung-Fu on sidewalks or in the middle of a street against parole violators/halle cherry/miguel jackson etc.Random street crimes are excellent especially when you're given the chance to break up a group of violent protesters, protesting against 'violent computer games'.
Gameplay: While the story is the typical suspended cop right from the beginning, playing through the first chapter of several levels really gets the game going. It depends on the person how frustrating the controls can be, but if you're as hardcore as some of the people out there it won't take you long to master. The most important point in the game is for me is firstly 240 square miles of LA accurately mapped, the Staples Center is there and so is the LA Convention center where they host E3. Most exciting however was travelling in game to places I've actually been to in LA, eg Venice Beach and Beverley Hills. The sheer size of the environment, a metropolis means there's going to be driving involved.
The driving engine is fine, the cars handle predictably and the ability to earn 'driving skills' makes it all the more fun. Especially when performing a switchblade to turn your car 180 degrees to shoot at your pursuers. A downside is the variety of civillian cars is small but there's a bit of everything, from the sedan to a more expensive 'Mercedes Benz' type cars. Then there's the 4WD's, pickups, tuned up Lancer type cars, Buses, IceCream trucks. After driving around for 30 minutes it's easy to see why LA is the city for car chases, wide roads, and even on minor roads 3 lanes on each side. Nick Kang's personal cars upgrade from a classic car to a muscle car, then to a Dodge Viper (2001 version, howeverin game called a Roadster), and then to a Ferrari 360 Spyder (2003, ingame called a sports car.)
On to the shooting, the game has 2 modes of shooting, the usual typical-autoaim and then aim mode. Typical of the movies and games recently there are 'bullet-time' aspects that can be used, for example pressing and holding the Y-button will make Nick Kang dive (you can shoot while doing this), whereas a tap will make him roll. Missions typically for shooting are made even better by the ability to pick up weapons dropped by foes, and the ability to have 2 weapons at a time. Nick Kang's personal weapons move up in caliber from .38's to .50 Desert Eagles. Aim-mode is particularly important for resolving crimes or ending a car-chase quickly. You can neutralise foes via shooting them in the hands or legs, or you can go the way of the 'bad-cop' by shooting them in the head. These aim spots also apply to vehicles, in car chases shooting out the tires of the criminal will slow them down, but a bullet placed correctly will in typical movie style explode the car forcing the occupant to get out.
The fighting, hand-to-hand that is, can be frustrating but comes to be an important part of the game to get good at, fortunately more powerful finishing moves can be 'learnt' by training at fighting dojo's scattered through out the city. From uppercuts to 'tiger sweeps' Nick Kang's fighting moves also include special grapples that produces the great sound of hearing the bones in your foes arms snap. Fortunately you can move the camera around using the right-stick to help you in 'blocking' your opponents attempts to hit you.
The storyline while advertised as branching is not actually as complicated as it sounds. Basically how well you did the previous mission determines whether you can proceed to the best ending.
Street Crimes occur randomly as you travel through the city, from muggers/car-jackers/drug dealers the variety is almost endless. They can be ignored if you wish, but as a warning I ignored too many drug transactions and inevitably when attempting to resolve one, found at least 12 criminals with large assault rifles in large trucks already shooting at me. The occurence of crimes is also based on localities, ie in Beverly Hills there are usually less car-jackings and crimes typical of lower class areas. In lower class areas muggers often occur more often. While in downtown there are usually more bank jobs or more high-profile crimes. Then there's always the illegal street races that need to be stopped.
As for bugs, sometimes you can play for a couple of hours without a single one and at other times be completely frustrated by it. Overall a great game, just like the action in movies typical of 'Bad Boys'.
Graphics: The game is visually attractive, it doesn't seem to use all of the XBOX, but it looks great. The environment, the post boxes, the trash cans, lightposts, palm trees all add up. The cars are modelled well and look even better as they gradually recieve damage to them (flat tyres, broken windshields). The character models are probably the best of the lot. Only a slight upgrade is needed in this department. I would never demand of the developing team to actually recreate exactly each and every building in LA. The most important landmarks are certainly there.
Audio: The sound effects are excellent, when approaching a crime scene of a bank robbery and hearing a large volume of rapid machine gun fire means bad news. The car horns/the sirens the things the civillians say everything is great. The cultural diversity of LA is even adressed as some of the asian criminals will say 'goodbye Supercop' in cantonese. The conversations in story points are excellent, with the voices of Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman, Michelle Rodrieguez and Russel Wong (Romeo Must Die).
Then the music is great, eg Nerd - Rockstar Poser, Taproot - Poem, Deftones - Minerva. Only problem with the 'cruising tracks' is that they don't continue playing when you exit the car, a new song is played when you enter another vehicle.
Suggestions: While probably unattractive a 2 player element, not multiplayer, but more like 2 partners in a Cooperative single player campaign could work well. This would work superbly in shoot outs.
The best situation however is car to car shoot outs. While Nick Kang is limited to using a single sidearm when shooting at an escaping criminal, 2 players would change this. All of Nick Kang's cars are open tops, a second player could potentially be sitting in the other seat using a long-rifle and helping out. Player 1 does the driving & shooting, Player 2 uses a larger weapon.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
