True Crime: New York City [PS2]

The controls are still a mixed bag. The hand-to-hand combat is okay; they've gotten rid of the annoying slo-mo before unleashing a combo on someone that dragged down the fighting in the last game. Marcus can upgrade to several fighting styles, although while working through a sizable chunk of the story, I found that I'd rather spend my money on bigger guns than anything else. It's still a pain in the ass to tackle fleeing suspect on the street to arrest them, just as much as it's still a pain in the ass to not kill a hostage during a stand-off. The precision targeting seems to be an oxymoronic statement on more than one occasion while playing. You can tag baddies with a wounding takedown instead of smiting them with hot lead injections, but it's really more trouble than it's worth, especially at the risk of taking too much health damage.

Aside from that, though, the shooting system, which has always felt like it was biting from the best elements of Dead to Rights, is still the best part of True Crime. Running into a room and blasting everyone is still a fairly exhilarating rush, even if the scenarios border on the preposterous -fighting a woman driving a giant fire-breathing dragon in the middle of an opera performance is almost as weird as a Triad crime leader turning into a dragon. To spice up the action, Luxoflux has also incorporated a new mini-game (similar to one in the upcoming 24: The Game) in which Marcus interrogates a prime suspect by either smacking them on the back of the head or pressing cold steel against their temple to get information out of them. It's amusing to watch him bitch-slap someone on the neck repeatedly until they tell him that they're about to crap their pants. Again, in spite of the janky on-foot controls, shooting is the one thing that's really fun about True Crime: New York City. Transportation, however, is not.


The driving system has some new upgrades, but they feel more like additions than improvements. Again, there are the aforementioned gripes with physics, and it almost seems as though the sole reason why anyone would drive in the game would be to experience the soundtrack, which has a ridiculous license of classic East Coast hip-hop anthems, legendary punk tunes, a few alternative and indie rock songs, and disappointing dance tracks. It makes one think that had Activision and Luxoflux put less money into the soundtrack and more into development, they could have made a better game. Like GTA, players will have to hunt for the sorts of vehicles that are truly good for navigating traffic (ie: motorcycles and sports cars). Or, they can do what millions of New Yorkers do every day: take the subway. It doesn't seem that there's much of a tutorial for catching the subway, so the first ride might be as confusing to navigate as the real New York subway system. However, the subway system proves to be a handy warp point around an intimidating-in-scope city -if Marcus isn't killed while boarding by one of the bugs that cause him to fall into black space for ten seconds. There's also the option to take taxis, but it starts adding up and taking away from Marcus' earnings.

Complete with more bugs than month-old flypaper sitting outside a slaughterhouse, True Crime: New York City is utterly mediocre. Sure, it's got its moments, such as exciting and twitchy shoot-out action, but the on-the-street combat is as broken as the last title, driving is a nightmare, the graphics are drab, the framerate chugs, and the overall experience is just plain bad. Unfortunately, there are going to be lots of unwitting beta testers out there this Holiday season who will buy this game in spite of the bugs. Don't be one of those people who makes that expensive mistake.

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