True Crime: New York City [Xbox]

If we had to sit down and create the very image of a passable GTA clone, it would look a whole lot like True Crime. Great voice actors? Check. Gigantic city? Check. True Crime New York City, the second installment, even has a breadth of content that approaches the sheer scope of San Andreas. What it doesn't have, disappointingly, is the polish of a Rockstar title, and the rough spots constantly belittle the impressive content.

The location is different, but the setup is much the same. The hero is Marcus Reed, a gangster-turned-cop. When his mentor is killed in a mysterious explosion, Reed works the streets to uncover the reason for his death.

The story is comprised of one introductory case followed by a series of three relatively open-ended investigations. These are detailed, mission-based stories with lots of room to roam the city between each mission. Along the way, opportunities will arise to track down a street racing ring and an illegal fight circuit. Reed also has a whopping 20 precincts to patrol, and he can clean them up one by one by tackling random street crime that pops up during the game. How players behave in every law enforcement situation determines whether they become a good cop or a bad one.

In the original game, the good/bad rating could dramatically alter the narrative path. Here, the effect of making moral choices is more cosmetic. For the most part, players are free to do whichever they find more entertaining; rise through the ranks, turning in evidence to get better money, weapons, and cars, or extorting innocents and planting and selling evidence to do essentially the same thing.

Either way, story missions don't feature nearly the variety that we've grown accustomed to in GTA. Many boil down to a straight action scene, with a requisite car chase here and there. That's what the street racing and pitfighting subplots are for -- to give us a chance to follow a trail other than the primary one and engage in some distracting action.

The street crime is wonderfully varied, however, and can move in and out of buildings without notice. Reed will chase rapists, bombers, drunks, rowdy bums, and quite a few other criminal types. They'll all grab weapons, steal cars, and take refuge in buildings, given the opportunity. Crime crops up frequently, though sometimes a call can literally come from the other side of the city. Passing on one is no big deal, but there's no quicker way to access new cars, weapons, and moves than addressing the mean streets.

When something is on the other side of the city, prepare for some travel time. The city is absolutely huge and modeled with relative accuracy. Despite the scale model of Manhattan, most of it feels decidedly homogenous. That's the problem with New York -- the tiny details are what make it great. After all, the island is mostly a warren of similar buildings and right-angle streets. Every once in a while, there will be a street blocked off for construction, but most of the time it's difficult to tell one avenue from another. At the edges, where the waterfront and projects take over, there's a bit more variety.

Driving around can be fun, because an attempt has been made to create some realistically large accidents. Getting hit while on a motorcycle is devastating, and in addition to the individual feel of each vehicle, each seems to have appropriate weight.

True Crime does improve on GTA and Streets of LA by implementing a decent targeting system. A shoulder button locks the crosshairs, after which a flick of an analog stick switches targets. It's easy and reliable. There's also an upgradable precision aiming mode, which can be used to blow away a dude holding a hostage. It'll even work from behind the wheel, so that popping the tires of a stolen sled takes more skill (and is more satisfying) than just indiscriminate shootin'. The new targeting actually makes it more fun to uphold the law, as using non-lethal tasers and beanbag shotguns are more viable tactics than before.

The slick targeting is let down by a slow and frequently deadly weapon selection system, however. The setup got us killed a few times, leading to some really frustrating situations. And just wait until a good cop rating is knocked when your non-lethal beanbag shotgun automatically switches to a pistol instead of the next non-lethal firearm. Nothing like accidentally shooting a perp dead because the trigger unexpectedly fired a real gun.

That sort of thing is typical, though. True Crime does many things right, but then blows it with some piece of design that's poor or character behavior that simply feels broken. People will jitter and pop through furniture, and a couple of times after a fight it seemed like there was still an invisible person fighting in the middle of the street. And for all the cars frequently feel "right," motorcycles never do. We've also seen several busses go flipping end over end after a minor hit.

These issues seem small, but they pile up. The revised control is still rough, with an arrest mechanic that requires Reed to be a precise distance from a perp. And when there are pedestrians unpredictably running through the crime scene, it gets more difficult. The obvious defense is "that's reality, man" but here it just feels like a lack of final quality control.

The city frequently looks great, even on the PlayStation 2. Rain-slicked windows and streets reflect neon and headlamps; the draw distance is enough to paint all the way down a long Manhattan avenue, and the basic characters all have a gritty, urban feel. The PS2 can't always keep up, but the slowdown was never worse than with San Andreas. And on the Xbox and GameCube (a console typically overlooked by crime dramas), things move more smoothly.

After the first True Crime was unleashed, we felt like it was a promising game world that needed a lot of work. This time, Luxoflux has come closer. But their efforts are still undermined by an inability to match ambition with execution. We love the ambition in this take on the Big Apple, but sometimes the inexpert mechanics just can't be ignored.