Reviewed on:
Playstation 2Also available for:
Xbox, GameCube, PC
The Good:
Manhattan landscape looks great. A plethora of cars, outfits and licensed music. Voice acting is superbly done.The Bad:
Physics are out of whack at times. More vibrancy needed to bring more life to the city. Gameplay can be very buggy.The Verdict:
It's hard to say "I Love NY" with this one.
REVIEW:
Two years ago, the wisecracking Nick Kang took the law into his own hands in Activision's True Crime: Streets of LA by walking the fine line between being an honest cop and a rogue.
Now the scene has shifted to New York and gangster-turned-cop Marcus Reed is the man who toils as an undercover detective for the PDNY (the NYPD found the game offensive and was thus opposed to this game) in True Crime: New York City.
The main story begins when Reed has graduated from being a uniformed grunt on the force to a detective dressed in civilian clothes. After almost biting the dust on the opening night of his new position, Reed is thrown into a tangled web of investigations and criminal activity filled with murder, deceit and bribery.
Much of the general gameplay and layout from Streets of LA has remained intact here, which bears both good and bad results. The New York cityscape brought to life by Luxoflux is impressive in many ways, and is livelier than the Los Angeles of the previous game. The use of everything from pedestrians to even meticulous details like garbage bins and hot dog stands fleshes the city out and really turns it into a living, breathing space.
The downside to this is that certain elements are unfairly sacrificed in order to achieve that kind of visual splendour. For one, the population density of Manhattan warrants a much greater number of pedestrians than that seen in this game. When night falls, the streets of Manhattan are eerily empty of both human and vehicle traffic, taking away from the impressive realism exhibited by the architecture.
Given the obvious Grand Theft Auto inspirations that are laid out all over TC: NYC, you could reasonably expect a lack of polish in the graphics to compensate for the very deep gameplay experience on offer. The only problem with that here is that the developers are recreating a real-life city, as opposed to the fictional ones that carry a mix of influences in the GTA games.
Not only that, but games like this carry the added burden of having to be developed with multiple gameplay styles in mind, (driving, fighting and shooting), all of which have to be sharp and responsive. This is where TC: NYC reaches a crucial turning point.
Where Streets of LA was filled with barbs from Nick Kang, all while carrying a certain charm with it from beginning to end, TC: NYC is darker, moodier and grittier, with little humour and a lot more death. Granted, the fact that New York isn't glitzy like LA, and Reed takes on a far more abrasive tone than Kang did, contributes to that aura but the supporting characters lack a lot of that too. This is why the best characters in the game, without a doubt, are the informants Reed occasionally relies on for information.
The eclectic group of a fast-talking cabbie, a sultry madam and Reed's own father make for both interesting missions and feature some of the better dialogue in the game during cutscenes.
