Cobb

First of all, this is LA. No bones about it. It looks just like LA and there's a huge map. You can drive all the way from the Santa Monica Pier to the Downtown, from the top of the Hollywood Hills down to Exposition Blvd. Culver City looks like itself, Santa Monica, Sunset Boulevard. It's not as slick graphically as Project Gotham which is by far the best. But the map is more detailed; It's almost as good as Midtown Madness which is damned good, considering that in True Crime you can get out and walk. If you know LA, you'll find yourself cruising around to find your old neighborhood. All the familiar landmarks are here and you get a headsup display that tells you exactly which intersection you're at.

There are three soundtracks. As soon as you pop into a car, the booming sounds start blasting. It's just like you're cruising with Denzel in Training Day. In fact, that is exactly the vibe you get playing this game.

The premise is simple. You are a cliche'd renegade cop with uncanny skills. You're chasing through an ever-increasingly dangerous hierarchy of hoods and organized criminals trying to uncover their scheme and get to the big man. You play the whole game a mission at a time through a forking path of episodes. The forking path depends upon which skills you amass and choices you make. This is very cool.

You are a cool badass. You've got vehicles. You've got hand weapons and firearms. You've got martial arts skills. And you've got a badge and a city full of street crime.

This is the most important difference between this and GTA Vice City. In Vice City, you've only got one opportunity to advance. Take down the scores you're scumball lawyer arranges. You land in the hospital and you lose all your money, and you can't get skills or weapons without money. Now if you're going to force (another limiting dimension in GTAVC) somebody to be a bad guy, the first thing he'd think about is jacking civilians for cash. In Vice City, you can steal a Porsche, but can't pay for a screwdriver. Stupid.

In TCSOLA, there's a new crime in your vicinity every 2 minutes (Every 30 seconds if you're in Hollywood at night). You can choose to engage them or continue on your mission. It's like an infinite number of minigames in the larger game. Some of these street crimes are just fistfights between a couple of women, some of them involve multiple perps with automatic weapons who've hijacked vehicles, killed cops and taken hostages. So there's a full gamut of escapades.

TCSOLA is a very well balanced game. The level of control leaves something to be desired, but because you can operate in three modes, vehicle, hand to hand, and firearm combat it's a very good compromise. And yes there is bullet-time. In fact, it out Matrixes the Matrix when it comes to automatic weapons taking big chunks out of concrete pillars. It's a very hard gangsta-style LA and the whole environment is very engrossing. Anybody who digs hardcore action flicks is going to be in heaven. I particularly dig the realism of having to deal with the limits of revolvers and still having to worry about thugs with knives or broken bottles.

OK so here's the exciting part. You get a call on the radio that there's a holdup in progress. You drive up and skid your convertible Caddy 90 degrees in the street and take cover behind it. They start shooting automatic weapons. The civilians scatter. Backup comes in. You take down one suspect. The two others scatter on foot. You run down one of them with a flying tackle and fight both of them hand to hand for 2 minutes. You defeat one, cuff him on the pavement and the other takes off running. He jacks a car and takes you on a high speed chase across the city. You try to shoot his tires out while you avoid other traffic, running red lights. You bash into other cars, you clip civilians and knock over hydrants. Sirens are wailing, a helicopter passes overhead, sparks are flying from the wheels of the getaway car, hard pumping action gangsta rap is blasting on the system. You finally T-Bone his car, it catches fire and you chase after him on foot. You fire a warning shot into the air and he throws up his hands and surrenders. You cuff him saying some snarky shit like "Crime doesn't pay, sometimes it hurts." or "You have a right to remain unconscious". Meanwhile as you're putting the perp down, bystanders are cursing you out in Spanish.

It doesn't get any better than that.