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February 16, 2004 -
So, Brandi, in the awesomeness that is she, got me True Crime: Street of LA for the PS2 as a Valentine's present. Flowers? Feh! Candy? Feh! Knowing what the other person really loves -- that's Valentine's Day. The girl is a goddess. I have to say this: the game is fucking golden. You're a cop placed on EOD (Elite Operations Division) ought to bring down an impending gang situation with the Russian Syndicate and the Chinese Triads. By you being a cop, I mean you're Chow Yun-Fat from The Corruptor. (Seriously, the box art from the game is fucking identical to the movie box, but I digress) Essentially, you're a Chinese martial arts badass who prefers the double-gun intimidation to any sort of realistic gunplay. But the realism is there, actually, as your aim sucks monkeys, because you're firing two guns. So that was cool. The game progresses down a chapter road, with three branching areas. If you stay down to the very end, best ending, and then the two other paths lead to "not perfect ending." I assume this is based on how you've acted as a police officer -- yet another awesome feature. You can GTA yourself down the sidewalk and be a "bad cop," and thus, get a bad cop ending. Or, you can be a good cop, and achieve good cop ending. I guess the other one's purgatory, I don't know, I don't think I'd ever fall in the middle. I'm working currently toward good cop before I go all Chinese psychopath. The good cop, bad cop rating is interesting. Depending on how you handle situations, you're rewarded (or deducted) points. While you're driving to any mission, you'll receive APBs on your radio, alerting officers in the area of various crimes, some of which are VERY amusing and creative (IE, "Flaming Eddie," a self-proclaimed notorious arsonist who is brandishing a cigarette lighter at a gas station). You can do as many of these "side crimes" as you want to earn points or lost points. For instance. If I wanted to stop Flaming Eddie, I could quite possibly put my foot on the pedal and run his ass down, but that's what we call bad cop points. I could shoot him in the head (bad cop), I could kung fu his ass until he bled, and then cuff him (good cop!), or use a disabling shot (shooting the person in a non-vital area, like arms, knees, etc). Whatever you do in the game, you're rewarded general points (aside from good cop/bad cop points) that amount (after 100) to a "shield." You can spend one shield in either shooting ranges or dojos to get additional weapon features (like scopes, laser sites, flashlights, faster reload time) or learn new martial arts techniques for fighting people. This was a really great addition to the game. Obviously, there's a quota, like, for the scope, you have to score 10 headshots, and zero civilian casualties/injuries in the range. This is probably the most difficult thing I had to do, as the PS2 analog is not the easiest for me to do very slow, precision aiming. This was the game's single flaw, but fortunately, you're never actually required to use it. Sometimes, it just helps a bit. And real enemies aren't as hard to nail. After the end of each chapter, you're offered Mission X, a bonus mission, where you can proceed to either a dojo, shooting range, or driver's course for a free upgrade. You'd be a fool to refuse this option, although you can if you want. If you go to a dojo, you'll learn new throwing techniques; a gun range upgrades the standard weapon you carry (You start with a .38, move to a .40, and then to a .45 -- there's one more, but I have gotten it yet); and the driver's course gives you a new car (although you can hijack any car in the game, you do have a standard vehicle you are sometimes assigned). The really awesome part about this game was the actual 320 square mile layout of LA. The street you're on is displayed constantly while you're driving, and any intersection is labeled beneath. So, if you actually lived in LA, or drove there, you'd know exactly where you were going. Gas stations are cool, too. You can tell you're driving past a Shell or a Texaco station because they are designed exactly like they look in real life, only the names are changed because the game did not have the rights, or didn't want to pay for them. This is really not important. Oh, gas stations will fix your car for a slash at your shield points (not a whole shield, just points from it), and pharmacies will restore your life for a fraction, as well. Another completely awesome feature is the "cop instinct." By pressing the circle button, you can frisk any and every person in the game, searching for guns, drugs, or other illegal contraband. This is incredibly cool, and sometimes, pedestrians will fight back, or you'll arrest someone and their friend starts fighting you. Great addition. Also, when approaching noted crime scenes, sometimes the bad guys will surrender when you flash your badge, and sometimes they'll surrender when you fire off a warning shot in the air. Other times, they'll either fight you, shoot you, or run like hell. Chase 'em down and kick their asses. Finally, crimes that you choose to ignore (or do not completely resolve) can come back to bite you in the ass later. A hitman could return, or Flaming Eddie (whom I've thusfar ignored) has shown up three times. Okay. Single letdown other than hard first person analog control... it's short. If you ignore the street crimes, the best ending is probably not more than 5-10 hours outside your reach. The length is determined by how many street crimes you go after, and which path you follow. 5-10 is for the best ending. I'd say 3-6 for worst. But there is definite replay value, as most of the cutscenes are altered depending on which path you take. Also, if you fail a mission along the way, the story will continue, and you see events altered by your failure. So, while it might not take forever to reach the story ending, there are countless hours of fun trying to get the upgrades you want, stopping street crimes, committing street crimes, and playing as both good and bad cop. I've also seen that you can play the game as Snoop Dogg (featured on the incredibly MASSIVE soundtrack along with fucking 10,000 rap artists and 5 rock artists), so maybe that's part of the story replay. ... The coolest part was when I was in this wharehouse, right? And Taproot's song "Poem" started up. I was like, that's hardcore. So I'm firing off at this sniper across on another building, and the lyrics are booming out "In case of fire, BREAK the glass!" as my bullets are blowing the windows into shattered chunks. So cool. ... Anyway. That's my review. It's worth the purchase, and it's a lot of fun. Plus, if you're not crazy and don't sit in front of the fucker for an entire weekend, it probably lasts longer. In other news, Beyond Good and Evil suffered a game glitch and I had to restart. Fortunately, I hadn't progressed quite as far. Usually, in fact, most of the time, you're traveling with someone. At some point, I guess the game allowed me to continue to a destination, but I had apparently left my partner behind. I didn't notice, however, because his voice was still playing as I was riding my hovercraft, so I figured he had to be inside. But after I got to my destination (which you can't exit after going in), I found out he wasn't there. And you HAVE to have him to move into certain areas. So. I've pretty much gotten back to that point after a few hours of play, but watch yourselves if you get into it. It's still one of the better ones I've seen. Really silly dialog, great cartoonish graphics, and a good conspiracy theory story. Great game. Finally, check this out. No point, really, just 213 things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the military. It's really quite funny. See ya later. - Don
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Master Cop