True Crime: New York City Truly Infested
written by: Dale Alan Mayrose on 3/6/2006 6:52:20 PM
True Crime: New York City places the player in the life of Marcus Reed, a New York gang member who has turned to the law in order to clean up the streets which he’s lived on his whole life. His father, also a gangster, currently resides in jail and is a main focus of the storyline. Marcus has taken it upon himself to take down the biggest names in crime in the city. In order to do so, Marcus uses a mix of traditional police techniques as well as some thuggish activities. The four major cases in the storyline are broken up into individual missions, most of which are relatively easy to complete. In addition to the main storyline, there are side missions involving taking care of hookers, illegal street racing, engaging in fisticuffs, and driving around for a cabbie. In addition when driving around New York, Marcus will occasionally receive calls that there is illegal activity being committed in his general vicinity. Marcus can choose to answer the call or allow the crimes to resolve themselves. I found some of the crimes to be humorous.
Each time Marcus solves a crime, arrests someone, or confiscates contraband he receives career points. Career points build up until Marcus receives a promotion. Promotions give better salary as well as give access to better driving skills, better firing skills, and better access to weapons and vehicles at the police station. Marcus can also acquire Bad career points which don’t really affect the game until maxed out. When this happens, Marcus is considered a rogue policeman and is hunted down by his coworkers, eventually brought to justice, and is demoted one rank.
The physics engine in True Crime: New York City is full of flaws unfortunately. This is mostly evident when driving and doing special maneuvers. The vehicles available don’t seem to have the proper weight to them which causes pit maneuvers and wheel tricks to be outrageously easy to perform. To top it all off, many times while driving I would find myself actually floating into buildings and right through other vehicles. Another drawback is the lack of realism in New York City. Grabbing a pedestrian, beating them against a wall or a vehicle only causes them to curse you briefly and walk off as if nothing happened. Sometimes finding the pedestrian that you’ve already beaten up is difficult because of the lack of character models. It was quite often that I was forced to remove several pedestrians from a large group because there were five or more of the same model.
The visual graphics are a mixed bag. On one hand the characters are somewhat blocky and the frame rate snags, on the other hand the representation of the city is quite amazing. So amazing, in fact, that quite often you don’t notice that the game will snag slightly when your vehicle is about to collide with another object. Sound was adequate yet a little “off”. For example, you can’t tell who is speaking to you on the street nor can you even tell if the phrases, some in differing accents, are from one person or multiple people. Fortunately the music selection is broad enough that most players will find something which they will enjoy to race through the streets listening to. The voice acting was excellent despite being overshadowed by the numerous bugs and glitches. Two very well-known actors, Christopher Walken and Laurence Fishbourne, provide outstanding talent despite the dialogue being filled with more profanity than I’ve ever heard walking down any street of downtown NYC or even Houston.
Now to speak of the most problematic part of True Crime: New York City; bugs. Everything from the aforementioned accent changing bug to the ultimately deadly bug of the whole game freezing up. As most gamers can admit, a great game which freezes randomly can be much more annoying than a horrible game which doesn’t. Other bugs include randomly floating through building while driving, floating through the ground when walking/running, and the graphics glitching when getting out of a vehicle.
Because of these and other varied glitches in True Crime: New York City, I must recommend that serious gamers expecting a fun and rewarding experience in their game should probably avoid purchasing this game. While I found it worth playing for releasing aggression and simple, mind-numbing gratuitous violence, if I had the option of testing the game for the developers, I would have told them to wait a few months and fix the bugs before releasing.
