In 2003 True Crime: LA was released to the masses with many unique and diverse features it was bound to be a hit and with Activision's latest release, True Crime: New York City it's clear they are aiming for the same success. True Crime: New York City has many almost identical features as it's pervious release, and the unfortunate clipping and graphic glitches cause the game to lack in many aspects of gameplay.

The game takes us into the depths of New York City as the criminal Marcus Reed who some how manages to become an under cover detective in the New York Police Department. Trying to clean up New York City while at the same time trying to find out who killed his long time friend and mentor Terrence Higgins; battling through the Gangs, Drug Lord, King Pins and Bums of New York City to find the truth and get your revenge on the dirt bags that killed Terrence.

With many unique features including Street Races, the ability to go on Street Patrol and Answer 911 Calls True Crime: New York City gives us many different play styles. The game however seemed to focus more on it's side missions than the actual story line. With the main story line (Terrence's death) seeming more like a side game than the main story line, while the mini games are pulling you into them all the time the main story line is just a block on the mini map you can go to when you felt like it with out any real benefit to it besides knowing you did it; and you could easily advance in ranks by doing the side missions - making the main story line almost pointless.

The developers definitely chose music to be their game's strong point, True Crime: New York City has a huge selection of music with well over 50 songs on it's sound track from various artists including NaS, DMX, Bob Dylan, Run D.M.C, White Zombie Public Enemy Wu-Tang Clan and the list goes on. But while the music was a strong point, the game's sound effects weren't very impressive, with very limited voice acting and the sound sometimes gargled while playing and the lack of any real area effects besides people screaming when you pull out your gun. The over all sound effects of True Crime: New York City were disappointing.

Clipping is a very annoying problem in True Crime: New York City. While playing the game it seems to just randomly lose clipping for no reason at all, causing you to fall through floors and pass through walls, and some walls don't have any clipping aspects to them at all to begin with that can cause you to enter a black void, leaving you stuck with nothing to do but reset the game.

AI is also lacking in a huge way, with your allied units doing basically nothing in most scenarios - usually just standing around and shooting at walls it's almost like their just there to help you avoid getting shot at. Most enemy units use the same tactics over and over again, which can get very boring and repetitive very quickly. Plus there is literally no new enemies in the game, just the same guy using a new weapon but still acting the same exact way as the guy you fought 5 minutes earlier.

With a huge weapon selection True Crime: New York City is defiantly not lacking in this area of the game, with well over 5 types weapons and over 30 total weapons in game you will not get bored with the weapon selection, and with the ability to use which ever weapon you wish to use you can literally play through the game with just your starter pistol which makes the game very simplistic, allowing even the least experienced gamer to play through the game with ease.

While playable, True Crime: New York City really isn't worth buying, with clipping bugs and a bad story line and the game being somewhat too easy the game just isn't worth it. With a very free and little in the way of penalization and the ability to do side tasks True Crime: New York City would probably appeal to gamers that like to run around an open world and play however they want, but if you're looking for a storyline, or even the ability to actually have an effect on the world True Crime: New York City probably isn't for you.

Questions? Comments? Contact the author at angrad_z@yahoo.com .