I spent a few hours playing this new piece last night after my flatmate rented it from good old Blockbusters. highly GTA orientated it follow the same rough premise, get from A to B then do something, where it varies from GTA is in a more detailed close combat system alowing you to beat the ("PRETTY FLOWER" - Ed) out of criminals and grannies as well as missions which include sneaking about insied buildings or just open firefights. It also throws into the blend a RPG upgrade a like system so you can improve your skills giving you a better chance of survival.

So better or worse than GTA? For a start the car control system seems a bit clumsy, I'll mention that this was the PS2 version, keeping control of the car seemed a bit of a hassle. I found it difficult to avoid lurching all over the road which made driving a bit annoying, especialy when you consider hitting pedestrians has now become a bad thing to do since it reduces your upgrade points.

The fighting is funky as well but seems a bit dicey, your oppenets will easily block most of your hits and there is no real combo system to speak of. Whenever I get into a fight it's time to start button mashing. There are combos and stuff you can unlock but how effective these are remains to be seen as I've not unlocked anything really useful yet.

Shooting is handled fairly nicely in the game, whip out our gun and opponents get a target around them which you automaticaly shoot at. It takes time to track a target and shots can go stray killing innocents which is never good, it means only whipping out your gun when it's actually needed. Vehicle chases are also solved by chasing and shooting out the other car until the guy gets out where he may surrender or you may have to beat it out of him. You can also zoom in for a non lethal shot to get extra points.

The worst thing about this game is it doesn't have the same sort of open ended feel as GTA, sure you can run about and do random missions for points and they are fun for a bit bt the map is a bit bland. I tried taking several shortcuts and found that they weren't shortcuts at all. At one point I even managed to wedge my car under a building where it hadn't been surfaced properly.

So worth it or not? Probably. It doesn't feel as much fun as GTA which I only ever played in a ("PRETTY FLOWER" - Ed) about sense, not doing the missions and in True Crime the focus is definately more on getting the mission done with optional messing about on the street.

Rating: 1 less than whatever you would give GTA in all liklihood.

Being a GTA-deprived GC owner I was thinking of getting this, but I'm not sure I can be bothered.

Well, they didn't bother sending out review code before the game hit the shelves, did they? I've certainly not seen a UK review of it. Bad, bad sign.

After playing it for a few more hours methinks I'll change my view to about two less then whatever you would give GTA. The fighting sections have become more and more disapointing with harder badies. For instance most of the people you meet can be dispatched with a few combos. Hit a major bad guy and pain starts. He blocks almost every move meaning you can never land hits and they all hit you back with super moves which criple you. The only way I found to win was to hit all the attack buttons as quick as possible which prevents him from doing it.

I also ran into a terrible shooting section but the fault in this one could lie in my hands since I lack a manual and may be missing something obvious. The level involved making your way through a few roms to a elevator, the rooms were filled with baddies weilding assault rifles and the like with a good 10 or so of them having hostages. There was no way to make them put down the hostage so it would be a case of pop out, get shot, duck back. In the end I just had to blaze through the hostages which took my karma down to a lovely -9.

The upgrade system seems a bit lacking as well. Upgrading fighting is pointless due to the button mashing, it's not like you get any combos (that I've seen at least) which help you kick the shit out of some one, it's all special moves when an opponent is stunned but getting him that way is still problematic. The car upgrade mission are hard due to the affore mentioned crap car handling system. Shooting ones are useful though one again the controls are slightly annoying since it's hard to precision aim, it's either move really really fast or move too slow.