GAMES

True Crime: Streets Of L.A.
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Luxoflux
Platform: PS2, Xbox, Gamecube

Why do magazines still talk about computer games being “breathtaking” and “stunning”? What? Are you REALLY saying that the intro movie to your new war combat game REALLY looks like the beginning of Saving Private Ryan? Have you got some weird reality filter in your brain that can’t separate things from COMPUTERS and REAL PEOPLE or something?

Please. Just relax. Computer games are meant to entertain you briefly and take your mind off stuff for a while. They’re not meant to be a job or a science you know. None of them are “brilliant, brilliant and brilliant!” like the sticker reads on this boring Gulf War re-enactment game I bought two weeks ago with 45 fucking pounds I didn’t actually have in my bank.

Even your fanciest PC game still doesn’t even approach the incredibly hi-tec, multibenligent standards that weirdos like you try to convince us exist these days. And no matter how many actors the game developers hire to read dialogue in the in-between bits, most games are all still based around the principle of “keep the dot in the middle of the screen” and that’s all it fucking is and that’s fine with everyone.

Does anybody really want to remember a million different combination throws and stats and tactics when all you want to do is take your mind off complicated shit like paying the rent and avoiding the people you owe money to? We need things to entertain and be fun and to help release urges and that’s exactly what this game does. There’s no science or angles or Elfquests here, just an awesome drunken, Segaworld arcade version of Grand Theft Auto 3 or Vice City, only less complicated and more instant fun.

OK, there’s less detail, fewer nooks and crannies and hardly any opportunities to pretend to be the Washington Sniper like there is in GTA but True Crime makes up for it by having easy to aim guns, tonnes of targets and some good hand-to-hand combat sequences, thus making it easier for one-eyed-stumbly-wumbly people to play in the early hours of the morning. The ultraviolent House Of The Dead five-minute-long gun battle stories are fun as fuck and there’s also an interesting ‘moral barometer’ energy bar where you can decide to play as a good cop or bad cop by way of how many suspects or civilians you butcher on the way to completing the level.

Thing is, while it’s good fun to mow everybody down all the time, it’s ultimately more rewarding to risk the temptations of bloodlust and play the game as a straight facking copper.

That way, you’re rewarded with more guns, skills, stories and more interesting challenges than simply chasing a guy with a red dot down the street and shooting him till he’s dead.

Here’s an idea! Instead of saying things like “a cold-blooded classic to rock your world” on the adverts, they should throw the consumer a curveball and write something like: “If you want to play the game to its fullest potential you have to be a good guy who doesn’t go for the easy options! Heavenly! Fantasmagorical! Superlaxative!”

SYRUP DAVIES

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