This time around True Crime takes place in a vividly imagined modern-day Hong Kong that's teeming with nightlife and criminal activity. Not like most of us would notice anyway, but the team behind True Crime opted out of mapping out the city as realistically as possible and instead decided to present gamers with a world that makes more sense to navigate as a videogame. While based on several true-to-life environments, this is not the Google Maps approach. That's not to say the game's portrayal of the bustling Chinese city was left completely to the developer's imaginations; the team took several booze-fueled research trips to Hong Kong, returning with over 27,000 digital photos, some new tattoos, and more importantly, a bolder understanding of what made the film "Internal Affairs" (the game's other main inspiration, better known to American cinema junkies as its remake, "The Departed") so gritty and action-packed. But since True Crime isn't as much about sight-seeing as it is about ass-kicking action, it's probably best if we just jump right to talking about that.
Brian Miggels: True Crime's fighting system would make pudgy old Steven Seagal quiver in his stupid cowboy boots. The demo showed protagonist Wei Shen grossly outnumbered by that old standby, the swarm of thugs in a factory. He quickly whittled down their numbers by snapping arms and necks, pistol-whipping, and bashing in skulls with a refrigerator door. As a connoisseur of violence, I was more than pleased. I was particularly impressed by just how many interactive environment objects this small factory provided. Wei did an insane cafeteria lunch-lady impression by slashing at foes with a handy-dandy meat cleaver and even smashed a thug's face into a circuit breaker, triggering an explosive death. Picture Batman in Arkham Asylum disposing of a circle of foes, only this Batman has no qualms with murder.
When faced by another seemingly never-ending chain of enemies in the next room, our protagonist-- in an act of Matrix-esque smoothness -- disarmed an assailant's gun, took him as a human shield, then got bored and shot the hapless Triad flunkie in the kneecap to incapacitate him. This great fight sequence showed that True Crime has lots of promise. The idea is that a sandbox game isn't just about open-world exploration -- you can have sandbox-style fun with an open-ended approach to combat as well.
Leaving the battered Triads unconscious and dreaming about what-the-F just happened, Wei Shen exited the factory floor by scaling a stack of crates to reach a scaffold -- a little trick he learned from Ezio Auditore, and a stark contrast to Nico Bellic's platforming ineptitude. Outside the factory, the rescue mission turned into an all-out motorcycle pursuit, wherein Shen had to chase after a comrade who'd been thrown in the back of a squad car. The driving seemed more arcade and less simulation -- the kind of handling that Burnout fans will gravitate to. As the pursuit ended with a Jackie Chan-styled stuntman leap from the bike to the roof of the police cruiser, we couldn't help but grin as the main character fluidly hijacked the vehicle, sending the driver flying. Mission accomplished. Despite my general lack of regard for the series my True Crime interest level soared after this demo, earning this game a place on GameSpy's radar.
