True Crime (series)

True Crime is a series of action-adventure video games set from the perspective of law enforcement and published by Activision.

The first two games were developed by Luxoflux and are known for their GPS-accurate open world recreations of Los Angeles and New York City and "street crime" missions that randomly generate outside of the main police procedural storyline. A third game was under development by Luxoflux but then canceled after the lackluster release of True Crime: New York City.^[1]

A new entry was being developed by United Front Games that would have rebooted the series. It was to take place in a stylized (rather than GPS-accurate) open world of Hong Kong with an undercover detective as its protagonist.^[2][3] The game was canceled by Activision, with Activision stating that the decision was because they didn't expect it to be good enough to compete in the open world genre and generate enough profit.^[4][5][6][7] In August 2011, Square Enix announced that they had purchased the title from Activision and would complete development of it, although because they had not purchased the rights to the True Crime name, the game would be released under the new title Sleeping Dogs and will not be a part of the True Crime series.^[8]

On December 19, 2014, Activision abandoned the True Crime franchise trademark. ^[9]

Games

• True Crime: Streets of LA, released in 2003.
• True Crime: New York City, released in 2005.

Reception

True Crime: Streets of LA

The reception to the games in the series has been mostly positive. The first game True Crime: Streets of LA was very well received by the critics. The game had a positive rating on all platforms but the review for the PC version was somewhat less positive. The mobile version also got good reviews.

Critical reception for the game was fairly positive overall, with the PlayStation 2 version^[26] and other console versions holding average scores of 77 on Metacritic, and the PC version holding a score of 68.^[27] Common criticisms included the main protagonist, who was described in GameSpot's review, rated 7.2/10, as "completely unlikeable",^[28] the perceived low level of difficulty and its technical glitches. IGN rated the console 9/10.^[29]

True Crime: New York City

The second game True Crime: New York City got average to positive reviews. The critical reception for the game was less positive than the previous entry in the series. Although the console version was well received the PC version got average reviews. The PC version was heavily criticised for bad graphics and graphical glitches.^[30] The mobile version of the game got a negative review from IGN which gave it a rating of 4.5/10.^[31]

True Crime: New York City received mixed reviews from critics. IGN scored the game a 7.8 out of 10^[32] and Team Xbox gave it 8.4 out of 10,^[33] while GameSpot gave the game a 4.6 out of 10.^[34] Some reviewers admired its vast depiction of Manhattan and improvements in gameplay, including the innovative transportation options that set it apart from previous free roam games. Others derided its story, bad frame rates, and technical issues that seemed to have resulted from a rushed release for the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. Its sales fell short of Activision's expectations.^[35]

See also

• Sleeping Dogs

References