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Overview

One of the first open world action games to be released after Grand Theft Auto III, True Crime: Streets of LA focuses on the other side of the law in the genre of the police procedural. The player controls police officer Nick Kang, and is given a good cop/bad cop rating based on the morality of the player's actions. These actions affect the storyline, leading to one of three different endings.

True Crime's gameplay has been called "the GTA III clone where you play a cop," [7] because the general mechanics are basically the same: the player wreaks havoc across the city and progresses through the story at their own leisure. However, since the player is on the other side of the law, there are several differences between Grand Theft Auto and True Crime.

First, the repercussions for committing crimes are less severe in True Crime. For example if Kang steals a car from a citizen there are no real consequences from his actions. The most that might happen is that he may lose "good cop" points, but those can be easily gained. If the points got below a certain point, Kang's rank in the police force drops, sometimes to the point where he is exiled from the force itself, in which case the player will have to perform several "good cop" actions to rejoin.

The player assumes the role of Nick Kang, a young Chinese-American detective and the living bane of every police chief, because of his highly unorthodox and destructive means of catching criminals. When the game begins, Kang returns to Los Angeles after being suspended for going after a suspect and disobeying a direct order from his superiors.

Kang is at a police shooting range practicing his two-fisted technique when the Chief of the E.O.D (Elite Operations Division), Wanda Parks, enters. Parks welcomes Nick back to the fold and asks his assistance in solving a rash of bombings of local businesses in the Chinatown district. Though seemingly unrelated, the pattern of the crimes indicate the work of one or more of the Chinese Triad groups. At first, Nick is uninterested in the case, wanting to focus on his personal matters; Parks subtly coerces him to help out, on one condition — he does things his way. Despite Kang's reputation, Parks quickly agrees to this.