True Crime: Streets of LA

Overview
POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW

One of the first free roaming 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. Unlike GTA, the player 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.

The game features an extensive 240-square mile recreation of Los Angeles with street names, landmarks, highways, and numerous vehicles that can be commandeered by the player.

The player assumes the role of Nick (Kang) Wilson, a young part Chinese-American detective and the living bane of every police chief, because of his highly unorthodox and destructive means of catching criminals — the maddening part being that he always gets his man. 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.

Parks partners Nick with Rosie Velasco; when Nick teasingly remarks how she's a "good girl", Rosie angrily responds, saying that before going straight and becoming a detective, she "ran with more than a few Latino gangs in her time." Like others in the department, Rosie is uneasy about Nick and his reputation, but for Rosie it's more personal — if Nick goes wild again, she doesn't want to get dragged down with him.

As Nick unravels the thread tying the smaller criminal dealings together throughout the game, he faces Triad thugs, as well as crime lords like Jimmy Fu, Big Chong, the mysterious and legendary Ancient Wu, Rocky (a member of the Russian Mafia) and Han Yu Kim (a general of the Korean People's Army).

END OF SPOILERS

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