Of course, you’ve got to take that in context; any "follow-up" game should improve upon the game that inspired it. But such praise is not meant to imply that True Crime is flawless. While it expands the number gameplay options at your disposal, the game simply has too many controls, tries to do a bit too much and doesn’t get any single aspect "perfect" when it comes to the gameplay. To explain, let’s investigate Activision’s own advertising campaign.

Point One: "This is not a driving game." No, it’s not. Throughout True Crime, you (as Nick Kang) will drive through the City of Angels to reach your next objective, be it infiltrating a Triad gang’s warehouse or fighting the dancers at a strip club. Following your map, you can head for the objectives directly or go for the open-ended side of things and break up random street crimes, which immerses you in your role with the LAPD.

At any time you can hop out of your default car and "commandeer" another vehicle. And since you can return to the garage to pick up any of the cars you’ve unlocked, there’s no real reason you shouldn’t experiment, especially since an SUV controls differently than a tricked-out Civic, providing a unique advantage depending upon the crime or objective at hand.

Unfortunately, one element all the vehicles do share is squirrelly handling. One thumbstick controls acceleration while the other steers, and for the love of all that’s good and pure, never try to turn quickly or in tight quarters. That’s just asking for ugliness and dead pedestrians (who, by the way, never move out of the way). Even when driving on a straightaway, you’ll run into multiple telephone poles, retaining walls and oncoming Escalades. No, my friends, this is not a driving game.

Point Two: "This is not a fighting game." Well, it’s close, but not quite. The majority of the fighting in True Crime takes place in the main story, which has Nick Kang trying to find the mastermind behind a string of Triad and Russian-mob crimes. Trained in the martial arts and able to learn new moves in dojos, Nick can punch, kick, grab and jump kick his assailants. In essence, it’s the type of control scheme we’ve all seen in great fighters like Soul Caliber II and DOA3.

Where those games were fighters, though, True Crime isn’t, as the ad campaign implies. In fact, aside from the "strategy" of seldom trying to grab or jump kick an opponent (it takes too long), fighting in True Crime often amounts to button mashing. Fun, pretty button mashing, but button mashing nonetheless. I equate it to fighting like a skill-less bully: go in relentlessly with fists blazing, and you’re pretty much assured a victory.

Outside of the main story, you’ll also fight suspects in the random street crimes. Somehow the button mashing seems less prevalent here, yet the number of control options simply gets in the way. For example, by pressing in on the left thumbstick and hitting "X," you can flash your badge. Supposedly this will cause criminals to shudder and surrender, but all I ever got for it was a bloody nose. You can also press in on the left thumbstick and pull the right trigger to fire a warning shot. I can’t tell you how many suspects I shot dead doing that. Better to skip the whole clicking-thumbstick thing and just kill suspects outright, punch them senseless or drive over them 10 times to begin with. It’s more fun that way, anyway.

Presuming you can manage the controls, your goal in these optional street crimes is to break up crimes with your fists and handcuffs, boosting your Good Cop status and giving you reward points that you can then use to get new combos, cars and guns in the training dojos. The higher your Good Cop status, the more cooperative suspects will be.

If you use your gun, you’ll kill suspects (after about four clips), which may solve the crime but can lead to Bad Cop status. Citizens don’t like Bad Cops, and they’ll actually pick fights with you if you’re particularly naughty. Which brings you back to the issue of button-mash fighting with too many controls, and here we go again. Some of the best fighting games have the simplest control scheme, making True Crime most definitely not a fighting game.

Point Three: "This is not a shooting game." This is perhaps the most surprising statement, since the first mission in True Crime is a shooting range, and you can fire from the driver’s seat while cruising downtown in pursuit of a perp. But Activision is once again right on the money.

Where most shooters use manual aiming and targeting reticules, True Crime has an auto-aim feature that enables you to unload clip after clip with little worry, since the game automatically turns Nick in the right direction. For extra precision, the game does include a zoom feature by which you can manually target, but that suffers the same case of "massive control scheme" as the street-fighting scenarios, since activating it involves holding down the same trigger you use to shoot.

The best thing True Crime has going for it in terms of its shooter attributes is the ability to pick up enemies’ weapons and go into gunfights double-fisted. The first time I entered an empty warehouse with pistols but picked up a shotgun for one hand and an automatic rifle for the other, I thought I was in Heaven. Then I remembered I didn’t need to actually think or aim while shooting, and my huge smile turned into a carefree smirk.

Speaking of smirk, though, one thing you won’t find in True Crime is the constipated, static main-player mug from Max Payne. Instead, the characters in True Crime are dynamic, varied, detailed and exquisitely animated, complete with perfectly lip-synched audio in the in-engine cutscenes. The city and suburbs of Los Angeles are also detailed, with mapped and drivable alleys, telephone poles that crash when you hit them and cars that take damage after running into too many SUVs.

Where the game falters graphically is its clipping, which many times leads to Nick punching an enemy through a wall and unable to get to him. Fortunately, this happens most often in the street crimes, which are optional anyway, so you can just leave the AWOL perp to himself and go along your merry way.

So how can a game with this many faults be an improvement over the revered GTA series? Certainly this review must be far too scathing for such an opening statement. Actually, there are a few reasons. First, like GTA3, True Crime presents a "living" city where your actions have a noticeable impact. Yet wherever possible, True Crime introduces new gameplay features, and even though the fighting and shooting aspects have their flaws, they’re a valiant attempt to create a more immersive experience. GTA was arguably honored more for its innovation than its actual gameplay, and since True Crime adds some purposeful gameplay, it’s by default a better game. In my opinion.

Second, and tied closely to the point above, the story in True Crime will engross you. From the opening cinema, you’ll be eager to play through the plot-driven missions to see how the tale unfolds. Half the people I know got tired of GTA3 because it didn’t have a "point." Sure, regaining health from prostitutes was unique, but after two energy-boosting sessions it lost its novelty. In True Crime, though, you will actually want to keep playing.

Third and fourth, the graphics are much more robust, especially considering True Crime has this much detail in a 240 square-mile city, and the audio is better, although the strictly hip-hop soundtrack may get old for those who appreciated GTA’s radio system.

Ultimately, it’s appropriate that Activision’s ad campaign ended with "This is True Crime," because in the end, that’s what you need to understand. True Crime is simply its own game. This is not Soul Caliber II, nor is it Project Gotham Racing 2, nor is it Max Payne. True Crime borrows elements from each, but it’s got its own, distinct flavor that tries to master each genre but doesn’t quite nail a single one.

Likewise, as True Crime improved upon its GTA predecessors, I fully expect the next game in this genre to improve upon True Crime. After all, the game is good, but there’s definitely room for improvement.