True Crime | |
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![]() Logo from True Crime: New York City | |
Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
Developer(s) | Luxoflux |
Publisher(s) | Activision |
Creator(s) | Peter Morawiec |
Composer(s) | Sean Murray |
Platform(s) | PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Windows, Mobile, macOS |
First release | True Crime: Streets of LA November 4, 2003 |
Latest release | True Crime: New York City November 16, 2005 |
True Crime is a series of open world action-adventure video games told from the perspective of law enforcement. There are two games in the series, True Crime: Streets of LA, released in 2003, and True Crime: New York City, released in 2005. Each game features GPS-accurate open world recreations of parts of Los Angeles and New York City, respectively. Streets of LA was developed by Luxoflux for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, and ported to Microsoft Windows by LTI Gray Matter, to mobile by MFORMA and to macOS by Aspyr. It was published on all systems by Activision, except the Mac version, which was published by Aspyr. New York City was developed by Luxoflux for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, and ported to Windows by Aspyr and to mobile by Hands-On Mobile. It was published on all systems by Activision.
Streets of LA received generally mixed-to-positive reviews, with many reviewers favorably comparing it to Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It was also a commercial success, selling over three million units worldwide across all systems. New York City received mixed-to-negative reviews, with many critics feeling the game had been rushed to release incomplete. It was also a commercial failure, selling only 72,000 units across North America in its first two weeks of release.
Originally, New York City was intended as the first of a two-part series set in New York, but after the game's poor critical and commercial performance, Activision scrapped the direct sequel and put plans for future True Crime games on hold. In 2007, they hired United Front Games to develop an open world game set in Hong Kong. By 2009, this game had become True Crime: Hong Kong. However, in 2011, the game was cancelled. Heath Hallas, a Square Enix employee and fan of the franchise, attempted to revive the game until the publishing rights were ultimately picked up by Square Enix several months later. True Crime: Hong Kong was subsequently released in 2012 as Sleeping Dogs, which has no connection to the True Crime series. In 2014, Activision abandoned the True Crime trademark.[1]