Picture the scene. The sun's shining, the radio's loud, and you're cruising round the city in a requisitioned car, stopping every so often to rough up a suspect passer-by or two. You'd be forgiven for thinking that you're a hardened thug from Grand Theft Auto 3 (soon to be released on Xbox) and not an officer in the LAPD. And whilst not the most morally sound of professions, the criminal life certainly has its financial benefits. That is, until a multi-clichéd, washed-out cop, Nick Kang, the star of True Crime: Streets Of L.A. is called back in for one last job.

Nick Kang is the latest in a long line of loose cannons, with a bag of chips on his shoulder and a van-load of vendettas to see through, recalled to the LAPD's Elite Operations Division to combat the rising level of Triad and Russian Mafia-related violence. The orphan of a disgraced cop, Kang went to the school of the streets and learnt a martial art or two along the way. So, having reluctantly rejoined the boys in blue, he's on a one-man mission of revenge.

But enough of the bastardised cop drama screenplays, True Crime is the real deal. First up and a prerequisite of any big title is a quality voiceover, and the developer hasn't scrimped one bit with the stellar range of talent on display; Christopher Walken on the narrative, Gary Oldman, Michael Madsen and Michelle Rodriguez as characters and Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube on the soundtrack are present, although they struggle with a cheesy script.

Quality's got to have some quantity to back it up, and there's no shortage here. Over 240 square miles of Los Angeles have been accurately recreated, paving the way for a possible 100 manic missions to drive, fight, or shoot through (either via a first- or third-person perspective). There's an impressive amount of freedom here, as our hero is able to commandeer any vehicle he comes across, a la GTA, only this time in the name of solving crimes, not carrying them out. So dig out those string-backs because driving plays a big part in this game. Maniacally drive across town (using the handy bottom-left map for navigation) to thwart a robbery or pick up a witness before the bad guys get to them. Be cautious of taking out innocent bystanders though, as while each vehicle handles quite differently, they all have a tendency to slide all over the place when cornering, and public genocide has some very bad consequences. But more of that later.

If the morning rush hour all gets a bit too much, Nick is free to jump out of his chosen vehicle at any time with a quick pull of the Left trigger. You'll spend a lot of time on foot, with two modes of combat to defend Kang against the scourge of society. Hand-to-hand combat is achieved via simple one- and two-button combos, with special moves available once learned in the friendly neighbourhood dojo. Gunplay, however, is far more exciting. Draw twin pistols with a quick Right trigger tap, and handily pick up more powerful assault rifles or shotguns left behind by recently departed foes. Fire again using the Right trigger, but holding it down will engage first-person mode, where time momentarily slows down to make that all-important headshot a little bit easier. Frequently though, you'll accidentally enter this perspective in a haze of quickfire bloodlust, which can be very frustrating and off-putting during heated gun battles.

Normal cruising sections, (far from letting Kang pick up random guys on street corners, and occurring at the end of each story episode) allow you to freely roam the titular streets of Los Angeles resolving crimes, alerted via your trusty police frequency. Pursue by car or on foot to apprehend the lowlife, and attempt to successfully bring the suspect down. It's crucial that you use minimum force (and significantly more challenging).

Now why would a badass cop like Kang want to use fists when guns would be easier? Well, pivotal to the game is your good cop/bad cop rating system, typified by the on-screen Yin Yang symbol. Carry out good deeds, like the use of non-lethal force to rescue a mugging victim, and you'll earn good cop points. However, needlessly kill criminals, or run over pedestrians during driving stages, and you'll clock bad cop points. Badge points are also awarded for admirable conduct, and these can be exchanged for street races or training sessions at the gym or shooting range, thus earning upgrades to your car, fighting skills and weapons. The gym and driving challenges are relatively easy, but you'll need frequent use of the 'cover' function (the A button) to get through the tricky shooting tasks.

And so this leads us to the most intriguing aspect of the game... that the multi-branching storyline is seriously affected by your behaviour throughout the levels. Good or bad performances result in different outcomes and, leading into the next varying mission, differing cutscenes. By following multiple paths through the storyline, you'll see a whole host of different characters and the replayability factor is greatly increased. However, nice guys certainly don't finish last here, as although you're meant to have total freedom during the game, a bad cop rating will just lead to several plot dead ends, which could have been exploited a bit more. Thus a good cop status is required to get through most of the story.

A couple of fundamental niggles like these, with occasional camera flaws, unfortunately prevent True Crime: Streets Of L.A. from being a truly great and ground-breaking title, but it's still a relatively successful achievement of a very ambitious project.

1. Great freedom
2. Huge environment
3. Multiple storylines

1. Twitchy gun controls
2. Bad car handling
3. Limited progression as a bad cop

Power
Smooth driving and fighting sections and huge environments showboat Xbox's graphical ability.

Style
Startlingly lifelike facial features, quality acting and top soundtrack are marred by cheesy dialogue.

Immersion
Easy controls mean you can jump right in and start roughing up the lowlifes right away.

Lifespan
Multi-branching storyline, loads of outcomes and intros. You'll be sleuthing it up for quite a while.

Overall This is a decent attempt at encompassing three different genres, though it's not quite the GTA-beater it likes to think it is.