True Crimes: New York City has you playing as an ex-gangster, turned cop. Your mentor has just been killed and you're investigating the murder. Plus when you see the initial cut scene you've obviously just had a bad day!

To make matters worse, your dad is a crime boss who's just been imprisoned and wants you to "take care of business" as he knows he can trust you.

You start the game by tracking down and taking out a major drug syndicate. You then progress through four other major cases with a number of smaller side missions as you go.

At the start of a new major case you're given a lead by your police pals. As you progress through your missions, leads come from your interrogations of "perps."

During the game play you get calls from various people on your cell phone, as in Grand Theft Auto games. When you take the call you're offered side missions. Side-missions can earn you bundles of illicit cash.

A side mission could have you tail two corrupt cops who are after a pimp, and wait for them to carry out a crime. Lo and behold when they start beating up the pimps, you can go ahead and arrest them.

The game has a good plot. Although when you compare it to True Crime: Streets of LA, the story line does seem quite disappointing, as the other game had a stronger story.

The game play itself is pretty good too, because of the impact of a number of useful additions to the game engine since True Crime: Streets of LA.

Right from the start you get weapon aiming help and you're given the ability to learn new styles of fighting and not simply new moves.

In this game, you start out as a detective, grade five, and progress through grades four, three, two and end up as a detective grade one through promotions you receive for solving the different crimes.

Further additions to the game play include the ability to go out and buy and store weapons.

As a detective you start with a billy club, 9mm pistol, or a tazer. Through promotion you gain the ability to use more and more aggressive weaponry, such as hand-grenades and M16s.

You can also buy cars although I must admit I ended up taking taxis everywhere. It was much easier as my 2GHz PC didn't handle the frame rate too well when I was driving myself.