True Crime is an open world action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective, in which the player controls Detective Nicholas Kang of the "Elite Operations Division" (E.O.D.), a hand-picked autonomous unit of the regular LAPD.
The game was one of the first non-Grand Theft Auto open world action-adventure games released after Grand Theft Auto III in 2001, and, as such, was labeled by many as a Grand Theft Auto clone, as the core game mechanics are identical to Grand Theft Auto III, and its 2002 successor, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – the player can travel across the city freely, commandeer vehicles, do whatever they want in terms of attacking and/or killing innocent civilians, and progress through the storyline at their own leisure, spending as much time traversing the city as they wish. However, the major difference from Grand Theft Auto games is that in True Crime, the player controls a law enforcement officer. As such, True Crime has been called "the GTA III clone where you play a cop."[9]