Times Square as depicted in True Crime: NYC
New York (also know as New York City and City of New York) is a real life city in the U.S.A. and it's the setting of the True Crime: New York City video game.
True Crime: New York City features a GPS street-accurate recreation of the New York City borough of Manhattan and its many landmarks.
A major difference from previous open world video games is many buildings are accessible to the player besides just the locations related to the game's story. These include restaurants, hotels, apartment buildings, pharmacies, clothing shops, car dealers, dojos, record stores, and more. Besides shopping opportunities at some locations, the random street crimes found in the first game often occur within building interiors as well. Players can also purchase food (which increases health) from New York City's many food stands.
The Flatiron Building
Bridges such as the Brooklyn Bridge that lead off the island are present but blocked off. Parks such as Washington Square Park and Central Park are accessible; the Statue of Liberty is not but can be seen from Battery Park. Using the Debug Menu to access the debug camera reveals the statue's tablet bears the same inscription as in real life.
The New York Stock Exchange
Times Square features the familiar bright neon lights, and the Naked Cowboy can be found playing his guitar. There is also a replica of the TKTS booth. Grand Central Terminal is the only major landmark that can be entered any time by the player, but the actual subway stop there is inaccessible for most of the game. In the game's story, the other major landmark that is featured as a setting is the American Museum of Natural History.
Other landmark buildings such as the Empire State Building, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the United Nations headquarters, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler Building are present but cannot be entered, and a few areas, particularly in northern Manhattan (such as the Columbia University campus), are not recreated exactly as in real life. The Guggenheim Museum, the Manhattan Municipal Building, The Met-Life Building, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Citigroup Center, and the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle feature accurately in the game, and Belvedere Castle and The Victor Prevost Terrace in Central Park are both present. The World Trade Center site is depicted in its 2005 condition: cleaned up and closed off.
At West 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen. (Note the street signs with actual street names)
Through use of the debug camera, it has been discovered there are incomplete versions of The Bronx, Roosevelt Island, Queens, and Brooklyn. These areas are mostly inaccessible, as most attempts to spawn the player will lead to the player being respawned in Manhattan, or the game crashing. However, certain sections of these unfinished boroughs allow the player to spawn normally, and even drive a vehicle in some instances.
Transportation[]
Besides traveling on foot or taking vehicles as in the first True Crime game, the player now has the ability to use the extensive and accurately recreated New York City subway system. Though both the Brady Games strategy guide's subway map and the printed map that comes with the collector's edition show the various subway lines using different colors as in real life, the player does not need to transfer to different lines in the game to get to the various stations.
The stations themselves are all presented in the same basic set-up, but the signage at each station does change to reflect whichever station it is supposed to represent. The station at Grand Central Terminal is inaccessible during most of the game (although it can be seen past the gates that block the stairs), but it is featured as a prominent setting for the game's finale. Unfortunately, Manhattan's high population density is not recreated in the game, and this extends to the subway stations and subway trains, which are completely empty except for the final train mission at Grand Central.
Players can also get a ride from the iconic yellow NYC taxicabs that drive around the island (the taxis can still be commandeered like other vehicles if the player scares off or incapacitates the driver).
Both new modes of transportation require a minimal in-game fee.
Vehicles[]
You can buy new vehicles at either the precinct or at the various car dealerships throughout the city. You can buy a rusty old beater for a few hundred dollars, or a shiny new sports car for thousands of dollars. Strangely, the most prominent car seems to be the game's Ford Crown Victoria, as others are not shown nearly as much.