the new yorker looks at true crime:new york city...

it's a video game that claims to have mapped out the city. so the new yorker takes two ny tour guides and lets them take a look.



Kamil and Rush ended their virtual tour in Times Square, where Marcus came face to face with one final landmark: a long-haired man dressed only in a cowboy hat, boots, and tight white briefs, strumming a guitar. Suddenly, an obvious thought intruded on the afternoon’s experiment—the fun of a simulation like True Crime: New York City is not that it re-creates the city perfectly but that it re-creates the city just well enough to allow a player to have adventures that are forbidden in real life.

A few buttons on the controller were jabbed in rapid succession, and Marcus swung hard at the figure with the guitar. A few more jabs and a switch to Tae Kwon Do mode, and the Naked Cowboy was on his hands and knees, moaning and trying to crawl away. A final press of a button brought a hail of gunfire. “Now, that is a nice touch,” Rush declared.