Now most people just believe that this is a straight up copy of the GTA games and well, it is.
The game has a very unbelievable story but its good fun if you like the whole, black man with a rocket launcher killing any random person on the streets of NEW York, and loosing the police by going through a drive-thru type thing. You start off caught up in a gang fight and Julius the Gang leader of a gang called the 3rd Street Saints, others you the chance to join the gang all you have to do is go and meet him at the church. You go to the church fight a load of gang members and you become a member of the gang. Julius immediately puts all of his trust in you and has not a shadow of a doubt that you wont betray him. You don't betray him but it doesn't change the fact that in a real life situation you wouldn't have just betrayed him and became the gang leader yourself, but hey that's the game world.
The player customisation is very unique and has millions of possible faces and bodies for you to create, you can choose gender, ethnicity, weight, build, muscle and anything that you can think of. I personally like to just create players and see how they look. Like making them have extremely large facial features such as a humongous nose and beady eyes or a massive mouth and a tiny head and body. It's also a very good feature to change your body weight as you can choose whether to look big, small, fat, skinny, big muscles, small muscles, thin or anorexic. The choice is completely up to you.
There is also an online mode which isn't the best I have played but it's the first online in a sandbox game and its not too bad but its very hard to find a game and there aren't many people who play the game online. there are a few online modes called, blinged out ride, big ass chains and protect the pimp, you also have a fully functional working wardrobe in the online mode and the more matches you win, the more items you unlock in your wardrobe. The wardrobe has lots of clothes and it's a very good variety of different styles. You can dress up as a pimp, Santa clause and any thing that tickles your fancy. There's also some downloadable content for the game and unlock you new sets of clothes and jewellery.
Overall the game is very enjoyable and great fun but the story lacks depth and the online isn't the best so I'm giving this game a 7.5/10. This game is a very good game to see you through until GTA4 comes out and will keep you entertained. On the plus side the game does feature some very good innovative ideas like Insurance Fraud and for that reason it shouldn't be discarded as just another GTA rip off look-a-like.