1. True Crime (series)
True Crime was first introduced to us in 2004 off the back of the hype surrounding GTA: San Andreas, which would be released five months later. True Crime was one of the first open world games to be released following GTA III three years earlier - This time though, gamers played as a character from the other side of the law - Chinese-American detective Nick Kang. Upon its release, it was dubbed "The GTA III clone where you play as a cop". It featured the identical mechanics that GTA III used, allowed the player to progress through missions at their own leisure and also allowed the player to commit crimes, despite their job as a police officer. Doing so however resulted in losing "good cop" points and having law enforcers chase you down. It really didn't strive to be anything more than a GTA Clone - had it not allowed gamers to kill innocents, and instead revolved around police duties, it might have stood out as a unique sandbox title in its own right, but as it turned out, both this and its 2005 sequel True Crime: New York City achieved nothing but GTA Clone status, and was even lampooned by Rockstar in San Andreas with a billboard reading: "True Grime: Taking Out The Trash". Harsh.