Grand Theft Auto 2

GTA2 is an odd game, it's a retro-futuristic, cyberpunk, open-ended yet fast paced arcade-like experience that wants you to 100% the game to beat it properly and is truthfully unlike anything else from the franchise. More polished than the pretty janky original Grand Theft Auto, but also not the genre defining experience of Grand Theft Auto III. But GTA2 is probably the best of the 2D Trilogy (or i guess tetralogy since Grand Theft Auto London is divided into 2 separate expansions) and in the sea of Crime Simulation games, GTA2 truly stands out in its own way and i think any fan of the GTA franchise should try it at least once, but as there are several versions. Which version should you play? I've played every port and starting with a general review of the original PC version i'll then go over each port and tell you what i thought of them.

PC/Mac:
As previously mentioned this is where the bulk of the review will be, as the PC/Mac version is the original version, and honestly its the definitive version of the game. Unlike other GTA games where you follow a set storyline, you are effectively your own boss here. Now spoilers! as previously mentioned you'd need to 100% the game to get the "good ending" which is just basically the difference between an image saying "nice try" and a different image, which does include the "optional" tutorial.

But that aside how you'd like to play the game is 100% up to you, from which gangs you'd like to work for to the standard "fucking around not doing missions" that the GTA games and in general Crime Simulation games are known for, but you cant just do every job for one gang and expect to get a warm welcome from their rivals! (less by warm welcome you mean a flamethrower to the face)

Which leads us to the respect system, in each district (of which there are 3 of them) there are 3 individual gangs that control certain parts of the map and have individual rivals (which can be explained in each gang's payphone which no matter your respect will always be available and is required to pass the "optional" tutorial), doing jobs for one gang or killing members of their rival gang will increase their respect whilst lowering your rivals respect, its honestly an interesting and fun mechanic. But just be careful how many gang members you run over, especially if you're driving wildly in a gang that you want high respect for's territory because you might need to rebuild your relationship with that gang if you go a little overboard...

Unlike the original GTA you have health and a more fair armor system, in GTA1 if you got shot once without armor [although honestly i dont remember armor even doing anything] you were done for, which was frustrating, but in GTA2 you have 5 hearts and max of 10 armor, some weapons can deal more damage than others, and water doesnt care how stacked you are and like every GTA entry until San Andreas is truly the most overpowered enemy in the entire game. As well as GTA2 being the first GTA to have smoke and eventually fire come out of a damaged car, in the original GTA you would only know if your car was about to blow if the engine started to sound like a lawnmower, sure there was damage but no smoke or fire the best way to know would be that engine sound which could still be vague and lead to frustration if you werent paying attention and your vehicle burst into flames after a small bump, failing any mission you were in. Overall these two improvements alone make the game much more fair compared to the previous entry, but its no cakewalk certainly. This game can be brutally difficult, to the point where later game missions like S.A.M. from GTA III or the famous Wrong side of the Tracks from San Andreas would seem fair in comparison, remember the tank mission from vice city? imagine that but with a 6 star wanted level with tank blockades trying to blow you up before you make it back to a garage near the other side of the map with only an arrow guiding you. so overall if you're a fan of the hard missions in GTA games then you'd might want to play GTA2 as it is truly a challenging game.

Oh and the soundtrack! GTA2 was the first mainline GTA game to feature licensed tracks (the 2 GTA London Expansions were the first GTA with licensed tracks) and the first GTA game with radio commercials, previous games would just have some DJ talk breifly between songs if at all and thats it but with GTA2 we get a treasure trove of funny radio commercials! But back to the main deal of the soundtrack, the music choices truly fit the atmosphere and vibe of the game, ranging from acid techno to hardcore punk to fuzz drenched 50's rock and roll to industrial hip hop to a gospel pop song. And did i mention every gang has their own radio station too? Because they do and its truly excellent! It's just perfect for mowing down miles of peds, gang members and elvis impersonators

There are some flaws with the game however, unlike many modern multi-directional shooters, GTA2 uses tank controls instead of a twin-stick/mouse aiming setup, in fact this game doesnt use the mouse at all. and while the game is built around this for the most part it is still really tricky to master the movement+shooting controls and is truly where the game ages the worst in a retrospective view, but for most it isnt a deal breaker another thing is save points, the church that you spawn into when you start a new game or start a new game in a different district is your save point, but you must have 50,000$ to save your game, now this sounds like a lot but i should explain how you gain money in this game, money acts as score, which you gain from completing missions or side-missions, bumping into other cars or people, shooting and killing someone ETC. and it isn't added to your funds like later GTA games thanks to a multiplier which was only featured in the 2D games, if you beat a mission/side-mission or find a certain power up, your score multiplier increases by 1, so if a mission gives you 20,000$ normally, if you have a 2x multiplier you'd gain 40,000$, so if you have a high enough multiplier, this might not be an issue for you. but [IIRC] getting busted will either decrease your multiplier or set it back to 1x so try to avoid the fuzz, another issue is the lives system, yes... lives in GTA. This is a 2D universe exclusive feature so in the 2D games you have a set ammount of lives, you can gain more through certain means but if you run out of lives, its game over and you have to either load up a save or start from the beginning (of any district if you arent trying to 100% the game). so yeah, remember how i said this game was hard? well i wasnt lying.

But as much flaws as the game has i think its truly an important entry in the series, if theres any GTA game in need of a remaster its this one. Theres so many cool ideas and concepts in this game that imo are executed pretty well and totally make it a must play for any GTA fan or those who are into crime simulators and want a somewhat arcade-like take on it. If you can get the PC version working, its well worth your time, and did i mention it has online? because it does. It's not like modern online games so its kinda hard to set up but if you can get it working it might be a lot of fun!

So with the main PC version out of the way heres the ports.

PSX/PS1:
The PS1 version of GTA2 is fairly stripped down and oddly censored, mainly due to technical reasons (not too much fire or blood) but also oddly the music was censored? Some things like the Trains were removed as well as a few parts of each district's maps. And in the PC version there were 2 "weather"/time of day options, dusk and noon, the PS1 version only has noon, again likely due to technical limitations, crowds are also reduced and thus some missions are changed to lower the ammount of people you need to kill for example, and it does suffer from some slowdown when things get hectic, but overall it is the best console version of GTA2 and the most accessible thanks to the ammount of PS1 emulators on things like handhelds, so if the only way you can play GTA2 on your device is the PS1 version, you cant go wrong with it.

Game Boy Color:
This is... a fun novelty? But nothing else, its extremely impressive for the hardware but its plagued with terrible driving controls and just controls in general. The amount of times my car has gotten stuck on a flailing pedestrian is astonishing! Nowadays you can just play the PS1 version via a PS1 emulator on something like your phone, New 3DS/New 2DS or PSP/PSVita so for those wanting GTA2 on the go, you have much better options now and even for those who REALLY want a game boy color crime simulator, the incredible port of Driver beats this game in almost every single way. Its truly an impressive demake/port and commendations to Tarantula Studios for getting it to work but overall unless you're a fan of odd demakes or a GTA2 Superfan, you shouldn't bother with this one.

Dreamcast:
Think about it... A next gen system with full keyboard and mouse support, analog triggers standard on the controller, the VMU, built in modem for online support. ETC ETC. This has to be THE DEFINITIVE VERSION or at least console version of GTA2 you can play right? well nope, in fact it might just be the worst version of the game, lets just say this port seemed to be rushed out the door for a spring 2000 release since im guessing rockstar/take 2 stopped giving a shit about the dreamcast after the PS2's launch so they just threw out whatever was finished for some cash, there are several issues that plague this version, for example everytime you exit and re-enter a car the radio will repeat from the beginning, so get used to "69 TO 89 FM" every 5 minutes, some of the UI is off colored, the cop faces look bugged out and it features the same slowdown as the PS1 version! It does have more crowds and better graphics and Dusk is the only time (which is what most people will play GTA2 with anyways) but theres no Keyboard and Mouse Support, nothing special happens on the VMU, the controls are absolute crap and you are forced to use the analog stick when clearly the game doesnt use it properly and just uses it like a D-Pad anyways and theres no online support!

I do not blame the developers, in fact props to Liquid Games for doing their best with a extremely rushed product, and some people DO like this version and to those people this is not an attack on you, your opinion is 100% valid and theres nothing wrong with liking this version, but in my opinion the dreamcast version is by far the worst version of the game, only diehard sega and gta2 fans should consider buying it. Otherwise unless youre using an emulator or a burned CD, dont bother!

This game came with my first playstation console and it was a decent follow up. The opening menu scene with actors was badass if anyone remembers. It had some wacky missions and Funami.fm radio station was hilarious. However GTA 1 remains somehow better as a cult game, less ironic and more violent.