Grand Theft Auto 2

"Kill cops, peds, pickpockets, cops, carjackers, gangsters, cops..."

I made it a priority of mine to “borrow” Carmageddon 2 and Grand Theft Auto from a friend since those two games caused so much controversy. Basically, any game that gets banned in various countries and makes politicians angry is a must-have for me. Now, I loved the original GTA for its half-cartoonish, fun, free-stylin’ mix of car hijacking, pedestrian killing and gangsta’ life, so I eagerly jumped at the opportunity to play the sequel. I was somewhat disappointed at the lack of real gameplay changes between the original and the sequel, but luckily that was easily balanced out by the sheer fun of this game.

Gameplay: 8

Released in 1999, two years after the original, Grand Theft Auto 2 introduced new cars, weapons and some very nice powerups and collectables to the mix. The biggest addition to the gameplay is the presence of different, warring gangs. Each of the game’s three zones (set within the same city) is ruled by three gangs. Each gang has their own priorities and specialises in certain types of jobs (some gangs like drug deals, others like scientific escapades, still others simply like car stealing and killing). By successfully doing jobs and killing enemy gang members, you can raise a gang’s level of respect for you. The announcer states early on in the game that “Respect is Everything”, which is true since it will determine which gangs will give you jobs and which ones will give you bullets.

The main premise of the game is simple. You just run around stealing cars and performing “jobs” for gangs, to gain money and respect. Along the way you can “interact” with (i.e. kill) the various pedestrians, muggers, drivers, and police who litter the streets, as well as pick up a good number of weapons (pistol, Uzi, flamethrower, rocket launcher, and Molotov cocktail being the most common) in addition to armour and other items to help you in your missions. The jobs vary widely in type and difficulty; you may have to kill a number of cab drivers, or escort a scientist to a certain location, or start an all-out gang war. Almost all the jobs are fun (and funny) and test your driving, manoeuvring and shooting skills to the max. Some parts of the game are surprisingly hard, and yet you never get bored since most jobs are entertaining and unique.

Don’t think you can just get away with all of this illegal crap without any repercussions, though. Enemy gangsters ain’t the only ones gunning for you; there’s also a fairly good police presence patrolling the streets. If they catch you, you’ll get “busted” and lose all your weapons, as well as some respect. In fact, if you piss off the police enough, they’ll put 41 bullets into you. While the cops won’t mind if you gun down a few fellow gangsters, run over several civilians or simply murder one or two of them and you’ll end a wanted man. The more people and especially police officers you gun down, the higher your wanted level will be. If you’re smart (or maybe stupid?) enough to evade and kill the police, the SWAT team, FBI and even National Guard will be called in to eradicate you – so you’ll have to be quick-minded in those numerous missions where you’re getting in trouble with the law. “**** Tha Police”, indeed.

You’ll have to complete lots of jobs – and probably run over a few peds here and there and take out those policemen – to amass the amount of money necessary to pass each zone. What jobs you do and when you do them is completely up to you. You might want to do most every job for some quick cash, or you might choose to take it easy, committing Grand Theft Auto and lazily taking out pedestrians. The choice is yours; there are no time limits or other constraints. This non-linearity is my favourite part of the game. You control your own destiny, simple as that.

Indeed, this type of exploration is encouraged through the addition of various little collectables. Some of these are collected purely for the sake of collecting – for example, the “GTA2” coins – but it’s always good to explore the levels since there are millions of useful bonuses scattered everywhere. Get out of the car and go sightseeing: climb up a few flights of stairs, jump between buildings, or enter deserted parking lots, and you’re likely to find a nice little bonus. You may get armour, or ammo, or temporary fast reloads; or, you might get something more unique, such as a “Kill Frenzy” coin (take it and you’ll be equipped with a nice weapon and infinite ammo, and you’ll be given a limited amount of time to take out as many peds/police as possible) or a “Cop Bribe” pick-up (handy for the times where you really don’t want the pigs riding your ass). If you want, you can use extra cash to upgrade your car with guns, explosives, or oil slicks, or you can repair your car and sell other cars. In any case, there’s lots of whack stuff to occupy your time apart from the missions.

The gameplay is probably my favourite aspect of the game. GTA2 continues the same non-linear, “steal car/run over ped/shoot police, do whatever the hell you want” style as the original, but also throws in a few bonus items here and there. Some people will like the extra exploring, while some will pine for the unadulterated gameplay of GTA1, but the bonuses are purely optional so you don’t have to go out of your way to collect them if you don’t wanna. The added weapons and effective use of height (multiple layers on levels) add to the fun, simple gameplay.

Graphics/Sound: 6+

GTA2 utilises the same top-down style as the original. In fact, the overall style is much the same: you run and drive through alleys and small streets, with larger streets and main roads laid out in neat grids. Most of the non-road part of the map is taken up by buildings, which are usually austere brick-red abominations, but luckily there’s also a good deal of greenery and water. However, the textures are half-assed at best and there aren’t many little graphical details (such as trash cans, pedestrian crossings, building details) either, but that’s mostly acceptable since the game aims for simplicity and speed of play. I like the 3D buildings, though, since they give a good impression of height. The stairways on the sides and rooftops are also good, both in terms of gameplay and graphics.

The cars themselves are still similar to the ones in GTA. They look nice and there’re a wide variety of vehicles to drive, and yet there’s not a huge amount of detail. On the plus side, your car will get realistically damaged as you bump into other cars and buildings (or get shot), and the look of a car on fire is quite pretty as well. There are hundreds of pedestrians scattering the level, and so they all look somewhat plain, and are also 2D instead of polygonal. I don’t really care about the lack of polygonal peds, but there could’ve been more detail; basically all you can see is a head, some generic clothing, and perhaps a weapon (if the person is a gangster). This seemed a bit too bland for me.

The “nasty” effects are done very well, however. Running over a ped produces a surprisingly satisfying, flattened corpse, and gunning down a civilian is similarly gratifying. There’s not a lot of gore, but there is a bit of blood here and there – just enough to make the point. The weapons look and sound somewhat cartoonish, and you can actually see (and in some cases, dodge) the bullets flying through the air. The bullet effects may be mediocre, but the effects of explosives are great. Explosions look and sound impressive, and blowing up a car results in a large fireball with flaming debris shooting off in several directions, and with a charred, burning shell left behind. Yay!

The sound and music manages to set the atmosphere, and seems to coincide well with your actions. But, apart from these basics, GTA2’s audio fails to really impress. The hums and screeches made while driving are fairly good, and crashes sound nice and painful, but that’s about it. The sound effects aren’t extremely plentiful and each crash or screech of your tires sounds exactly the same, meaning that the effects almost get repetitive at times.

The weapon sounds are similarly run-of-the-mill. The pistol and sub-machine guns produce the standard loud, flat popping sound – pretty generic. The rocket launchers and explosives like Molotov cocktails and mines sound nice, but apart from that nothing impresses. The character sounds are mostly good, though. While gang leaders “talk” to you only in gibberish during your phone calls, the occasional vocals (“Get bent”, “Asshole!”, “Oh my God!”) spewed forth by disgruntled drivers are funny and the screams and pleas for mercy made my peds are also sadistically amusing. You can even get your character to burp and fart in rapid succession. Ha ha.

The music (each car is tuned to a different radio station, so you get a new track each time you hop into a new car) is fairly good, and ranges from hip-hop to rock to, well, almost classical. You can change the radio station if you want to, so your favourite music is always available while driving. I guess the eclectic selection of tracks should mean that everyone finds something they like.

Replay: 6+

This game doesn’t seem quite as fun to play once you’ve finished all the missions. Sure, you can run around shooting people and toying with the police, but if you’ve done all the jobs and gotten all the powerups (and so, basically experienced everything about the game) you’ll find yourself starting to get bored. The game takes a while to complete though, so it won’t get old too quickly.

There’s also a multiplayer option, and using cheats (invulnerability, all weapons, no police, lots of police, etc) can lengthen the replay value to some extent by adding a few quirky twists, but that’s about it. I’d say the replay value is fairly good, but not quite as good as the original’s, for some reason.

Overall: 7+

It was fun playing this game, that’s for sure, and it met all my requirements for style and enjoyability. Unfortunately, I thought there was something missing. The gameplay is similar to that of GTA’s – almost too similar, really – only with a few more weapons and bonuses added. Apart from the rival gangs you could almost mistake this game for the original, since the graphics haven’t been improved much and the sound and overall feel is similar to that of Grand Theft Auto’s. Thus, my biggest complaint is the lack of real gameplay tweaks and upgrades. Still, while you’re playing the game, you won’t be thinking of any of this but just plain having fun, stealing cars, looting and killing…so enjoy!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/15/01, Updated 11/15/01