After the runaway success of the first Grand Theft Auto in 1997, DMA Design—now known as Rockstar North—had to keep the momentum going with a sequel. Grand Theft Auto 2 was released in 1999 and refined the freeform structure that made the original such a hit, but with a wildly different visual style and a new respect system. Reviews were mixed and sales were lower than expected, but it was an important step towards the series’ influential leap to three dimensions with Grand Theft Auto 3 in 2001.

While the first game features contemporary caricatures of New York, San Francisco, and Miami, Grand Theft Auto 2 takes place in the entirely fictional Anywhere City, a retro-futuristic metropolis with a bleak, dystopian atmosphere. Promo material for the game describes it as “a fully dysfunctional urban hell” and explains that the artists modelled the city on apocalyptic visions of the future from the ’70s and ’80s movies This is an early example of cult cinema, particularly from America, influencing Rockstar’s games. 

The vehicles are especially stylish, taking vintage ’50s designs—all curves, chrome, and giant grills—and giving them a futuristic twist. “As if Havana got transported to the 21st Century,” says the game’s charmingly retro Flash-based website, which is still available online, almost 20 years later. It’s the most heavily stylised and visually imaginative game in the series, representing a curious digression before the studio eventually settled on Grand Theft Auto being a satirical parody of the worst of modern pop culture. 

But there are traces of the wry satire that would come to define the series, mostly on the tongue-in-cheek radio stations that play when you enter a vehicle. There are 11 in total, some of which can only be heard in certain parts of the city, playing a variety of music recorded especially for the game. And between the songs there are puerile commercials advertising fictional products, which would eventually become a series staple, including ‘Orgasmo’ chocolate bars (“Cold, hard, and surge after surge of creamy caramel”) and ‘Lad Rover’ SUVs (“A fanny magnet women just can’t avoid”).

At six heads the national guard will be mobilised, throwing tanks and armoured cars at you. By this point it s a miracle if you survive for more than a few minutes.

Not exactly Rockstar’s sharpest satire, but it’s interesting to see (well, hear) an important part of the series slowly taking shape. In fact, the whole game almost feels like a prototype for the series’ transition to 3D. It expands on the wanted system, bringing in SWAT teams, roadblocks, and the military when you cause enough mayhem. The AI is smarter, which means fights can break out between the police and gangs, and sometimes you’ll even be pulled out of a car you’ve attempted to steal by its furious owner. We take this stuff  granted in GTA today, but in 1999 it was all brand new. You can see the first seeds being planted for the anarchic, emergent AI interactions that would make Los Santos feel so vibrant and alive in GTA 5.  

There are six wanted levels, represented by the floating heads of police officers at the top of the screen. A minor crime (at least in GTA terms), such as murdering a few pedestrians, gets you one star and a police chase. Keep killing folk and you’ll escalate to two, then three, which sends more cops after you and more aggressively. But it’s when you hit four heads that things get dicey. SWAT vans carrying four heavily armoured officers will come at you. At five heads ‘special agents’ (the FBI, basically) with silenced machine guns are sent in. Then, finally, at six heads the national guard will be mobilised, throwing tanks and armoured cars at you. By this point it’s a miracle if you survive for more than a few minutes, but there’s a thrill in seeing how long you can last when the city is throwing everything it has at you. And, of course, you can drive a tank yourself and unleash your very own symphony of explosions.

Even two years after the first game was released, being able to freely roam the map and tackle missions in almost any order you wanted was still a novelty. As was the addition of bonus missions and optional objectives, like the infamous Kill Frenzies (later ‘rebranded’ as Rampages) that challenge you to kill X amount of people in X amount of time with X weapon. The map was also littered with spinning tokens, a precursor to the hidden packages, pigeons, and radioactive waste in later sequels. Yes, even at this early stage open world games were filling their maps with arbitrary collectibles. 

Reading reviews from the time, every single one of them (including our own) criticises the visuals. The real-time lighting effects and sharper sprites are an improvement on the original, but it’s still fairly ugly, even by 1999 standards. Something the developer actually addresses on the game’s website. “We spend time on gameplay rather than throwing millions of polygons around,” it says, predicting the critics. “We’ve got complex, interactive AI and fun, elaborate missions.” It adds that while a “typical game these days” will use 70% of its processor time on visuals, GTA 2 has an “emphasis on content, with 50% used for game code”. A rare time when Rockstar wasn’t at the forefront of technology.

But of all the systems GTA 2 experiments with, the respect meter is the most interesting and ambitious. Seven colourful gangs rule the city and its various districts, and your standing with them constantly changes as you play the game. 

The Zaibatsu Corporation and the Loonies, for example, are arch rivals, which means completing jobs for one will offend the other and alter your respect. And some gangs won’t even offer you any work until you’ve spilled the blood of a competitor. A meter at the top-left of the screen lets you keep tabs on what each group thinks of you, and some of the most lucrative missions are only available if you have maximum respect. 

Anywhere City is split into three districts: Commercial, Industrial, and Residential. There’s a relatively safe neutral zone in each district, but most of the city has been carved up between the gangs. So if you’re currently an enemy of the Yakuza because you’ve been helping out the Zaibatsu Corporation, straying into their territory will cause them to attack you. And if they really hate you, they’ll be packing more powerful weapons. This can make traversing the city a chore, but it does at least give the respect system some weight. Your allegiances affect the game in a direct, meaningful way.

Further evidence of Rockstar’s love of cinema is the fact that GTA 2 opens with an actual film. Well, excerpts from one at least. The live-action intro sequence is in fact made up of clips from a short movie Rockstar produced to promote the game. It was directed by Alex De Rakoff, a music video director with a few feature films under his belt, and shot on the streets of New York City. It follows silly-named criminal Claude Speed (played by Scott Maslen, who UK soap opera fans may recognise as EastEnders’ Jack Branning) as he engages in various illicit activities, and it’s actually pretty entertaining, with a great soundtrack by influential drum-and-bass label Moving Shadow.

As well as being a fast-moving collection of GTA moments, like our hero popping into the pay-and-spray to throw off the cops, it’s also an example of how the respect system works. We see Speed working for various gangs, playing them against each other, culminating in a bloody shootout as he strolls away unscathed. But then a assassin catches up with him and puts a bullet in his head. He can always respawn. 

Today, Rockstar games has such a clear, confident vision. Everything is pitch perfect, from the art to the music. But GTA 2 is a tangled mess of themes and visual ideas, and by far the weirdest, most offbeat game in the entire Grand Theft Auto series. But that’s what makes it so interesting to return to. And it’s incredible that, just two years later, Rockstar made the transition to 3D and released the hugely influential Grand Theft Auto 3. They feel like they were made ten years apart, never mind two. GTA 2 is also tame by today’s standards, and it seems unbelievable that so many tabloid newspapers thought it was corrupting the minds of children back in 1999. The violence is totally absurd and cartoonish. 

As much as I admire GTA 2 as a historical artifact, and a fascinating snapshot of Rockstar at a particular period of its existence, it isn’t much fun to play. It runs fine on modern PCs thanks to a tweaked version it released for free a few years ago, although it doesn’t play well with high resolutions unless you use a mod. But when you’ve tasted the delights of GTA 5, it’s hard to go back to the top-down era. The driving is annoyingly twitchy, the camera can barely keep up with you, and the missions are far too punishing. Back then there was nothing else quite like it, but now I can enjoy being a criminal in a free-roaming city in 3D with mission checkpoints, 4K graphics, and funnier jokes. 

My introduction to the Ultima series was a late one. Having missed numbers one through eight for a number of reasons (namely age, and the fact my dad had a bizarre and exclusive penchant for pinball games a genre which in turn commandeered our games library throughout my childhood), I decided to pick up the Ultima Collection in 1998 at the behest of some series worshipping mates. This would get me up to speed, I thought, and would also grant me a sneak peak at the then upcoming Ultima 9. With ten games to play with, this was sure to swallow my free time, but what I hadn't bargained for was how hard I'd fall for the Collection's seemingly novelty cloth maps.

They were beautiful and I became obsessed. I'd spend hours poring over each game's respective blueprint before every session, and then push myself to reach the far-flung corners of their digital incarnations. I'd invent imaginary treasure hunts and would spend entire evenings recreating my own crude interpretations of the game's vibrant, colourful cartography with crayons and felt pens and coloured pencils. I was an adventurer, an explorer, a keyboard trailblazer and there was as much fun, if not more, to be had with a physical map than the actual games themselves.

Later that same year, my friend lent me his big brother's copy of Grand Theft Auto and I discovered a whole new world of detail. The Manhattan-like homogenous grids of Liberty City, Vice, and San Andreas were masterful, and I'd delight in rallying between the Pay 'n' Spray in Brocklin, the bomb shop in North Hackenslash, the hospital in Eaglewood. The original GTA's 'open world' was ahead of its time, but its concrete playground felt far bigger as I traced each journey with my finger before and after each playthrough. The connection I made between what I had on paper and what I could see onscreen lent this boorishly visualised cityscape an extra layer of credibility.

And then of course every game needed a physical map even the ones that didn't have one. I made bird's eye view reconstructions of my Theme Parks, Theme Hospitals and SimCity 2000's which, given their topdown/isometric perspectives wasn't all too difficult to achieve. Crafting the likes of Tomb Raider's Atlantis, on the other hand, and thinking my use of protractors and steel rules and speed squares made one jot of difference towards their legibility, was a different story/mess entirely.

As games became more sophisticated, in-game maps gradually begun to emulate my hand-crafted creations. Silent Hill 2's map is one which stands to mind. As fumbling protagonist James Sunderland makes his way around the titular otherworldly town, road blocks appear from nowhere, interminable holes form as if by magic, and busted locks so many busted locks prevent him from accessing certain areas.

When James first happens upon maps for each zone in turn he starts with a clean slate, but as he discovers said insurmountable obstacles, he draws the obstructions on himself much similar to how I penned my masterpieces in my formative years. Towards the end of Silent Hill 3, without spoiling its plot, one area's in-game map mirrors that of a child's crayon drawing. It's a real flash of charm in an otherwise horrendous setting.

Like instruction manuals, physical maps are few and far between in today's games. I'm part of the problem I rarely buy physical games anymore. But if I ever catch wind that one is bundled with a real life, hold-in-yer-hand map, then I'll almost certainly be first in line to buy it. I might even stop for crayons, pencils and steel rules on the way home.

Rockstar North President Leslie Benzies, a producer on every Grand Theft Auto game since GTA 3 as well as Red Dead Redemption, LA Noire, and Max Payne 3, has left the studio. His departure was confirmed today in a statement sent to Kotaku, in which Rockstar said Benzies had been on an extended sabbatical and elected not to return.

We can confirm that Leslie Benzies went on sabbatical on September 1, 2014 and has decided not to return to work for the company. We are very grateful for Leslie s contributions to Rockstar over the last 15 years as we worked together to make some amazing games, the statement says. Leslie helped us build an incredible team that will continue to create great experiences for our fans. Leslie will always be a friend to the company and of course we are going to miss him but we wish him the absolute best for the future.

Benzies joined the studio in 1998, when it was still known as DMA Design, and worked as the lead programmer on the Nintendo 64/PlayStation release Space Station Silicon Valley. His name may not be as immediately recognizable as those of founders Sam and Dan Houser, but he was instrumental in the creation of Grand Theft Auto 3, the game that launched the series as we now know it, and for seeing it grow into its subsequent world-beating success as the president of Rockstar North. In 2005, he and Sam Houser were awarded a BAFTA Special Award for Games for their contribution to the videogame industry; in 2014, he, along with Dan and Sam Houser, were inducted in the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.

According to the Kotaku report, Rockstar North is now headed up by Aaron Garbut and Rob Nelson, who most recently shared art direction duties on Grand Theft Auto V.

There was a time when the name Jack Thompson inspired loathing, anger, and even fear in the hearts of gamers. He was the industry's number one enemy, a giant killer, relentless and indefatigable, who would stop at nothing to get his way. Until his antics in and out of the courtroom grew so bizarre and offensive, that is, that he was disbarred permanently, with no leave to apply for reinstatement. All of this is relevant because, back in the days when Thompson mattered, his number-one target was Grand Theft Auto, and that epic conflict forms the basis of an upcoming movie called The Game Changers, which is set to debut on BBC Two later this month.

A Beeb docu-drama may not sound like the most thrilling thing ever, but this one stands out because it stars Daniel Radcliffe as Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser, and Bill Paxton as Thompson. Radcliffe, of course, is famous for portraying Harry Potter, while Paxton is a Hollywood character actor stalwart who's been doing good things since the early '80s. Also, as the BBC explained in May, Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against it over the film, saying it wanted "to ensure that our trademarks are not misused in the BBC's pursuit of an unofficial depiction of purported events related to Rockstar Games." Which probably only had the opposite desired effect of making people want to see it more.

The lawsuit doesn't appear to have had any impact on its release, however. The Gamechangers is slated to make its debut on BBC Two on September 15.

Thanks, GamesRadar.

If you've ever questioned the value of hobby drones, the above video perfectly demonstrates why they need to exist. As spotted by Kotaku, a bunch of clever folk have recreated GTA 2 using a drone, several cars and lots of red jumpers. If you've ever controlled a drone for five minutes without it plunging to the ground or colliding with something, you'll understand the skill at play above.

While the sleepy suburban setting doesn't really channel GTA, the creators have added some neat touches: collectibles and bullet fire have been added after the fact, there's a mild instance of pedestrian carnage, and gangs are out in full force, enjoying impromptu scraps with the local constabulary. All it needs is a good tank. Maybe next time guys.

The BBC are working on a high profile docu-drama about the making of, and legacy of, the Grand Theft Auto series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Radcliffe will be starring in it, playing the role of Rockstar founder Sam Houser. They're obviously spending a bit of money on it.

But according to some who worked on the first game, under the banner of Dundee's DMA Design, the documentary might not be entirely accurate.

I find it quite telling that no-one from DMA I ve spoken to so far seems to know anything about it," says former DMA writer Steve Hammond. "With Rockstar s famous reticence to talk to anyone, that makes the only behind the scenes source David Kushner s book Jacked, which frankly has me a bit worried."

He later adds: "I wonder if the GTA team will be portrayed as badasses and bad boys compared to the other teams, as per Kushner s book? In reality, no more or less bad/weird/outsider than any other team.

You can read more from these ex-DMA devs on GamesRadar. Will you watch when the drama is eventually released?

BBC has confirmed it is producing a TV movie based on the rise of Rockstar Games and Grand Theft Auto. 'Gamechanger' will tell the story of "arguably the greatest British coding success story since Bletchley Park," and is expected to start shooting on April 20.

New reports suggest that Harry Potter himself, better known as actual person Daniel Radcliffe, is in negotiations to star as Rockstar co-founder and president Sam Houser. Interestingly, GTA hater and serial pest Jack Thompson is in the script, suggesting the film will focus on the media outrage that followed GTA 3's release.

Reports of Radcliffe's potential involvement come via Hollywood Reporter. Jack Thompson's role hasn't been cast yet, but occasional Black Mirror director Owen Harris will direct the film. The 90 minute tele-movie arrives as part of a BBC initiative to "inspire a new generation with digital technology". Maybe that new generation can port Red Dead Redemption to PC? Who knows.

A drama "based on Grand Theft Auto" is being made for British TV by the BBC. It's part of the BBC's "Make It Digital" campaign, which hopes to "get the nation truly excited about digital creativity".

It's being co-developed by games and technology journalist Guy Cocker, who confirms on Twitter that it will be a drama "about the making of GTA", rather than a violent gangland adaptation of GTA's subject matter.

The BBC media centre describes it as a "special 90-minute drama" about "a bunch of British gaming geniuses who had known each other since their school days". The show will also dramatise the moral panic that erupted when the game was released, "from parents worried about children immersing themselves in such a violent world; from politicians, alarmed at the values it encourages; and above all from moral-campaigners, who have fought passionately to stop it."

No air date yet, or news about whether it'll find its way to international audiences, but we've reached a stage where a respected TV institution is hailing game developers as "geniuses", quite different from the mainstream media treatment games typically receive. Can't be a bad thing, can it?

Chris Livingston has already extolled the virtues of Grand Theft Auto 4's amazing #WatchDogsIV mod. For the uninitiated, it brings Watch Dogs style environment hacking into GTA's Liberty City. For a full round-up of what it enables, head on over to Chris's Mod of the Week post. For a small look into the type of chaos it supports, stay right here.

Being a child, the first thing I did on loading the game was to start a traffic jam:



So far, so Watch Dogs. But the Traffic Lights prompt reappears quickly after. I wonder...



Yup. Multiple prompts means multiple pile-ups, meaning I can stack this thing right up. Time to do that. Everybody, welcome to the jam.



What makes this so funny other than the obvious is that the cars in the crash accelerate every time I hit the prompt, pushing them deeper and deeper into the ultra-jam. Also, as you can see from the picture above, a man has spontaneously combusted.

That's probably not a good sign.



Nope, definitely not a good sign. We have reached peak jam. It is jam-a-geddon.





Perhaps unsurprisingly, this tanked the game's framerate. My rig battled on regardless to bring you this dramatic re-enactment.



You can download #WatchDogsIV from here, and you probably should.

Like me, you've probably spent dozens of hours in Grand Theft Auto IV's Liberty City, but often wish there was some way to cause a little destruction and mayhem. Finally, there is! The #WatchDogsIV mod summons the sullen Aiden Pearce from Watch Dogs, and more importantly, brings along Aiden's awesome Phone of Hacking +4. Traffic lights, payphones, ATMs, security cameras, and those poles that shoot up out of the street: they're now yours for the hacking! The once utterly peaceful Liberty City is about to get flip-turned upside down.

Just about all the tricks up Aiden's futuristic trenchcoat sleeve are now at your disposal as you prowl the streets of Liberty City. Walk within range of a hackable object, and you'll get a little icon on your screen. Hold down the 'E' key, and the icon will be outlined. It works pretty much exactly as it does in Watch Dogs, right down to the little electrical tendrils that spread from Aiden's phone when he hacks something.

That public phone exploded! Thank god no one was using it for the last 10 years!

Naturally, triggering traffic lights is great fun, and dare I say it, causes even bigger and badder accidents than it does in Watch Dogs. You can also blow things up, though instead of steam fittings and electrical junctions, it's Liberty City's payphones that explode. (I know what you're thinking. Exploding payphones? That's utterly ridiculous: payphones don't even exist.) Those poles that pop out of the street work most of the time, and are great for keeping the cops off your tail when they come to investigate why everything is suddenly exploding.

Oh, LCPD. Will your humiliations ever end?

Speaking of the po-po, it seems like the entire Chicago policing system has been ported over from Watch Dogs. Commit a crime, and a nearby citizen may call the police on you. You'll hear the call taking place, and the eyewitness will be highlighted with an icon, allowing you to interfere before the 9-1-1 call is complete. If the call goes through, the police will be dispatched and your radar will show ctOS scanning for your location. The mod even has options to make the police better drivers and more accurate shooters, if you want to make things harder on yourself.

No more smashing cars yourself. There's an app for that.

There's more phone-foolery! You can now remotely activate car alarms like Aiden, though in Watch Dogs that was used to distract guards, and now it's mainly just useful for startling pedestrians. You can jump into security cameras, and use them to jump into other cameras, and set off other hackable objects while peering through the lens from a safe distance. And, while you can stop the trains, just like in Watch Dogs, there's not much point in doing so, just like in Watch Dogs. But, who needs to have a point? You have some new ways to terrorize the citizens of Liberty City, and that's its own reward.

Stop the train! No reason. Just wanted to see if I could do it. I could.

The mod makes you move like Aiden as well. When you walk, you'll stuff your hands in your pockets and keep your head down, which is the best way to avoid suspicion when you're a famous vigilante the entire city is after. There are new animations for giving you Aiden's awkward sprint, as well as his patented truncheon takedowns which can be performed on anyone you're standing near. There's also a blood-round-the-edges screen effect for when you take damage, which I guess was in Watch Dogs. I'm not sure. I was so good at that game I never took damage.

Beating you up for reasons that are unclear even to me!

I'm told that hacking an ATM will cause money to spray out of it, which will cause citizens to run over to collect it, which will naturally cause a huge fist-fight, which sounds quite amusing. I have to say, though, I drove around for ages and never spotted even a single ATM. You can also cause light fixtures to explode, scaring people, and overload soda machines, spilling cans everywhere. Basically, the mod lets you be a huge, destructive jerk in new and exciting ways, and that's what any good GTA IV mod should do.

Installation: Here's the page to download the mod, with a description of all its features and the control scheme. You'll need to use OpenIV to get the mod working, naturally. And, while the mod makes you run and act like Aiden, it doesn't make you look like Aiden. If you want his goofy trench coat and hat, you'll need to install a separate skin for it (I used this one).