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. 

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.

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?

The iCEnhancer has been beautifying GTA 4 for players for more than a year now. The mod uses custom shaders and post-processing effects to massively improve GTA 4's visuals. Images like the one above from Ducan Harris' Dead End Thrills demonstrate iCEnhancer's power. Eurogamer note that version 2.1 has now been released, which is great timing. You can grab a pack of every GTA game for just £4.99 / $12.49 as part of the Steam Summer Sale.

The mod is available to download now from the Icelaglace site. The Steam/EFLC/1070 version, installer and configuration tool will all be "available quickly" according to the site. You'll find the latest trailer below.

If you're looking for more GTA 4 mods, check out this one that lets you play as Superman, there are more that add first-person mode and a gravity gun. For maximum silliness there's always the one that renders all cars frictionless.

In a post on their official site, Rockstar say that GTA 5 will be the "largest and most ambitious" title they've developed yet. They also confirm the setting, saying "Grand Theft Auto V focuses on the pursuit of the almighty dollar in a re-imagined, present day Southern California."

GTA 5 will take place in "the city of Los Santos and surrounding hills, countryside and beaches." Just the one city, then. No mention of San Fierro (San Francisco) and Las Venturas (Las Vegas), which featured alongside Los Santos in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Rockstar say that GTA 5 represents "a bold new direction in open-world freedom," and confirms that there will be online multiplayer.

Those are all the solid facts so far. It's been less than a day since the debut trailer landed, and the rumour mill has already gone into overdrive. Are you looking forward to returning to Los Santos?

 
The dust has finally settled on the GTA trailer! You've probably watched it twice by now. So what's next? Rumour and speculation of course. Absolutely loads of it.

Tom's multiple protagonist's theory is still holding up. Eurogamer take the idea one step further, implying that the three character's featured could be Tommy Vercetti, Niko Bellic and Carl Johnson. It's a neat idea, but one that doesn't quite fit in with the previous game's timelines. The trailer's main character could still be an older an older Tommy Vercetti though, even if Ray Liotta's agent has confirmed with IGN that he's not returning for voice over duties.

I've embedded the GTA Vice City trailer below for comparison purposes. Tommy or not, the chap in the GTA 5 trailer definitely has a rounded, better textured head, which is reassuring.



There's also a theory that the homeless guy featured in the trailer could be a subtle dig at Nico's voice actor in GTA IV. He expressed dissatisfaction at the wage he received for the voice over work when speaking to the New York Times a few weeks after the game's release. He didn't take a hit at Rockstar directly though, saying: "But it’s tough, when you see Grand Theft Auto IV out there as the biggest thing going right now, when they’re making hundreds of millions of dollars, and we don’t see any of it. I don’t blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games." Fair enough.





Dog alert! One of the first scenes in the trailer features a silouette of a four legged beast, which we can almost definitely confirm is a dog. Will we be able so shoot it? Or possibly skin it using Red Dead Redemption's tech? One can only hope.



The music in the trailer is the title track from The Small Face's album, Odgen's Nut Gone Flake. It's probably just in there because it's an emotive tune but interestingly enough, their album cover is a parody of an old-fashioned tobacco tin. Just like almost every item in GTA.



L.A. Noire's facial tech will almost definitely feature, although we were struggling to see any evidence of it so far.

Real Estate, gyms, and flying things like jets and blimps are also visible in the trailer. Expect the return of buyable houses, customisable avatars and flyable planes. While we're on alternate forms of transport, check out the two wheeler propped up against the house. That ain't no car people...



There's also some speculation on GTA forums.com about a release date. It involves a lot of intimidating maths and more speculation than even I'm comfortable with. They seem to settle on May 24, 2012. HMMM.

So what have we missed? Let's talk in the comments.

After a lot of excited pointing at mountains and dogs, the PC Gamer office got chatting about the sneaky hints Rockstar have dotted throughout the new GTA 5 trailer.

You've probably noticed the narrator sounds a lot like Ray Liotta, who voiced GTA Vice City's player character Tommy Vercetti. But the greying middle-aged man we see in the footage isn't the only one in player-character situations. There's also a shaven-headed youth in a car chase with the police, and a tattooed black guy running from a cop chopper. And hey, isn't that all three of them together breaking into the jewellery store? Click below for a full size image of the evidence.



Chris Thursten points out that GTA IV used a deal gone wrong to link three characters that you ultimately ended up playing: Niko in the main game, Johnny Klebitz in the Lost and the Damned DLC, and Luis Lopez in the Ballad of Gay Tony. GTA V might give us a choice of three protagonists from the off, each with their own stories, and use this robbery as the flashpoint that links them.

It'd make for a more interesting story structure, and of course it would set them up beautifully for a co-op campaign that ties into the single player.

 
Grand Theft Auto 5, or GTA 5 (if you're an acronym kind of dude) trailer alert! Sit back and have a little watch.

We mentioned a few Grand Theft Auto 5 rumours earlier today but now, with the benefit of hindsight, you can either mock or bask in the awe of our incredible insight. For some spookily accurate insight, check out what PSM3's Dan Dawkins had to say a few weeks ago.

We'll have a more in-depth analysis of the first Grand Theft Auto trailer on the site as soon as possible. For now, just watch and comment.

The bloody-good-deal alert klaxon has just gone off at PC Gamer HQ, signalling the appearance of another bloody good deal. Right now you can steal away all but the most recent of the Grand Theft Auto Games, from the 2D original through to GTA: San Andreas, for just £5, which is a saving of 75%. The first two games aren't even available to buy on Steam any other way, and GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas are all brilliant, and in many ways, very different games. The deal will last until Monday and you can grab it now on Steam.