Grand Theft Auto 2

It's disappointing that some of the bloodshed from the first GTA has been toned down in Grand Theft Auto 2. There's no pleasant way to detail this: In the first game, dead policemen, gangsters and pedestrians decomposed. Lying on the pavement, they bled, made a big mess and later disappeared. Granted, the process was a little too quick to be realistic, but there was just something wonderful about revving up your Corvette with its back wheels planted on some poor sap's corpse, then spinning out with a trail of blood matching your tire tracks. Gross? Yes. Sick? Maybe. Fun? Definitely.

It's twisted fun for a while, but then it starts to get old.

Carefully crafted, big and sprawling and, more to the point, fun and exciting, GTA2 retains the best qualities of its predecessors, and its new gang warfare element improves upon and expands upon the original idea, giving the gameplay a little more depth.

Here we have one of the few times that good gameplay has been badly hampered by control and graphic choices... Not a bad game, but essentially, it's more of the same.

The graphics have been redone, the music is different, there is a slew of new weapons, the mission structure is a bit more complex, and the city feels a bit more alive. But at its core, GTA2 is the same old game.

A fun, irreverent romp and a great way to blow off some steam after a hard days work... [but p]layers expecting something radically different from the first game will be disappointed.