Grand Theft Auto 2 Review

The gang reputation system is the reason to remember this one. Three factions hold territory, working for one lowers your standing with the others, and the map turns genuinely hostile in districts you have alienated. It is a more interesting idea than anything in the first game, and the series promptly dropped it for a decade. The setting is the other oddity, a neon soaked anywhere city that reads as science fiction without ever explaining itself, and it gives the game a personality the sequels traded away for realism.

The problems are inherited wholesale: a camera too far out to read a firefight, save points you have to pay for, and difficulty that spikes without warning the moment two gangs decide they hate you at once. It is the last game before the series found the third dimension and became the biggest thing in the medium, which makes it a curiosity rather than a recommendation.