Pros: The respect system; carnage, carnage, and more carnage
Cons: Graphics and mapping, plus an unsatisfying ending
The bottom line: If you enjoyed the first, try this one for more of the same plus some twists and better vehicle control.
Grand Theft Auto 2, for the Playstation 1, follows up on the highly successful Grand Theft Auto with all new missions of carnage and a unique “respect” system that casts a new light on gang activity within the game’s three populous districts. Like in GTA 1, you control a thug-for-hire, and must seek out phones to get jobs, then complete those jobs for cash. Each job you complete or gang member you kill earns you respect (conveniently metered for you in the upper-left corner of the screen) with one faction of the city while making your rapport with another decline. The more respect you have, the tougher, more lucrative jobs you can take on, but watch out. If you are in an enemy gang’s territory they will come after you with weapons blazing. This is why, in GTA 2, “respect is everything.”

GTA 2 improves on its predecessor in several basic ways. The vehicles you control are generally more manageable in terms of speed and can take more damage before exploding. The districts are larger and more interactive, and creatively funny sound bites and funky songs emanate from your car’s radio. Although making money is how you advance from district to district, the respect system in itself is fun and creates a concrete goal to shoot for beyond simply making money. New weapons are available to you, from Molotov cocktails to car-mounted explosives. You can even make money picking someone up in a cab or earn new lives by completing kill frenzies. The options are numerous, and the action is addicting.

Where Grand Theft Auto 2 falls short, however, it falls in fairly big ways. The streets and buildings are confusing without using the provided map, and the arrow system that guides you to gang job phones sometimes points instead to gang information phones, which are different and essentially useless after one play of the game. The GTA 2 tokens you occasionally find lying around are apparently also useless. I have never collected them all, primarily because it’s one of the game’s only goals that doesn’t require the mayhem that makes this series what it is. The bonus zones found between districts are also pointless. Finally, after accumulating a high bonus multiplier by completing jobs without dying or getting busted, one can complete this game in overly short order. And all you get for doing so is a woeful ending screen that says “Game Completed.”

Still, GTA 2 is quite the game for those who were into GTA 1. The violence and language will not appeal to everyone, but to those with a bad-boy streak hiding inside, it’s a release from the everyday world that one can truly appreciate.