Revisiting Grand Theft Auto 2 on Sega Dreamcast

With all the hype around Grand Theft Auto VI at the moment, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to revisit the one game in the series which always seems to get overlooked: Grand Theft Auto 2.

Whilst the much-loved Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City have enjoyed unofficial ports to the Dreamcast in recent times, the series’ first true sequel was the only game which actually received a contemporary port on Sega’s machine.

Released originally in the fall of 1999 on the PC, closely followed by the PlayStation a few months later, the Grand Theft Auto series would eventually make its way onto a Sega console for the first -and only- time in the summer of the new millennium with Rockstar’s GTA 2.

Absolute carnage. It's like Cardiff on a Friday night.

Before GTA became the behemoth franchise it is known as today, it looked very different. The first two games (well, three if you include the “London” expansion that was released after the original title) were not in glorious three-dimensions, and instead all of the action took place from a top-down bird's-eye view perspective. Whilst these games were still pretty vast in size, they were not particularly hardware-intensive; meaning that a Dreamcast port should’ve been a straightforward conversion from the PC game.

Whilst the Dreamcast version of GTA 2 looks the part and runs very smoothly, there is one key aspect that was a little lost in translation which ultimately meant that the port fell a little short of a guaranteed slam dunk; the controls. They’re just a bit rubbish. 

The default controls use the analogue stick to spin your character on the spot, with the A and Y buttons used to make your character walk forward and backwards. There are a number of presets to choose from, but you can’t manually assign buttons and none of the presets allow you to simply use the analogue stick (or d-pad) to move around in all directions freely. Surely that would’ve been much easier?

It just makes moving around a bit of a chore and doesn’t feel natural when you first start playing the game. In their coverage of GTA 2, IGN summed it up:

“The Dreamcast [control] scheme is unforgivable. You're able to choose from among only four preset templates, and your movement can never be controlled by the digital pad. That is a true shame, as the analog movement proves to be too sensitive for its own good and sends you zooming forward in one direction at a pace that defies accuracy.”

Despite the clumsiness of the controls, after half an hour of gameplay, things started to click a little and I was able to move around a bit easier.

The gameplay loop is as you’d expect; it is a GTA game after all. Walk around, find a ringing phone box, listen to the incoming request and then go on your merry way. You can hijack pretty much any vehicle you come across with a simple press of the X button, and its previous occupant will be unceremoniously dumped onto the floor as you hop inside.

Respect is everything and don't you forget it.

It quickly becomes very addictive and before you know it, you’ve just lost multiple hours of your evening. Some of the missions asked of you are brilliant. One particular favourite was the gang member who gets upset that Pizza Cake (the fictitious pizza joint) keeps messing up his favourite order. In a fit of rage, he asks you to destroy one of their restaurants as punishment. Unfortunately the effects of this are so underwhelming, so he orders you to destroy the delivery van instead. Deliveroo drivers beware.

As you proceed through the missions, you will raise your respect with one gang but this in turn lowers it with their rivals. This means they turn hostile against you, so it’s important to balance out your reputation by accepting a range of missions. Each gang has their own territory and with no on-screen map for navigation, as is tradition with classic GTA games, you’re looking at the physical map packaged with the game so you know where to go and where to avoid. 

If you want to take a break from the main missions, there is a whole load of other things that you can do instead. There are multiple hidden tokens to find, dozens of different weapons, secret vehicles to collect and even vehicle modification if you can find the specialised garages. Additionally, if you hijack a taxi or an emergency vehicle, you can take on those roles. As a taxi driver, you can pick up passengers as a way to make some much needed dollars on the side. Who needs Crazy Taxi? With so much content, you could be playing this game for months.

I'm lost already. Time to whip out my physical map.

One of the highlights of playing a GTA game has always been listening to the in-car radio stations. Much like in real life, part of the charm was that the radio is always on when you’re driving around; sometimes you’re listening intently and sometimes you aren’t. In the world of GTA, these radio stations continue to play on a loop regardless of if you’re actually listening to them or not. This loop means whenever you switch channels, it doesn’t start from the beginning but from wherever it was in its “as-live” playthrough. The Dreamcast version lacks this loop, meaning that when you get into a car, the radio station plays from the beginning. It’s not a major deal, but interesting that it’s only the Dreamcast which has this issue. As someone who quite enjoys just jumping in a car and driving around the map aimlessly, maybe I noticed it more than the average person would.

When GTA 2 was released for Dreamcast in 2000, the reviews were generally slightly above average, with a few outlets scoring it a little higher.

GameSpot would award GTA 2 a 6.9 out of 10. They had the following to say:

“If you’re looking to commit some virtual crimes on your Dreamcast, then by all means steal a car, drive it down to your local game retailer, and slap around the owner until he gives you a copy. OK, it might just be easier for you to buy one instead.”

Dreamcast Magazine in the UK seemed to enjoy the game more than most, presenting it with a favourable 81% score.

“It might not be very next-gen, but there's no denying the pleasure that can be derived from the various activities, pleasant or not. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some money to collect and some people to kill.”

Part of me thinks that a lot of the reviews were a little harsh on GTA 2 because it didn’t “look like a next-gen game”. Indeed, there seemed to be a theme with 2D games back in the early 2000s being labelled as inferior to those in 3D, because they weren't pushing the latest shiny technology to its full potential. I think nowadays we can appreciate good 2D Dreamcast games a lot more than we could back then.

I've no idea who this guy is, but it's my new favourite loading screen.

So, is GTA 2 on Dreamcast still worth playing today? Well, despite the flaws with this particular version which I’ve outlined throughout this article, I’d have to say yes. It’s by no means a great game, but it still has that addictive GTA gameplay loop and does offer you the freedom of moving around and doing what you want that’s so synonymous with the series. The control scheme puts a slight damper on proceedings, but this is an issue experienced with many other retro games when you compare them to modern luxuries like fully customisable controls, dual-sticks and ergonomic controllers. The controls don’t ruin the experience in my opinion, but they do cause slight irritation.

With the surely epic GTA IV on the horizon -now just a few months away- the time is perfect for Dreamcast owners to revisit this oft-forgotten and overlooked entry in the series to whet your appetite for November.

Ending a game session gives you a summary of the chaos caused.