The town: The sprawling near-future metropolis of Anywhere City, which was carved up into downtown, industria♏l and residential districts.

The music: Still tied to the cars you drive, although the PC🍨 version enables players to switch between the game's 11 stations. The stations themselves feature an eclectic mix of pop, rock, hip-hop and electronica. This was also the beginning of a tradition: weirdo DJs for each station, who chat with listeners and generally make asses of themselves.

The violence: The guns, explosions and blood are all noticeably cooler and more realistic than in the first game, but still pre🌄tty cartoony. Also, it's not just the cops who'll chase you when you do bad things this ꦐtime around - depending on how long and bloody your spree gets, you'll face gradually tougher levels of law enforcement going all the way up to the army.

Why it's the best: It's a big improvement over the first GTA, and takes itself even less seriously. It's faster, too, and slamming through crowds of pedestrians💝 and watching the reward points explode all over your screen is still an undeniable thrill. The whole gang-rivalry dynamic adds some depth to the anarchic structure, and give🧸s players a choice in whom they want to work for and betray - which later games in the series don't.

Why it isn't: It's still hard as hell to control cars on a 2D plane, even if the visuals are considerably better. There's still not much of a story, either, no matter what the opening movie implies. Also, yo🉐u can't even save your game until you have $50,000 to your name, which is weak.

Does it hold up? It's better than the original, but let's be realistic - it's not going to hold its own against anything in the following pages. for yourse❀lf and see.