Summary
- The PlayStation 2 era of Grand Theft Auto games offered a transition to fully 3D graphics, making the open-world mayhem even more immersive and enjoyable.
- Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories, originally PSP titles, were ported to the PS2, offering familiar landscapes and gameplay mechanics with improved graphics.
- Grand Theft Auto 3 and San Andreas were groundbreaking entries in the franchise, introducing open-world gameplay, engrossing narratives, and expansive maps with multiple cities and unique themes.
Much like how the PlayStation 2 wowed console gamers as a fully upgraded successor to the PlayStation, subsequent Grand Theft Auto titles past Grand Theft Auto 2 amazed players with a transition to fully 3D graphics. As if the open-world mayhem of Grand Theft Auto isn’t enough on a top-down view, the new console generation’s slate of visual treats makes a wide variety of GTA stories more memorable and a delight to play.
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With GTA belonging to quite the novel genre of open-world games, console enthusiasts with a PlayStation 2 can spend hours wreaking havoc in the various worlds popularized by GTA’s PS2 offerings. However, which of these games is worth the while for the retro gamer?
5 Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2006)
Players who met Toni Cipriani in 2001’s GTA 3 can see him in his younger years in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, a game that explores Toni’s time with the dominant Leone Crime Family in Liberty City. Fans already familiar with Liberty City will enjoy familiar landscapes in Liberty City Stories, with the map generally unchanged from its predecessor. Likewise, those who enter the franchise via Liberty City Stories can appreciate the depth of the landscape further with the narrative depth GTA 3 offers.
Being a GTA game set in the 3D Universe, Toni’s adventures follow the same formula as the previous games. The more sophisticated elements of San Andreas are gone, such as having to feed Toni and conduct an exercise to maintain their physique. As with Vice City Stories, the GTA 3 prequel emphasizes the freedom to enjoy wanton violence with the occasional straightforward mission.
Why Play Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories?
At its core, Liberty City Stories offers the most bare-bones experience for a GTA title. It doesn’t help that its original status as a PSP title meant the game in itself was a toned-down version of the PS2 hits. It ported to the PS2 with an impressive upscale to its graphics but didn’t offer new gameplay mechanics, which made the game more of a micro-GTA, especially with a lackluster story.
Among the games in the 3D Universe, Liberty City Stories has the least stakes due to its story centered around a GTA 3 main character’s rise to power.
4 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2007)
The PlayStation Portable paved the way for some of the best in handheld mayhem for the Grand Theft Auto series, with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories proving GTA could get fun even outside a large screen. However, the 2006 handheld game will see itself ported just a year later, with 2007’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice Cities Stories for the PlayStation 2 becoming another home for the Vice City prequel.
Set in 1984, the game explores the life of Victor Vance, a soldier recently dishonorably discharged from the military. While players will see Vic die at the beginning of Vice City, this prequel shows Vic as possessing a moral compass and becoming a criminal as a victim of circumstance. The game also introduces the past activities of some Vice City characters, including Vic’s brother Lance and their employer Phil Cassidy.
Why Play Vice City Stories?
The prior existence of a fully-functioning Vice City made it easier for Rockstar Games to “dial it down” for a lighter PSP title and “get it back up” in its PS2 port. All features in the PSP version exist in the PS2 port as well, such as the return of swimming, bribes to avoid Wasted statuses and improved targeting.
Perhaps more impressive is the inclusion of the Empire Building option, allowing Vic to establish businesses in rival territories and slowly acquire them for his own criminal empire. However, the largest setback of Vice City Stories as a PS2 game lies in its nature as a port. The PSP title being upscaled means the visuals aren’t as crisp as other GTA titles for the larger console.
3 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
- Released
- October 29, 2002
- Developer(s)
- Rockstar Games
- Platform(s)
- PS2, Xbox (Original), PC, iOS, Android, macOS
The second game in the Grand Theft Auto franchise to grace the PS2 is Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, another title that set an open world standard with the inclusion of a fleshed-out named protagonist. Players take control of Tommy Vercetti, a recent ex-con who just got released from maximum security, courtesy of his boss and childhood friend Sonny Forelli. When his first mission in the tropical paradise of Vice City turns into a bust, he puts it upon himself to set things right.
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The transition to Vice City was a much-needed change of scenery from the busy streets of Liberty City. This time around, the tropical paradise interspersed with criminal enterprise drew inspiration from Miami Vice, Scarface, and a number of other pop culture phenomena of the previous decade. Tommy’s straightforward and ambitious personality was fit for players expected to do as they please in the new location.
Why Play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City?
Establishing a new location fitting for a set narrative became the primary challenge of Vice City and one that the city itself managed to solve. Its thematic components gave the vibe of a crime serial instead of a traditional Mafia-focused game. Motorcycles added a sense of speed to gameplay, with purchasable structures adding more value to “dominating” the streets.
The biggest drawback of Vice City was its rehashing of much of GTA 3’s core mechanics. Losing the ability to swim was somewhat of a letdown, although the inclusion of purchasable buildings and motorcycles added new levels of freedom for the occasional chaotic playthrough.
2 Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
Grand Theft Auto 3
- Released
- October 23, 2001
- Developer(s)
- Rockstar Games
- Platform(s)
- PS2, Xbox (Original), PC, macOS, Android, iOS
The dawn of the new millennium was a momentous time for the Grand Theft Auto franchise, courtesy of Grand Theft Auto 3. This game finally transitions GTA into a full-fledged 3D title, complete with an engrossing narrative that deserves its place as a PS2 game.
Starring Claude, he and his girlfriend Catalina arrive in Liberty City and depend on a life of crime for survival. Unfortunately, the game begins when Catalina double-crosses the player and shoots him, leaving as the police arrest him. When he escapes, he starts getting involved in Liberty City’s criminal scene and is caught in the middle of conflicts between the Goterelli and Forelli Crime Families, the Triads, and even the Yakuza.
Why Play Grand Theft Auto 3?
While players will only get to know the protagonist’s name (Claude) in 2004’s San Andreas, the main highlight of GTA 3 is the first time a fully open world was created for the players. It contained a city’s inspiration telling the story, each mission being a story in its own overarching narrative, and freedom to approach the world.
Fans and newcomers to GTA should give GTA 3 a try precisely to see how its gameplay served as the foundation of the open-world genre. Liberty City being inspired by New York City influenced the focus of a Mafia theme in the story, with the approach to narrative also inspired by The Sopranos and GoodFellas. The game itself introduced the first forms of popular 3D GTA mechanics, such as car driving (and stuns), weapons handling, and overall combat.
1 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Released
- October 26, 2004
- Developer(s)
- Rockstar Games
While fans of Grand Theft Auto associate Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with that iconic train level, the acclaimed title has brought yet a massive leap for the open world genre. Gone is the Mafia-centered premise and instead becomes a more personal journey, especially for protagonist Carl Johnson (CJ) whose homecoming in the crime-ridden city of Los Santos has him framed for the murder of his murder. In a bid to clear his name and save what’s left of his family, CJ embarks on a journey that takes him throughout the entire state of San Andreas.
Players who caught wind of this premise for the first time might wonder just what kind of environment San Andreas would offer given its scope as a “state.” However, the 2004 GTA delivers a map that has three fully scripted cities, each with unique themes and locales. Grunge and gang culture become a major motif in the game, taking inspiration from films such as Menace 2 Society, Colors, and New Jack City.
Why Play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas?
Despite San Andreas building much of its gameplay around the framework of GTA 3, Rockstar Games used new gaming scripts that paved the way for new features such as console games, the casino, and even the ability to change CJ’s appearance - from clothes, to hairstyle, to even his build. What’s more impressive is the game’s sheer scope, as the 2004 title still boasts the largest environment across the 3D Universe era of GTA titles.
Included within the state of San Andreas are three full cities: Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas, all boasting different locales, environments, and even gangs. The map itself measures at around 36 million square meters on the outside, not including all the environments players can enter. Pedestrians are made more reactive to players, with features such as swimming giving them more opportunities to explore the map.