Never heard of the DS thing. The GBA port, well, probably just wasn't very good. The GBA wasn't that powerful for real-time things, and the top down view I must admit would be dated, although still fun.
I also implore you to try the PC version of the game too for comparison purposes at least, but if you're a console gamer you might enjoy the console more for continence. It's just that the PC one allows you do manual aiming, and in my mind, better controls for the cars (which really are annoying to drive sometimes). There's also a player skin changing feature in the PC version, and although I never tried them, a lot of mods for more vehicles etc. were done and are around the net.
Cheats I must admit were always fun, but a sore note was it'd invalidate your save file with a "Cheater" thing if you saved (or sometimes not save at all?). That utterly sucked, and they just were really bad at designing that "feature" - maybe on the pretence that it'd take extra testing to make sure it was "compatible" with missions, bah. Annoying for everyone until GTA 4 I think, which doesn't do that.
One thing I missed before was the fact the game also, and this is comparatively new for most games of the era, included weather (which altered driving conditions) and times of day - although it rushed by quite fast, the shadows, lighting and car lights all changed, and the populations increased/decreased as people went to work/came back/slept at night. Quite good that. :) - GTA2 did have an option for "Day" or "Dusk" when you set your options up, so it's not entirely new in the series, but still good stuff.
The engine's origins are also interesting, RenderWare wasn't used for much of anything in the same line as it, and it obviously took a beating to get it to GTA standards (especially, I bet, the changing times and large levels). The maps are all modelled in Max (from screenshots of their creation), which must have made it hard to design for. The scripting language they used also has been described to me as "Hellish" by someone who worked on Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas. It looks like a rather poor state of affairs to design and build the game with, interestingly! I wonder what their internal tools were like...
Never heard of the DS thing. The GBA port, well, probably just wasn't very good. The GBA wasn't that powerful for real-time things, and the top down view I must admit would be dated, although still fun.
I also implore you to try the PC version of the game too for comparison purposes at least, but if you're a console gamer you might enjoy the console more for continence. It's just that the PC one allows you do manual aiming, and in my mind, better controls for the cars (which really are annoying to drive sometimes). There's also a player skin changing feature in the PC version, and although I never tried them, a lot of mods for more vehicles etc. were done and are around the net.
Cheats I must admit were always fun, but a sore note was it'd invalidate your save file with a "Cheater" thing if you saved (or sometimes not save at all?). That utterly sucked, and they just were really bad at designing that "feature" - maybe on the pretence that it'd take extra testing to make sure it was "compatible" with missions, bah. Annoying for everyone until GTA 4 I think, which doesn't do that.
One thing I missed before was the fact the game also, and this is comparatively new for most games of the era, included weather (which altered driving conditions) and times of day - although it rushed by quite fast, the shadows, lighting and car lights all changed, and the populations increased/decreased as people went to work/came back/slept at night. Quite good that. :) - GTA2 did have an option for "Day" or "Dusk" when you set your options up, so it's not entirely new in the series, but still good stuff.
The engine's origins are also interesting, RenderWare wasn't used for much of anything in the same line as it, and it obviously took a beating to get it to GTA standards (especially, I bet, the changing times and large levels). The maps are all modelled in Max (from screenshots of their creation), which must have made it hard to design for. The scripting language they used also has been described to me as "Hellish" by someone who worked on Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas. It looks like a rather poor state of affairs to design and build the game with, interestingly! I wonder what their internal tools were like...
Andrew
Andrew