Download of the week: Grand Theft Auto 2 (PC)

Everyone is eagerly awaiting the new trailer for GTA IV. That is, everyone with nothing better to do. It's easy to forget that one of the worlds most infamous and successful franchises started out as a top-down game in pixelated 2D.

Grand Theft Auto 2 was originally released for PlayStation and PC in October 1999. While the gameplay concepts and storyline (make your way as a low-life crook through the crime underworld) established just two years prior in the original Grand Theft Auto are essentially the same in the follow-up, the second installment in the series expanded the open-ended crime world formula with a host of new features, including the advent of multiple rival gangs.

GTA2 has been optimized to run on modern PCs and is available gratis here.