Pure, unadulterated fun!
The main selling point of this game is the enormous amount of fun you'll get from it. There's nothing more entertaining than the sadistic pleasure you get by chasing down a line of Elvis impersonators with a flame thrower. Or rigging a car with a car bomb and parking it in the most dense traffic jam you can find, and then watching the explosions spread along the line of cars. Or of course finding the fastest car possible, say a beamer, and deciding that you're not going to drive on the road for a while, but are going to go pedestrian hunting. Oh the noises they make when you hit them square on with your beamer
And that is of course the other brilliant part of this game, the sound
As mentioned in Gamespot's review, the radio stations are great, with very good music, but even better than the music are the adverts, which are absolutely hilarious!
But the rest of the in-game sounds are even better, and frequently very funny. Such as overhearing "see, I told you he was alive" when near the aforementioned Elvis impersonators, and of course the classic "Elvis has left, the building!" which comes up whenever you get a 'strike' of running over the whole line of them, classic. And of course the screams of the pedestrians as you mow them down under the grill of your Stretch Limo, that's the sound I think when I think of this game, sadistically brilliant.
The rest of the sound doesn't disappoint as well, the police sirens wail is perfect for those high speed chases, and the ringing telephones. Sounds of traffic and electrical buzzes all create a very believable city atmosphere.
Of course GTA2 has areas which some would say are not brilliant, such as the graphics of the game, but I would disagree, to a point. Of course a fully 3D game would have been fantastic, but I feel that the top-down, 2D style is just right for this game. It gives the game an arcade-like feel, which I think adds to the fun factor of the game greatly. It gave the game an old school, arcade feel, which I felt was perfect for it, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.
A part of the graphics which I felt worked very well was the use of colour, the shine of the lights on the city streets; or the seedy, run down green of the Russian mafia territory worked well, and as with the sound, added to the atmosphere of the game greatly.
I picked this game up as one of my first buys, even then it was about £5 ($10), and I got hours upon hours of fun out of it, I still occasionally play it today. So check your bargain bin for GTA2, it's definitely worth it.
Great, great value, and great, great fun.