Grand Theft Auto 2 Released for Free

Darragh_IRL writes "In true Christmas spirit, Rockstar Games has released the PC version of GTA2 for free on their website." From the page: "GTA2 expanded on the top-down, open-ended crime world gameplay formula with a host of new features including the advent of multiple rival gangs - seven, to be exact, including the Yakuza, Scientists, Looneys, Rednecks, Zaibatsu, the Russian Mob and Hare Krishnas. Earn your respect with each gang. Reap the benefits with all manner of shady work-for-hire gigs contracted your way. And climb your way to the top of the criminal pile."

Considered abandonware?

[darkani]

What exactly are the rules for downloading abandonware?

Re:Considered abandonware?

[thryllkill]

Well, since this is released by the company that made it I am pretty sure the rule is to download it at your will, as soon as their server cools down.

Now there might be different rules for abandonware not released into the open by the owner.

Re:Considered abandonware?

[isorox]

In many countries, including the UK, you are arguably you are allowed to download it. You are not, however, allowed to upload it. Same as any other copyrighted work.

"Abandonware" is something made up by pirates (ooh-arr) to justify their actions.

Re:Considered abandonware?

[milkman_matt]

"Abandonware" is something made up by pirates (ooh-arr) to justify their actions.

However, it is a legit 'thing' though, in my mind. I purchase all of my games, I like to support people for their services. However, recently, I think in a /. story, I stumbled upon Sarien [sourceforge.net] and was re-hooked on all of the old Sierra games. Sierra isn't going to re-release things like LSL1 (they tried with LSL for the consoles, but that game can't compare.) and all of the quest games. Especially Hero's Quest 1 (which I STILL can't find.) Anyhow, upon stumbling upon this program I've now been able to play all of the old Sierra games that got me into computer gaming to begin with. I would GLADLY buy copies of these games if they were still for sale. God knows they'd be 5 or 10 bucks a pop. But they're not for sale anymore, it wouldn't be worth it for Sierra to publish even 1 more copy, the costs just wouldn't add up. However, if they would offer downloads on their website for $2 or $3, I would gladly purchase a copy of each. Unfortunately, they don't, so I had to search for copies elsewhere.

PS: I did have copies of each of these games, but that was 10+ years ago, I have no idea where they are now or whether or not they'd still be any good.

Re:Considered abandonware?

[Tarison]

Try looking for it under the name "Quest for Glory". They had to change the name due to legal issues related to the "Hero Quest" board game. The other good thing about Sarien, is that there's a lot of fan-made games that are compatible with the same interpreter. There's a bunch of them at The Ultimate AGI & SCI Website [classicgaming.com]. FYI :)

Re:Considered abandonware?

[milkman_matt]

Try looking for it under the name "Quest for Glory". They had to change the name due to legal issues related to the "Hero Quest" board game. The other good thing about Sarien, is that there's a lot of fan-made games that are compatible with the same interpreter. There's a bunch of them at The Ultimate AGI & SCI Website. FYI :)

Thanks for the response, and yeah I had looked for it under both names, mostly under "Hero's Quest" though. I really wanted the one before they had to change the name, back whe

Re:Considered abandonware?

[Violet Null]

Legally, "abandonware" doesn't exist. If the copyright holder doesn't release it, it's not legal for you to swap the stuff around. Doesn't matter if it's not in print anymore. Doesn't matter if the copyright holder has no plans to ever get another red cent from it again. If the copyholder doesn't say you can do it, then you can't.

Now, morally, a lot of people feel that trading abandonware is (less wrong|more legitimate), since it is, indeed, not stealing profits from anyone. But there's still no lega

Bittorrent

[keeleysam]

Hopefully they were smart enought to use bittorrent, because then they MIGHT avoind MAJOR slashdotting, because we all know /.+500MB file=DISASTER!

Re:Bittorrent

[supersuckers]

PLEASE NOTE that while this game may be downloaded for free by all who register by filling out the form on this page, it is NOT freeware and may not be mirrored or duplicated by any third parties without express written consent from Rockstar Games.

So I'd say.. no chance of a torrent coming from them.

Re:Bittorrent

[keeleysam]

AND there is no chance of anybody mirroring it for them... seems they are asking for a /.'ing

Re:Bittorrent

[Smidge204]

I fail to see how that clause prevents BitTorrenting the file, if they control the .torrent file and the tracker.

Not that clauses like that ever actually stopped anyone before, obviously...
=Smidge=

Re:Bittorrent

[AvitarX]

I'm sure as hell not letting anyone download something from me if I said I expressly wouldn't mirror it.

Re:Bittorrent

[Smidge204]

But you are not a mirror. At best you are acting as a cache, since you would still use their tracker server to gain access to the material and you would still have to go to them to get the .torrent file in the first place. It's stil a single point of download that they can control.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind shedding the bandwidth bill off on others if they didn't have to sacrifice the ability to remove access to the file at any time.
=Smidge=

hey

[MoistVomit]

Considering the price, I think this will be the gift I give my friends for the holidays.

Problems..

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Can anybody connect to this? I'm having problems when I click submit.

Re:/.'ed already?

[srlxprmntln]

Nooooo....Hrm...they have GTA 1, do they have GTA: London also?

Re:/.'ed already?

[BrynM]

According to firefox:

"The operation timed out while trying to reach THE ONE SHINY SPOT IN YOUR WHOLE DAMN DAY!!!!!!"

Sorry, had to vent. That feels better now. I'll try again in a few days.

Hopefully better than the freebie GTA1 release

[damyata]

I don't think I was alone in finding that the free release of GTA 1 was unplayable thanks to the frame limiter being a wee bit broken. With the limiter on it stuttered a load and with it off you seemed to be on some kind of stimulant (or depressant depending on whether you think you are the character or observing him. Pretty tall order to think you are the character in GTA 1 though.)

Re:Hopefully better than the freebie GTA1 release

[cjpez]

Weird. Their free release of GTA1 worked just fine using Wine on Linux. And they say that Linux isn't a viable Gaming system. *pshaw*

Re:Hopefully better than the freebie GTA1 release

[ashground]

That's interesting, since I downloaded the free release of GTA1 and have passed it around, and I've only seen it run into problems on one computer (it crashed when you exited).

I run a dual box for situations like this

[Pluvius]

I personally find that on WinXP, GTA Classic stutters horribly, but on Win98 it works fine.

Rob

Works better under linux

[ReKleSS]

Wine (both free and cedega) can play it just fine, and there are no frame rate issues. Just leave the frame rate limiter on and go. Pity I can't remember how I finished the first level in under 5 mins...
-ReK

Use it at your next LAN party

[XzeroR3]

I remember back in the day playing this game with 6 people online (via ipx) and it being one of the best multiplayer experinces I've ever had (even with all the lag, the netcode was rather horrid).

I remember getting clashing with another player who had the gang powerup. I whipped out my flamethrower and managed to keep him at bay... but another player ran us both over but his victory was short lived as I set his car on fire and he exploded shortly thereafter...

Also, the MP maps are very small, which help add to the frenzy.

Re:Use it at your next LAN party

[slashrogue]

I remember one map where it was basically a race to see who could get to the tank at the military supplies shop first. From there, take the tank to the military base and destroy all of the other tanks so that no one else can get one, then go out and destroy! It was fun.

I knew It

[Anonymous Coward]

I wake up to a friendly email from Rockstar saying I can download GTA2 for free. Little did I know the server was completely inoperable! Immediately after I went to games.slashdot.org and my suspicions were proved true!

Now you all have the game before me! I desire to curse but I shall hold it back...grrrrrr......

Re:I knew It

[lazybeam]

Attempting to "hack" the system, but run into these errors:

Warning: filesize() [function.filesize]: Stat failed for /home/rockstargames/balancer.rockstargames.com/cl a ssics_downloads/GTA2INSTALLER.ZIP (errno=2 - No such file or directory) in D:\HTTP\RockstarNew\classics\gta2\gta2_dl.php on line 8

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at D:\HTTP\RockstarNew\classics\gta2\gta2_dl.php:8) in D:\HTTP\RockstarNew\classics\gta2\gta2_dl.php on line 10

Warning: Cannot

For sale still..

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Best Buy still has GTA2 on the shelves for sale at the low low price of 9.99!

Gang Warfare

[th3walrus]

I wish they would bring back to the GTA series the idea of choosing a gang and earning street rep from them. This is the sole thing that makes GTA2 shine above and beyond any other game in the series in my opinion.

When they beefed up the linear storyline with GTA3, I felt that they lost something great with actually being able to choose which gang you took missions for and which gang you were out to destroy. Not everyone likes being forced by the storyline to run with the Yakuza or be on the hunt for the Jamacian gang.

So I highly recommend playing GTA2 if you haven't before and that sounds like something you'd be into.

Re:Gang Warfare

[th3walrus]

Yes, but you still don't get to choose your gang like you did in GTA2. You're stuck with the gang your character used to hang with (at least for as far through the game as I've gotten, which granted isn't very far).

I liked GTA2 because each city had 5 or so gangs and from the start you got to pick any one of those 5 to belong to. Even better, you could totally be a bastard and jump ship to a rival gang in the middle of the game, all because you wanted to and not because a linear storyline made you.

Re:Gang Warfare

[Carrot007]

I think you'll find it was 3 gangs per city.

praise be

[evilmousse]

thank you, rockstar games, you've demonstrated to be a fine videogame company in every circumstance i've yet to come accross your name.

i enjoyed gta2 immensely when it was originally released, and though i likely haven't the time to accept your very generous offer of getting it again for free, i appreciate it so very much.

i will be paying special attention to your releases, and eagerly anticipate the next red dead revolver. do more stuff with capcom, PLEASE. that SO sounds like a winning combination of the best of western and eastern gaming.

(see, this is how advertizing should be: get people to like you enough to want to tell others.)

Wine?

[The_Dougster]

Anybody tested this with Wine or Cedega? I see on the Transgaming site they have both GTA1 and GTA3 rated at 4 stars, but GTA2 isn't rated. I presume that it will probably work. I've never played any of these GTA games, but they seem to be popular.

Re:Shitty Webdesign

[Catnapster]

Speak for yourself, it looks fine for me under 1.0.

Use a junk Email account

[thirty2bit]

When R* released GTA1 as free download, I made up a temporary Hotmail account for registration, using some dumb combination of letters and numbers, like 'ju5t1ntth3gam3'. I didn't trust the wording on the download page. Well, two days later I had 15 fresh spams.

Note the fine print on the page: "NOTE: The information you provide on this form may be collected even if you are not eligible to download the game"

It may be a Christmas gift, but there could be tinsel attached.