Grand Theft Auto 2 is the sequel to 1997's hit 2D crime game. Originally, I planned to submit this game's movies after my 6 completed GTA movies but, since they depend on Bizhawk 2.11.1 to be released (due to a fix on CD emulation on the DOSBox core), I figured I might as well do it in the inverse order.
This movie was made by hand, with its route completely based on that of the current RTA WR by Molotok. Only a few differences towards the end, where I decided losing frames to skip dropping oil, later paying them back in pursuing the second car on the armored car missions.
Comparison Movie
Here's a comparison video between this run and the current RTA WR by Molotok
All of the CD-ROM versions of the game (as findable in the Redump database) contain some kind of CD protection mechanism (e.g., SecuROM) that makes impossible to bypass on the current state of the DOSBox core. To overcome this issue, I used the free version of the game once provided by Rockstar themselves, which contains the latest patch and no CD protection. This version can still easily found out there.
Source File: GTA2.exe
SHA1: 8c10c0d20f15912a9450b6fbe028f31928b29893
Whose contents were loaded into a TAS_CD.iso with the windows version of the create iso tool.
Steps for reproduction
1) Make a .hdd image file with Windows 98 installed, according to the instructions in Bizhawk/DOSBox
2) Run the following installation movie, using the following .xml and .conf files.
Replacing the paths inside the .xml file with wherever you placed the relevant files.
The .conf file configures DOSBox according to Dimon's recommendations and sets the appropriate video card and CPU speed that works best with the game and triggers windows to install its drivers.
3) Run the submitted movie with the following .xml and .conf files
The .conf file also sets the amount of RAM to a minimum to reduce pressure on savestate memory usage and performance during TASing.
Acknowledgements
The amazing GTA speedrunning community for their continuous support and encouragement. In particular Tarakan3000, Molotok, Tezur0, WordOfWind, hipp0cat, and Stowka
Dimon12321 for his research on DOSBox configurations (also MUGG) and help with sync
nymx: With about 3 months passing, I thought something might have come from suggestions on improvements. Well, this run is excellent...even if there are some spots that the WR holder thinks could make a difference. Honestly, I don't want to be the kind of person that says no to a submission for having something left behind, when grace was given to me for a run (F-Zero) that missed a technique. The fact is, this is not sloppy work and it destroys the human effort by more than 7 minutes. On the other hand, I'm invoking a senior's recommendation that this run absolutely doesn't have anything oblivious standing out from my own understanding of it. Excellent work eien86. Congratulations!
Thank you Dimon12321 for your sync. It helped a lot.
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6715
Location: The land down under.
I'm just going to point out that this TAS is incomplete.
There's another two areas that continue the story, that being Residential and Industrial.
Some of the gangs in the missions show up in the other areas to continue their story beats.
Grand Theft Auto used to basically have each story segment done in one area before the grand finale (depending on the title-- San Andreas comes to mind).
So to me this TAS is only a third complete, and personally I'd rather the entire story played out, yes the sequences get skipped.
This is like the equivalent of someone doing only a single warp room or island in Crash, a single hub world in Spyro, a single Chapter/Episode in That's So Raven, Scooby-Doo, Postman Pat, Single disk of a Final Fantasy game... etc. etc. or if I go personal ,If someone only did 100% to a single story segment in Dark Tales rather than all 3 stories, and all its endings (a category that's looking at the 4 hour mark).
Abstained Vote.
Rather this be completed than a third done.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Strong for yourself and also others.
omg omg omg omg
This is so awesome. You might be the greatest MVP in the history of MVPs
Q: Why get knocked around by a Molotov in Radio Za-Za? Is that faster than just walking to the corner?
Q2: Couldn't you have gotten an Ice Cream Truck to spawn even slightly closer to the garage in Happy Gas Smash?
Either way, this was great. Absolute yes vote!
I'm just going to point out that this TAS is incomplete.
There's another two areas that continue the story, that being Residential and Industrial.
Some of the gangs in the missions show up in the other areas to continue their story beats.
The districts are completely independent from each other in this game, nothing you do in one affects the other. They're more like Episodes in Doom or Wolfenstein 3D. Because of this, it is also common for speedruns to only run individual districts. The only difference IIRC is that not all Districts are unlocked at the beginning, but this can easily be fixed in a TAS by using a cheat code at the level select. I don't see a problem here.
I'm just going to point out that this TAS is incomplete.
There's another two areas that continue the story, that being Residential and Industrial.
Some of the gangs in the missions show up in the other areas to continue their story beats.
Grand Theft Auto used to basically have each story segment done in one area before the grand finale (depending on the title-- San Andreas comes to mind).
So to me this TAS is only a third complete, and personally I'd rather the entire story played out, yes the sequences get skipped.
This is like the equivalent of someone doing only a single warp room or island in Crash, a single hub world in Spyro, a single Chapter/Episode in That's So Raven, Scooby-Doo, Postman Pat, Single disk of a Final Fantasy game... etc. etc. or if I go personal ,If someone only did 100% to a single story segment in Dark Tales rather than all 3 stories, and all its endings (a category that's looking at the 4 hour mark).
Abstained Vote.
Rather this be completed than a third done.
The difference between this (and GTA1) and later GTA games is that each district playthrough is entirely self-contained - there's no gameplay connection other than that clearing district 1 unlocks district 2 in the start game menu, and so on. In that sense it's more comparable to standalone episodes in DOS games, of which various examples of publications exist.
That being said, I'm not sure if I like treating this game that way either (since the PSX TAS of this game I did years ago also cleared all districts in one sitting). It does make things easier on the TASing side, for sure, although for later districts you'd either have to depend on SRAM or a cheat code to unlock said districts.
As for this TAS itself, I like it, though I have a number of questions:
• Was there any reason you didn't use Molotovs for the Stop The Tank mission? You had 2 of them, and it'd speed up destroying the tank considerably (even moreso if you happened to get extra Molotovs somewhere along the way). You use one Molotov later to deathwarp after J-Jab, but you could maybe do that with the Rocket Launcher as well (which you still have ammo of by that point)
• During Happy Gas Smash, you approach the Loonies, stop, reverse, and then run over the Loonies before turning around - would it be faster do drive around without stopping? Pulling back is a consistency RTA strat, but I'm not sure if a TAS would need to do this.
• Also during Happy Gas Smash, you drive a bit past the vehicle bomb shop to get an ice cream van and have to backtrack a bit - was it not possible to luck-manipulate an ice cream van in a better spot?
• At the start of Dimentia To Go you use a different path to get back on the streets with the car than the other two yellow Loonie missions, is there a reason for this? You appear to reverse right before hitting the wall as well, when it seems like bouncing off the wall to gain forward momentum would be faster.
• During Big Bank Job the police bump into you a lot of times and you also are slowed down by a barricade, are there no opportunities to luck-manipulate them out of the way?
• During The Final Job, you stand in place while waiting for the bosses to spawn - would it not be faster to start moving towards the exit already, and catch them along the way? This seems like another RTA consistency strat, which a TAS wouldn't need.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Blanket answer to scrimpeh and Noxxa's very keen-eyed observations:
I worked in this game with a "best effort" approach -- this meant I'd do my best to get a superhuman version of the RTA route. This means for sure I would miss a bunch of possible tricks and optimizations (I didn't even think about using them molotovs against the tank!), but overall result in a faster-than-human movie. This approach maximizes fun also for me, not spending 3 hours at every single turn of a long movie.
I would love others in the future obsoleting this effort with better tricks and execution, but I am pretty satisfied with what I could come up with.
Congratulations on the first Windows 98 TAS!
I'm not a big fan of old GTAs, but I don't see much of possible improvements. Maybe it's the game's pace. Yes vote
P.S: what's up with GTA 1?
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the premier.
https://xkcd.com/3246/
Posting Tezur0's (current RTA WR holder) feedback, left as youtube comment
Great run! Was a pleasure to watch. I believe you could've gotten 30:xx with some strats that are missing. You could ignore getting SWAT van after Zitzaki and driving all the way to garage on Get Swat Van, and it could've followed you, given you get WL1. Also could place oil during Yutes Must Die to make Bank Van go north, saving a lot of driving on Big Bank Job. Also weird order of Yakuza kills during Gang War A Go Go, top to bottom wouldve avoided doing full circle around that area 1 less road, though maybe that route was faster with perfect driving, what do I know :D
Also there's toxic strat for Armored Car Clash, though I was not expecting it. You place 2 oil slicks during Yutes Must Die and both Miaras ram wall and explode while you just go to Cop Car Crash. But that is some planting waaay in advance, might be kinda ass to tas unless you find perfect spots (or maybe you can just RNG manip them with sorta correct spots).
Still dont think 29 minute TAS is possible with all that, but 31 seconds could've been shaved I bet!
I don't know if you base the routes on current records, or if you fully reroute, but if anything feel free to post on discord (mine, since most GTA 2 speedrun people are there or gta speedrunning one), maybe we will remember some more strats that are there but aren't used for one reason or another.
Congratulations for fucking up your own reputation, eien86! Absolute DISrespect!
Trilogy movies of GTA2 (on PC) rejected before fully published on TASVideosChannel, before GTA VI. Wow. *facepalm*
I'm more active on Discord than YouTube and others.
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
[3:56 PM]Thursday, July 23, 2026 3:56 PM Samsara: i mean this in the most positive way possible
[3:56 PM]Thursday, July 23, 2026 3:56 PM Samsara: i feel like a lot of your interaction with tasvideos is finding excuses to watch TASes
Accept my apology, it's unrelated to his best efforts of these movie creations (I didn't properly watched this whole movie yet before giving a vote), but I wanted to simply say with a disappointment reaction that he did gained respect before by making an absolute amount of effort of porting DOSBox-X core to BizHawk just to TAS PC games such as GTA2 before he indefinitely got banned in this site, with the relevant mood vibe style of talking like in crime video games.
[:,(]
I'm more active on Discord than YouTube and others.
A silver lining is that these three runs (and Worms) are improvable, as several people noted above. With effort, an improved TAS could get this game back on the Workbench, and look even more superhuman.
