Gameboy Cheats <8:30 PM CST - schu>
DJCil sent in some cheats for the Gameboy version of GTA.  I have no way of testing these codes so I don't know for sure if they are authentic.  I'm guessing that you enter them the same you enter codes in GTA or GTA2.  Thanks to DJCil for the cheats...

THEBITCH   (all cities except for Vice 2nd)
MYTURF     (cities up to 2nd town in 2nd city)

New Reviews <8:30 PM CST - schu>
Playnow, an Australian gaming site, has posted their GTA2 review, take a look.  Pocket.IGN.com posted their Gameboy GTA review today making some comments that are pretty similar to what ILLSPIRIT and Klamy have been saying.

GTA Car Competition <8:30 PM CST - schu>
Rob is running a GTA competition for car makers, read on and then click the link if you're interested:

GTA: 50 most memorable cars
"HEY, this is the fukker with a challenge for all you car makers.  Create motor Trend's 50 most memorable cars by St. Patrick's Day, 2000.  I'm sure you're not intimidated by a challenge from a relative newcomer."
 

GTA2 Editing & Foo's Cars <8:30 PM CST - schu>
Here is Tristan's latest editing update, this one details his findings on the fstyle.sty file and Foo's Car Lot:

I was looking at the fstyle.sty file in the c:\Program Files\GTa2\data\ directory through Paint Shop Pro and found out something.  Using 256 x 25325 co ordinates and a 78 byte header, I found out that the fstyle.sty file contains templates for the original GTA ! It has the ' GOURANGA! ' type writing ( the big, bold yellow letters ) as well as the guns, the police heads, and some other writing.  The part that was intriguing was the BINK logo and another MILES logo I have seen somewhere before.  I gave it some thought and maybe, just maybe, since there are original GTA letters, guns and cop heads, these could be used for a GTa2 add on - this add on being a replica of the original GTA.  I have made screen shots of the fstyle.sty file, in palette 192.
 
I was also cruising around the Industrial Sector of GTa2 and found another Wang Car Bonus Lot ! It is actually called Foo Cars.  Quoting the bill board, it is " for sexy mothers try a big hot rod " .  With a huge spare lot outside ( capable of holding bonus cars ! ) and room on the walls ( for numbers ! ) I can't help but think, is there  going to be a " Foo Car Bonus " ?  I have sent in screen shots of the Foo Car lot and a map on how to get there.

foocarlt.jpg 30KB  0576 x 0432
foodrect.jpg 23KB  0423 x 0338
fstyle11.jpg 47KB  0571 x 1024
fstyle12.jpg 25KB  0187 x 1024

Custom Map Center <8:30 PM CST - schu>
Johan Brodd has been getting a lot of the same questions on his Custom Map Editor (orginally mentioned in the November 24th update) and he asked that I post some Q&A here:

Seems I have 10 questions about the program so here they are with the proper answers:

No copying?
Not available yet, hang on the program is on the way.
 

Map editing ?
You cannot edit maps in this program, just create blank missions or missions based upon the original maps (version 1.1).
 

What will be the reward?
No cash or something like that, the program for free. Shareware $20

  
I cannot find the mission.ini
No file is provided right now, however I'm planning to provide the following files:
The GRY / G24 files
The CMP map files (blank)
The FXT files (slightly modified)
The mission.ini file

Does this program support GTA2 ?
Not for the moment, but in v 1.5 it will support GTA london, and possibly in v 2.0 it will support GTA2.

Readme ?
Yes there will be both a readme and a hlp file available.

Announcements <8:30 PM CST - schu>
GTA Nation's redirect page was hacked so you can only get to the site using its actual URL, but since the actual URL is pretty easy to remember it shouldn't be too much of a problem.  Check out GTA Nation @ gunther.niteshade.net.

Community News <8:30 PM CST - schu>

• Tiffany's Unofficial GTA Shrine
  I've moved the Shrine! After my glorious year and a half at FortuneCity, I've moved Tiffany's Unofficial Grand Theft Auto Shrine since I ran out of free space!  The new, shorter, easier to remember URL is http://tiff.penguinpowered.com which is the first time my name's been in the first part of a URL! *giggle*

  With my recent move, I've updated the site! I got new counters that start where the old ones left off (this page's counter is new), by the way, before I moved, the counter was at 59,800+ but I started the new counter at 60,000. We all know it was gonna go there anywayz. *giggle* Thanx 4 all your support, everybody!

  I've added new cars to the Car Depot, I've added a Sniper Rifle to the Graphics page, I've added Obscene Language to the Files page, and I've updated the Links!

• Hughesies Hut
  Da cop has added some more cars to HH, as well as news and other stuff.  I have also added a new polls section to the site - The first poll this month is about:
  
  Who do you think has been / is the most influential person in the GTA scene?
  The 4 choices are:
   
  schu 
  Azz 
  Valdez 
  Mugwum
   
  Please take the time to visit the site and vote. Also, feel free to post on the message board and stuff.
   
• GTA2: Seek And Destroy
  I have been having many problems with my PC lately which explains why I haven't updated GTA2: Seek And Destroy but even though I had to get a new hard drive I will get my computer up to good condition again and have more regular updates. I am getting a new PC delivered in  the next few days so I will only be posting in the forum on my site until it is set up. Please post in my forum because I believe it is the best forum dedicated to GTA2. Please have a look

• GTA Place
  GTA Place has finally finished relocating and updating. Hopefully this site will be bigger and better than the past GTA Places. At the moment the site has just basic content but look out for further updates with more features coming including a Forum, News Page, Tutorials Page and interviews. All should be coming soon!  You can reach the new GTA Place through the new address www.theGtaPlace.co.uk

  

• GTA2 Burnout
  Hi people, Tobe here. Just wanted to let you know that GTA2 Burnout will not go to waste, it has been handed over to Tom (aka GTACoolman). He will have full responsibility for it now, and I wish him well, as I do you, the rest of the GTA peoples. Thanks for your support and over 44,000 page hits.

Rhys sent in the third file, version 1.1 of his GTA2 Quick Loader.  The GTA2 Quick Loader copies everything from a selected directory to a GTA2 directory and remembers the directory locations using an INI file.  The zip includes a readme file with some quick directions and contact info.  Check GTA Mod Central to get the latest versions of Rhys' utils and for up to date news on his utils.

GTA Zone's Trainer <9:25 PM CST - schu>
chriZ over at GTA Zone informed me that the English version of GTA Zone's GTA2 Trainer will be available very soon.  The trainer will feature 26 different functions some of which cannot be activated by cheats.  One example chriZ mentioned was that "you can start with your own 4 man gang at start or turn the busses or trains off."  You should be able to nab the trainer from GTA Zone's GTA2 downloads section shortly.  Even if you cannot speak German is fairly easy to find.  The GTA2 Trainer they currently have posted is the BIOS Systems trainer, not their trainer, I'd imagine they will call is something along the lines of Zone Trainer - English or something.

GTA Gameboy - Make The Hurting Stop <9:25 PM CST - schu>
Yow... It seems that people either love or hate the Gameboy version.  Klamy is of the latter conviction rather than the former and promptly returned his copy of Gameboy GTA just after he did a write up on it.

Ishani.com Back Online <9:25 PM CST - schu>
Ishani's GTA2 utils page is back online so you can now download the latest versions of his Power Manager and his Saved Game Editor directly from his site at Ishani.com.  Thanks to everyone who sent in an email on this.

GTA IAT <9:25 PM CST - schu>
sW has opened his own GTA site, GTA IAT.  GTA IAT stands for GTA Info and Tips, judging by the name I'm sure you can get a general idea of the content :).  If you have a GTA2 tip you should click on over and send it in.  He has already posted an interested bit of news on the GTA4 domain name.

Yakuza <9:25 PM CST - schu>
I just sent this URL to someone and thought someone else out there might be interested in a brief history of the real Yakuza.  I found this just by a simple search, I did not write it.

Site Updates <9:25 PM CST - schu>

• Well I didn't get back to my apartment until Sunday night and my parents ISP was acting screwy so I wasn't able to do an update on Friday.  Thanksgiving was pretty good, then again, anything that gets me a week off from classes is definitely a good thing :).
• I've got some more emails to go through but that news will most likely appear tomorrow...
• I noticed a slight frame problem with Netscape in 800x600 on Wednesday... I made some adjustments that should fix the problem.  I just hope no one is trying to look G! in 640x480 :)

GTA2 Editing <8:40 PM CST - schu>

• GXT Editing
  Ringo aka Gavin Rudd has uploaded full information on the GXT files to his Gain Software site.  He mentioned that, "anyone should be able to write an editor along the lines of GXTed" with this information.
   
• Map Editing
  Tristan Beard has been doing some research into reading the map files and he sent in the his latest findings:

  "I was just looking over the GTA2 Style Files (ste.sty, bil.sty and wil.sty files) and after I had looked all through the wil.sty file, I tried my luck at the bil.sty file.  When I found out only one of the palettes worked on the building templates, I tried my luck at the bil.gmp file, to see what the .GMP files were about.  I extracted it as a RAW file, dimensions 256 x 25325 (the normal .STY configuration) with a 78 byte header, and zoomed in till the zoom factor was 1:2.  I saw the Industrial Sector Map!  I mucked around with the dimensions a bit, and after a while I could (sort of) clearly make out the Industrial Sector Map!  The dimensions I used are 512 x 25325 (the 25325 bit should probably be shorter, but who cares) and I didn't use a header though.  I sent along the steps I took till I found the map (file sizes below) as well as a smaller version of the Industrial Sector Map, so you can compare them.  I hope you can tell everyone on your site and see how far this can go!"

  step1.jpg 9kb  256 x 25325 78 byte header zoom 1:2
  step2.jpg 25kb 256 x 25325 78 byte header zoom 1:1
  step3.jpg 22kb 512 x 25325 78 byte header zoom 1:1
  step4.jpg 22kb 512 x 25325    zoom 1:1
  step5.jpg 18kb Industrial Sector Map
   

Custom Map Center <8:40 PM CST - schu>
Johan Brodd is working on a new util called the Custom Map Center and he sent me the following details on it:

Are you interested in a fast and easy way to create new missions for GTA?  The thing is that you can just in a few clicks compose a entire new scenery for GTA in just a few minutes of spare time!  The secret is that you have access to all the files needed for the level.

Picture 1: The check boxes enables the specific file to be copied, to the right you see what will be copied.

You can select the source directory and the target directory with a few clicks

Picture 2: Managing the source and target directories is easy!

You're getting a good overview when the copying is in progress, you'll see which file is copied for the moment, you can also see when the copying is done, a perfect status on what is done and what is skipped.

Picture 3: The status screen, not much right now... but there will be more coming!

Important note! This program is version 0.1, so there is a faked copy; no data is copied, there is just a timer that updates so it will look like it's copying the missions, just in case you're getting mad at me... This will be provided when I've got information about one big question:

Does this program require any specific files? Can you do me a big favor and download the program (209k), try it, and send any bug reports to me; You'll be rewarded: Send me your email address when done this. I'll send the program to you when it is finished. You'll get the program for free if all runs painless.
 

Who Da Hell is DA Hool? <8:40 PM CST - schu>
If you read the update I did on Monday about the Wankers on Duty video by DA Hool you'll know what this is about, if not, go read that first.  Gangsterboss sent in some information on who DA Hool is, something I was wondering myself:

"DA Hool was DJ Hooligan, before he changed his name. He made the techno hit Rave Nation.  After changing his name to DA Hool, he made for instance Meet her at the love parade"

Today's GTA2 Nuggets of Joy <8:40 PM CST - schu>

• Your Friendly Neighborhood Gang
  Mjollnir made an interesting observations about how gangs react to you when you're on the run:
  

  "I noticed that when you go to a hostile gang's territory on foot and they normally would open fire at you, they don't shoot if they see a policeman following you. If you kill the cop(s), they start shooting again."

• Kicked In The Wang
  I realize I've posted a lot on the whole Wang topic but rathstar did a pretty good job summing it all up that I really couldn't resist posting it:

  "I just got the Wang car bonus on level 2, and I didn't see any mention of it on G!, so I figured I'd give you the details if you're interested.  Basically you have to find and enter the 8 'magic Wang cars' in the level.. Each one has a number on the top, 1 through 8. each time you enter a magic Wang car, you get teleported to Wang's car lot, and when you enter the last one, the parking lot is filled with some awesome vehicles, and you get something like $100,000 for your trouble.

  So where are the cars?

  1: Dominatrix, on the northeast side.  You have to jump from crate to crate until you get to a crate that has a path south to car #1.

  2: Mobile RV, east of the red phones.  Take a fast car and drive it to the red phones, then drive east until you see a jump over the water. Take the jump and you'll land on an island with car #2.

  3: Near the prison.  The block that's just north of the prison has a jump across the water.  Take the jump and you'll land on a long island with car #3.

  4: Stromberg.  The south highway has a median gutter that you can drive in from the east side.  Drive in the gutter and keep going until you see a peninsula to the south. Turn south there and you'll see that there's a tunnel to car #4.

  5: Near the Mall.  On the map, you can see that from the mall there are a series of catwalks that start in the middle of the mall, then go up, right, down, down, and left.  Follow all these catwalks to car #5.

  6: Xenoton.  Take the Zaibatsu ramp to just before Guntersville  then to the south there's an opening in the building.  Drive through the opening to car #6.

  7: Xenoton.  Take the Zaibatsu ramp again. This time, when the ramp starts going up, stay straight.  At the turn, there is a ramp going north.  Take the ramp and you'll land on a building.  Head left to car #7.

  8: Arbo.  Head north on the long north-south highway.  At some point, the southbound section raises up a bit.  There is an opening under there that you can get in heading west to car #8.

  That's all of it.  It's a very fun bonus to get, since it gives you a tank, a special agent car with machine guns, a fire truck with a flame-thrower mounted on it, etc. good luck."
   

Site Updates <8:40 PM CST - schu>
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in the US and I probably won't update.  If I find a few spare moments and my parents computer is cooperating I might do a mini-update, but most likely the next update will be late Friday night or early Saturday morning depending on when I get back to my apartment (my parents live 125 miles away so its not just down the block or anything :) )...

GTA Zone: When will the official tools like the map editor be released?
Colin: There will be some nice goodies on the gta2.com homepage soon.

GTA Zone: When will you release the first patch?
Colin: Also soon. We´re looking for bugs and errors yet...

Thanks to chriZ and GTA Zone for sending this in.

GTA2 Adverts In Manchester <7:40 PM CST - schu>
Matt sent in the following message about GTA2 adverts on busses in Manchester:

Something I noticed while I was up in Manchester today (in the REAL world, that is :) ) All the double decker buses displaying the GTA2 advert along the side - which is basically the 'STEAL THIS GAME' slogan along the length of the bus with the GTA2 logo slapped on the end. Anyhow just about all these ad's have now had the word 'CENSORED' in red text painted over the word 'STEAL'.  I couldn't help but find it amusing after reading about the banning of the movie in the flicks and it looks to me like a dig at the body behind the flick censoring, but then I have a warped perception of life so make of it what you will.

 
Ishani's GTA2 Utils <7:40 PM CST - schu>
Ok, I've got the Power Manager and two versions of the Saved Game Editor.  I've added em all to the GTA2 Tips & Cheats section.  Egg wrote in about Ishani's site and commented that ishani.com is hosted by 3dluvr.com which is also down.  Thanks to Mundeep, Greg, A11-99.x01, and Rhys for sending in the files.

Saved Game Editor:

• GTA2_svge10a.zip (26k) - version 1.0a
• GTA2_svge11b.zip (27k) - version 1.1b

Power Manager:

• GTA2_pwrmgr10a.zip (12k)

Gameboy GTA Comments <7:40 PM CST - schu>
Apparently not everyone is impressed with GTA for Gameboy.  I've gotten a few positive emails on it with the only gripes being the controls, but ILLSPIRIT has a different opinion:

"I haven't been doin too much in the GTA area recently.  I still don't have a computer that will run 2, and the original seems to be a dying breed.  I did however get GTA for Gameboy tho.... and its awful.  I wasn't expecting it to be as good as the PC version or anything, but, uuuhng, its hard to explain.  For starters, there's no sort of physics involved with the car handling... All the cars go the same speed, with almost instant acceleration, and no sort of sliding in the turns whutsoever.  Again, I wasn't expecting much, but even Mario and Tetris games have better physics on Gameboy.  The worst thing has to be the lack of active things.  Its not uncommon to walk around for 5 minutes without seeing a single car or pedestrian.  I'm guessing the reason for both of these problems is the fact that they put the ENTIRE maps from the original game in there.  This is about the only thing that impressed me, but considering the size of the maps, that's probably where 98% of the available RAM goes.  I just want to know why they didn't make new, smaller maps, that left more room for things like action and control (plus the old maps are just that, old!)."

Gameboy GTA still hasn't shown up in any of my local stores so I don't have it yet.

Help Wanted (GTA Nation)