Editor's Note: In part 1 of Grand Theft Auto DNA, we explored how vehicles and driving physics evolved over the GTA series. Today, we discuss the role of sandbox environments like Liberty City and San Andreas.

Playing a Grand Theft Auto game is a lot like observing an ant farm. The AI-controlled citizens of Rockstar North's worlds drive around, obey traffic laws or blow red lights, loiter on the sidewalk to panhandle and gab with friends, and throw fisticuffs after getting into a fender bender at the intersection of Columbus and Jade. I've spent hours in each GTA sandbox just driving around, marveling at how alive each world feels.

Read more: Setting the bar for open-world games »

Editor's Note: In part 1 of our Grand Theft Auto DNA, we dissect the driving system in GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA 4 to understand how driving evolved over the course of those series, and how it should work in the upcoming GTA 5.

In August 2001, Sony's PlayStation 2 celebrated its first birthday with little fanfare. More a glorified DVD player than a hot-ticket game machine, the PS2 lacked a system seller, industry jargon for a game so popular that gamers plunked down hundreds of dollars on a console just to experience that one game. Two months later in October, Rockstar North filled the void with Grand Theft Auto 3, an open-world romp where players could hijack cars, splatter pedestrians, treat traffic jams like impromptu destruction derbies, and wage crime sprees.

Read more: What made the early games great »

As you wait for Rockstar to drip-feed more information on the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 5, you can pay a visit to the series' earlier skewed representation of California. A PS2 Classics release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is coming to the PlayStation Store with tomorrow's update.

Read more: Likely to cost $10 »

It's been over seven years since Rockstar put San Andreas on the digital map. And like the Hollywood denizens parodied in Rockstar's games, the city only looks better with age. YouTube user CreativityZone has recreated the Grand Theft Auto V debut trailer entirely in the San Andreas engine, and it gives us a good idea of how far technology has come.

Little may be known about the upcoming sequel (you can read our theories here), but one thing is very clear: this is a much, much prettier game.

Watch: Side-by-side comparison »

Mac gamers will get their murderous mitts on Rockstar's classic open-world murder training tools Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas "most likely later this year," the developer has revealed in a fan Q&A.

Read more »

The "Games on Demand" section of Microsoft's digital distribution platform Games for Windows Live "will soon be the home of day-and-date game releases from the industry's biggest names," the company declared today.

Alongside the day-and-date releases, which kicked off today with Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands PC, the company will be adding more games to the online catalog, including those that don't utilize Games for Windows Live functionality. Read more »

Continuing the "short and fast sales" of Steam's Rockstar Discount Week, the digital distribution outlet has briefly taken 75% off Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas PC, making it $4.99.

This particular discount will run for the next four hours, until 11am PST on April 29, 2010.

The company has been running such temporary discounts all week--join the Rockstar Community Group on Steam for notification as they kick off--with the week also bringing a half-off discount on the thirteen-game Rockstar Collection, making it $42.49.