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 »

Rockstar is releasing even more Grand Theft Auto on the PlayStation Network next week, because all those autos aren't going to theft themselves. This time it will come in the form of two spin-off PSP titles that were later turned into PS2 games, and are now being brought to download on the PlayStation 3.

Read more: $9.99 apiece »