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[Digital Foundry] Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Definitive Edition Revisited

Draugoth

Gold Member
Big improvements since launch




Rightfully receiving a critical mauling at launch, we thought it was high time that we revisited the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Definitive Edition - and we're glad that we did. While artistic decisions are still somewhat questionable, there's not doubt at all that we've seen genuine improvements across the board. Oliver Mackenzie has the story.
 
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AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Stiiiiiiiill waiting for the next set of patch notes. If they are significantly shorter than than 1.04 I might jump in, otherwise it implies they still have a ways to go.
 

Kuranghi

Member
Watching now, seems like progress but as The Cockatrice The Cockatrice says it will never be what it should have been. Funny you mention Mafia: Definitive Edition, I just finished that a few months back and yes its so much better than this travesty regardless of what people say about the new character models and what not. I loved replaying that game.
 
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dotnotbot

Member
So you're saying gta ps2 games also sucked?
Because these are far and away better versions.
Series X of course.

Style of the refreshed graphics, especially character faces, looks like utter garbage. Original look of the game is leaps and bounds better despite being blocky, and that's coming from someone who 100%ed all 3 classic versions as recently as 3 years ago.

Add removed songs, awful recreation of in-game signs with stock fonts and spelling errors, everything being shiny like dog balls (beach in Vice City as a prime example), rounding up what shouldn't have been rounded, physics still not properly adjusted to 60 FPS in some cases. It's not "far and away" better unless framerate is everything for you.
 
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Knightime_X

Member
Style of the refreshed graphics, especially character faces, looks like utter garbage. Original look of the game is leaps and bounds better despite being blocky, and that's coming from someone who 100%ed all 3 classic versions as recently as 3 years ago.
Meh.
I don't like the blocky look much less the limitations of ps2.
After playing the SX version, I don't even want to return to the og pc release.

To each their own.
 

Laptop1991

Member
I'm glad they are fixing the games but the price is too high for me to pay for the games the state they are in at the moment, i loved San Andreas and Vice City at the time.
 
Watching now, seems like progress but as Cock says it will never be what it should have been. Funny you mention Mafia: Definitive Edition, I just finished that a few months back and yes its so much better than this travesty regardless of what people say about the new character models and what not. I loved replaying that game.
Who's cock?
 

LordCBH

Member
All the talk about the graphics and stuff, yet the major problem with the games for me is how easy they are now, rendering them pointless, at least for me.

What did they change thst made them easier? I haven’t played the new versions
 

dotnotbot

Member
What did they change thst made them easier? I haven’t played the new versions

As an example chase missions in San Andreas became much easier because the enemy is literally stopping and waiting for you as soon as you're out of sight. In the originals enemy would also wait a bit or slow down I think but overall it was much easier to fail those missions.
And in the missions where you're driving around with homies their accuracy is much better now.
They also added more time to the timer in the famous RC heli mission in Vice City, I'm not sure if any other timed missions were readjusted.
Also don't forget mini-games in San Andreas are now easier as they're ported from mobile version.
There are probably more examples than what I mentioned if you dive in deep into comparing those turds with originals.

Edit: just realised Vadim released his comparison over a month ago. In the first part he focuses mainly on graphics and wheather but I'm sure he'll cover other things like gameplay as well.
 
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Droxcy

Member
Cannot believe they massacred these games like that. It could've been done so well and properly done in GTA V engine or something but no this mobile cartoon shit horrible. Groove Street Games should've been shut down honestly.
 
You can't polish a turd.

This game will never be the definite version and like the previous HD ports will only serve to propagate vices it has against the originals, that in reality can't be resolved.
I think DF and 'Tubers have spent more time looking at the assets in the game than the entire team did for this slapped together project.
To be honest, Rockstar made a casting mistake, but it is a casting mistake due to wanting to spend as little as possible. So in a way, the developer they picked is both inept but also exploited. When you're a small studio you should never land something like this but I understand they couldn't say no. And because they're not industry leading by any standards they also lack talent to turn it around (which would require both talent and being insomniacs).

This is the studio they picked:

-> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_Street_Games

Who already knew GTA PS2 body of work and had already borked them all. People will remember them best by the X360 San Andreas port that sucked.

It was clear from the get go that this was a massive undertaking for them, and one that couldn't be polished enough for it to be good.

The result is actually better than their resume would make you assume seeing they managed to release their turd game in 8 platforms at once, I don't wish that on my worst enemy. So they did what they could, dumped assets and threw them into ue4, these being huge games means everything was automated as much as possible, and as little time as possible was spent with stuff like art direction and such.
 
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Glad I never put any money into those remasters. They should have just remade Vice City from the ground up. You can only polish a turd so much. Sorry, but the gameplay mechanics in those original 3D GTA games do not hold up and the graphical skin they threw over looks worse than the original. The company is worth billions and that is the crap they put out? Seriously why are they so damn cheap?
 

Kev Kev

Member
i played gtav for the first time a few months ago, and i gotta say, between my mediocre experience with that and how this trilogy remaster went... rockstar is coming off like a shit tier developer

i heard rdr2 was very good, but people said the same about rdr1 and i thought that game was just mediocre as well. maybe rockstar games just arent my thing...
 
Oh wow I never knew they actually already made better textures for the OG Xbox version.

The fuck wasn't that version used as the base for these demasters?

Smh
GTA doble pack (GTA3 and VC) on OG xbox felt like a real remaster. Higher resolution textures (up to 1024x1024) new and more detailed vegetation, more detailed character and car models (with dynamic reflections), better draw distance, higher quality sound and music with DD 5.1 support. Xbox version should be used as a base for this remaster, but it looks like rockstar dont care about preserving their games in the best possible way.

But moders did awesome work for them, do on PC mods for GTA 3 and VC ported almost everything from xbox version. Whats more people even improved GTA tragic performance thanks vulkan renderer, so now after so many years people can finally play this game at max settings and 60fps even on potato PC.
 
Modders reverse engineered the game and even ported them to Switch, Vita, etc, before Take-Two and Rockstar went nuts and sued them. Despite it requiring a legit copy of the PC version to begin with!
I have GTA 3 / VC / SA installed on my PSV and it's amazing what moders can do in their free time. I really dont understant why Rockstar fights with people who made their game more popular.
 
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