Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition

[Maryokutai]

It's probably the same thing as with those pixel games, where the visual design and colour palette was developed and fine-tuned by testing the game on a CRT and the shortcomings actually adding to the visual flair. If you remove those, make everything super clean and clear and bump up the saturation it just tends to look a bit fake, like a facelift or something.

 

Depends on the game of course (FFXII looks damn fine in HD), but it's easier to notice the failures than the really good ones because you tend to take it for granted even though this shows it really shouldn't.

[one-armed dwarf]

'Old' graphics are underrated. We thought these PS2 GTA games looked like shit when the PS3 came out. Have you visited them lately? Get enough time and distance from them and they can wrap around to looking cool again, but for different reasons. Not all of the time, but some of the time.

 

Calling it 'Definitive Edition' is such a pile. Which of these versions of GTA will look better in another twenty years?

[mfnick]

3 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Calling it 'Definitive Edition' is such a pile.

Also the fact they have actually removed content (music) makes it far from definitive. The fact they’ve misspelled some of the joke names is just hilarious too, and that 9 over the 7. Just why? 

 

Agree with the rest regarding graphics too. Sometimes it would be better to just up res these old games and smooth out the framerate if you’re not doing a proper remame. There’s not actually much wrong with the old graphics, it’s just when they’re blown up on a 55” 4k screen they look rough.  I imagine on a old CRT they actually look pretty good still, but who’s got one of those lying around? They just need to actually check the aforementioned spellings of old scenery text. 

[Maryokutai]

There are definitely games from that generation that still look good today despite looking dated (Metroid Prime 1 & 2, FFXII, RE4) but I really wouldn't count GTA among those. In fact they didn't even look impressive back then, which is obvious in hindsight, as pulling off these massive open worlds on a PS2 surely must have a major impact on what they can do with character models, texture quality etc.

[one-armed dwarf]

It's less I'm saying that they were ever impressive, more that I don't think visuals like this are really as offensive as people might remember. Nor do they become improved by just slapping on a bunch of modern rendering techniques, instead it just has this feeling of 'nintendo hire this man' about it. It's the video game version of George Lucas' special editions (quite literally, as the old ones are gone now)

 

Like Vice City has plastic looking PS2 models right next to volumetric light sources and screen space reflections. It's uncanny. Even if the old games weren't splendid by the time's standards (which they weren't, it's why I avoided GTA3 at the time actually I thought it looked rubbish) the consistent look of those old games is very undervalued I think. At least until these remasters came out and look like the way they look

 

Also games like RE4 were striving for realism back then maybe, but they don't look real today. I don't find myself spotting as much of a difference between RE4 gamecube and GTA3 PS2 now. They look much closer to me now than they did back then. I'll accept that CRT probably makes them look better but even so I'm finding I'm not minding the presentation of SA on a 48 inch screen with the old graphics. Moreso it's the sound quality that annoys me,everyone is speaking through a tin of beans if not in a cutscene

[Maryokutai]

Ok, I get what you mean now. It's like those mods that put raytracing on random old games and make most of them look worse.

 

As for RE4 I think it is saved by its excellent character and monster models that manage to still look decent today. Capcom and also Konami PS2 era character modelling was out of this world, it's hard to believe Leon Kennedy, Heather Mason & Co. are from the same generation as Tommy "my-knees-animate-as-bad-as-my-face-looks" Vercetti.

[Whiskey_chaser]

This could be my favourite bug of recent memory...
 

 

[Maf]

That's so good

[one-armed dwarf]

I wonder if you can wiggle the car enough that it becomes the same size as the entire city. Then you can sequence break the game and get into your thin car in the first island and get out of your fat car in the third island

 

Neato

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Finally got my money back after being ghosted by R* for nearly a week, but I had to do it through xsolla instead

 

Suspect that they are either ghosting people on purpose to hope that they give up or they are inundated with so many requests that they are taking a long time to resolve them all.

 

Either way, what a haimes of a release, and it's deserved by them for rushing this pile of shit out expecting just cause its gta it should be fine

 

I wonder if and when they ever relist the old versions now

On 22/10/2021 at 14:02, Maf said:

 

You owe me 50 quid 

EDIT: Oh yeah, the price. I knew that was placeholder. £5 more expensive than I thought, £15 more expensive than what they should be 

 

IMO you owe me 50 quid now, cause the low expectations I was setting in the beginning of this thread somehow would have been better than what we actually got. So I'm blaming you for this

[Maf]

…

 

@shinymcshine still want to lend me that £55?

[shinymcshine]

1 hour ago, Maf said:

…

 

@shinymcshine still want to lend me that £55?

 

Nah, I've got a feeling you'll just blow it on an upgraded GPU rather than GTA.

[one-armed dwarf]

Rockstar have responded 

 

https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/393o373751k48k/a-note-from-the-rockstar-games-team-re-grand-theft-auto-the-trilogy-th?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=o_social&utm_campaign=gta-trilogy_announcement_update-20211119

 

I think the most notable thing here is they say now that they are adding the classic PC versions to the definitive edition as a bundle. I expected that to happen at some point but not this fast

 

Also updates coming to definitive, but they must know somewhat the well is a bit poisoned here.

 

Developers are being harassed over it, in particular tho it's not mentioned here there's been some real 4chan creepazoids out there digging stuff up on the female devs.

[DANGERMAN]

Quote

Hi everyone,

We want to provide an update regarding the unexpected technical issues that came to light as part of the launch of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition.

Firstly, we want to sincerely apologize to everyone who has encountered issues playing these games.

The Grand Theft Auto series — and the games that make up this iconic trilogy — are as special to us as we know they are to fans around the world. The updated versions of these classic games did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect.

We have ongoing plans to address the technical issues and to improve each game going forward. With each planned update, the games will reach the level of quality that they deserve to be.

A new Title Update is on the way in the coming days for all versions of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition that will address a number of issues. We will update everyone as soon as it is live.

In the meantime, it pains us to mention that we are hearing reports of members of the development teams being harassed on social media. We would kindly ask our community to please maintain a respectful and civil discourse around this release as we work through these issues.

While one of the goals of the Definitive Editions was to allow players to enjoy these games on modern platforms for many years to come, we also understand that some of you would still like to have the previous classic versions available for purchase.

We will be adding the classic PC versions of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas back to the Rockstar Store shortly as a bundle. Additionally, everyone who has purchased Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition for PC from the Rockstar Store through June 30, 2022, will receive these classic versions in their Rockstar Games Launcher library at no additional cost. We will update everyone as soon as these are back in the Rockstar Store.

Once again, we'd like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding while we work through these updates to ensure these games meet everyone's justifiably high standards.

Sincerely,
Rockstar Games

 

[Sly Reflex]

Put the cunts back on steam, you cranks.

[AndyKurosaki]

To translate:

“Dear customers we don’t give a flying fuck about.

We thought it was perfectly acceptable to punt out a totally broken, load of wank remaster, because it’s Xmas, and we want your money.

 

Apparently we’re utter fucking idiots, and don’t realise that there’s thing called the internet, which means that shit business tactics like this, get called out on. Constantly.

 

So we’d better do our fucking jobs, and make it actually half decent. We only charged you £50 for it, could have been worse, right?” 
 

Honestly, fuck the greedy cunts at Take Two. And fuck Rockstar as well. They used to have integrity. Now they’re a fucking joke.

[OCH]

It reminds me of when I worked at Woolworths. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas release day. We had a massive queue outside waiting for it, an hour before the shop opened. We weren't even a large branch. The GTA name has carried a lot of prestige for a long time now. It was inevitable, that it would go to their heads.

[one-armed dwarf]

I dont listen to the bombcast much nowadays but Jeff had some interesting thoughts on how low quality and shovelware the collection is, considering their (often OTT) penchant for perfectionism 

 

 

(Also does Jan live in a cupboard or something)

[HandsomeDead]

I think all zoomers live in cupboards.

 

It does seem like this collection was more of a Take Two thing I'd guess.  Rockstar aren't above doing something for the money but this quality of work is unlike them.

[AndyKurosaki]

I’ve seen people trying to defend Rockstar, that they didn’t make this piss poor port. But here’s the thing, it was their franchise. The old Rockstar would never have let something this shit go out. Now they’re too busy fucking remaking GTAV to care.