Three weeks ago, Rockstar Games and Grove Street Games released Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. When the remastered trilogy first was announced, many in the GTA community felt uncertain of the decision. Despite, 2K, Activision, and EA doing great jobs with their remasterings (Mafia Trilogy, Crash Bandicoot & Spyro Trilogy, and Mass Effect Legendary Edition), Rockstars track record for remasterings had yet to be proven. In the last decade, Rockstar released HD enhancements of Bully Scholarship Edition and L.A. Noire; both games were adequate ports, however, Rockstar’s and Grove Street Games’ history with GTA ports has been lackluster.
What to Prepare For?
When the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition was first announced, we were excited. Would Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas be remastered using the Grand Theft Auto 5 engine? Would they still bring the same nostalgic feeling as they did twenty years ago? After spending a good amount of time with each game, the easy answer is no. So what went wrong? Why do these games not live up to their previous reputations? One easy answer is how the games were designed. All three “Remastered” games are enhanced ports of the android and iOS games. These ports are considered horrible renditions of the games and have made for a horrible starting point.
Going into Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, we knew that graphics were not the games’ selling point. Prior to the Trilogy’s release, graphics for the upcoming game were released. These images revealed that the Trilogy would have modern lighting, an upgraded weather engine, and updated steering. Since the Trilogy’s release, it has been a hot topic of discussion. PC gamers lost all access to the game for days and a variety of bugs made the game unplayable for many.
So before we dive into the actual review, let’s answer the question on everyone’s mind. Should you buy Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition? At this moment, the clear answer is an astounding no! So let’s dive into our review of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition and why you should wait on picking it up.
New Features
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition offers a variety of new features including an autosave feature and mission replay capability. The autosave feature makes sure you no longer lose most gameplay data if the game crashes. This is a great feature to have especially since the game crashed or bugged out on us on multiple occasions. You can see the game crash coming because the world and character animations will start to get sluggish. Thankfully, the autosave will bring you back to whatever mission you were previously working on. Hope to a high power that you weren’t doing an optional mission.
The Mission Restart feature allows the player to restart the mission if they fail it. This can be triggered either by dying, getting busted, or failing a mission’s parameters. The Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition lacks checkpoints so you will have to replay the mission in its entirety. For those who have previously played a Grand Theft Auto, most missions within the game are rather short but some can be annoyingly long. Each mission still holds true to its roots but with the updates, some feel rather pointless while others feel even more difficult.
The game does feature an updated system for certain weapons allowing the player to lock on and rotate between enemies; this feature is not available to all weapons. Additionally, it is not always executed correctly. Sometimes you may want to back up and shoot. Instead, you will end up shooting into the air rather than at your target. Other guns will make you remain stationary despite previous versions of the game allowing you to move.
Gameplay Issues
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition reunites players with the characters they know and love. Sadly, these characters have not aged like a fine wine. Some character lines hit closer to home than they did in prior years. Some lines are considered politically incorrect or risque by modern standards. Each mission still feels the same narratively but completing some feels more like a chore than a fun or challenging activity. The game prohibits the use of cheats if you want to earn any trophies or achievements. This ruins one of the things that made Grand Theft Auto a fun and memorable experience.
Steering in Grand Theft Auto is still atrocious and the Trilogy is no exception if not worse. The driving controls in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition feels as if you are driving on a phone rather than on a console. Cars will easily flip and sometimes bug out. This is only just one of the bugs we experienced during our playthrough. Missions would end dramatically for a variety of unexplained reasons.
A mission could have the goal of destroying a transport vehicle but the vehicle can fall in the water and you fail the mission. An enemy could die but if you didn’t do the job you fail. You can kill an enemy and die in the process and still pass. The game has no consistency other than its predefined requirements. In a mission where you have to take someone out, you cannot kill them until they get to the desired location. On numerous occasions, we failed a mission because the AI took itself out.
Story
If you are playing the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition to re-live the nostalgic moments, may we recommend just playing it on your original device or on PC with an upscaler. The story still feels the same and you can still connect with the main characters’ struggles and tribulations but the game’s issues can overpower nostalgia. The game still plays like it did on the PS2 and Xbox for the most part but driving is definitely more sensitive. When it comes to GTA 3 and Vice City, it means there is a high chance you will flip your car or end up swimming with the fishes.
If you have yet to play any of the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy games, they are worth visiting at least once. The story is memorable and can be comedic at times but you can find a lot of the tropes in criminal uprising movies. Some of the more risque things have been taken out of the game such as the Hot Coffee interaction. If you have a desire to see the story, it would be less frustrating to watch a playthrough of it than to play through it yourself, at least until the game is updated.
Graphics / Audio / Controls
The game’s lighting and weather engine make the game unplayable at times. Although Grove Street Games has removed the fog and updated some of the buildings, the game’s lighting is abysmal. In some cutscenes, the lights and shadows will often block out or hide characters. Cars, pedestrians, and other objects will randomly appear either in the distance or directly in front of you. Pedestrians will often jump randomly and sometimes deliberately into traffic. These spawns and interactions can make life difficult for the player especially when trying to remain inconspicuous or avoid cops’ attention. Speak of Cops attention, the game’s Cop AI can be buggy. A cop can hit your car and you still get a wanted level. Sometimes you can hit the cop and nothing would occur. You can even run over multiple citizens in front of a cop and they won’t even bat an eye.
In addition to poorly updated character designs, some cars have been enhanced differently and it clearly shows. Some car interactions can have unforeseen consequences that can make for comical or devastating results. Modders have done a better job making enhancing the characters compared to Grove Street Games attempts. The Trilogy does have issues with loading cutscenes; at times character models will not move or there will be no audio. So it is important to turn on subtitles. Rockstar taking out some of the beloved songs also make the game less than stellar; yes we know that copyrights exist, but hearing certain songs can bring back some of the memorable experiences.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition‘s controls remain mostly the same as the original. Steering in the game can be a bit of a headache and running can be temperamental. For a 3rd person shooter, its controls are definitely better than the original Gears of War and still feel better than Battlefield 2042.
Replayability
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition may have been made to envoke nostalgic feelings but instead feels like a cheap cash grab. If you have played through these games previously, it will feel more like a hurdle you have to jump over than a stroll down memory lane. Replaying the game a second time will feel more like a job than visiting an old friend. Even though you can play some missions in a different order, the ending will remain the same. Sadly, just trying to play through this game again was an exhausting experience.
The Trilogy does have a variety of side visions to do like car delivery, “Icecream Sales”, or Vigilante missions. These can earn you more money or stats boosts to make your life easier. The hidden packages will also give you easier access to weapons and body armor. Whether you want a fat CJ or Ripped CJ or just want to fly an airplane into a little old lady, there is always something to do in GTA. The game remains the same, but the impact it makes is minimal.
Original San Andreas
Verdict
Overall, we wanted to like Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition but a lack of updated graphics, gameplay bugs, bad weather, and crashes detracted from the experience. Although you could restart a mission if you failed, you would have to choose between losing your progress or jumping back into the mission without a break. Sometimes, losing your weapons and armor feels better than having to redo the same missing again and again. There were numerous occasions where something would go slightly wrong and we’d have to start from scratch.
If Rockstar decides to update the game and do it justice, then it will be worth picking up. Otherwise, we would highly recommend skipping the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. If you are interested in playing The Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, we’d recommend waiting until it goes on sale. A 2GB update has been released to fix multiple bugs within the GTA Trilogy.
A copy of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition was provided for review purposes.
