GTA Remastered Trilogy (GTA3/San Andreas/Vice City) - ah sh*t, here we go again

[Sprite Machine]

On 09/10/2021 at 02:11, Majora said:

They were great achievements at the time but I have absolutely no interest in replaying any of these in 2021. Things have moved on so much, I can't imagine them feeling anything other than shockingly dated. They were ropey as fuck  even at the time and mainly got by on sheer ambition, atmosphere and and scale. Problem is that the scale and ambition of those games is nothing special these days.

 

Honestly, who is going to want to play GTA3 in particular for more than about 10 minutes?

Depends what they've done to them. If the controls (and particularly the targetting) have been modernised, and they've put some of the sequels' features back in (motorbikes, shooting out tyres, flying through windscreens) it might be worth playing through again. From what I recall, GTAIII had an excellent city, structurally the best level design of all three games, I'd say.

[Steve McQueef]

22 hours ago, Fused gamer said:

The cars were off centre in 4 and always bugged the crap out of me.

IV is the only one where I tried to use bikes as much as possible, as the cars cornered like a fucking bar of soap on a wet road. 

[Popo]

13 hours ago, Boozy The Clown said:

Greedy Thieving Arseholes

Is that the name of your GTA Online crew? 

[Madness]

10 hours ago, Sprite Machine said:

Depends what they've done to them. If the controls (and particularly the targetting) have been modernised, and they've put some of the sequels' features back in (motorbikes, shooting out tyres, flying through windscreens) it might be worth playing through again. From what I recall, GTAIII had an excellent city, structurally the best level design of all three games, I'd say.

 

III is, to this day, still the only GTA where I properly learnt the map layout because I fuckinnn' rinsed that game as a kid. Especially the first island, I could find my way around there blindfolded. I wasn't good enough at games to progress very far beyond that. But what a gaming experience - still my fave of the trilogy. Running around the city with a baseball bat, sniping random civilians, spawning tanks and going on rampages, and then randomly just stealing a taxi and driving properly around the city picking up fares. And then killing my passengers once they'd paid me. Good times. 

 

Vice City was good (and the gameplay improvements welcomed!) but I wasn't alive in the 80s so didn't get the nostalgia for the time period (and a lot of the drug references flew over my head, I was a 12 year old from a rural town, I didn't really know what cocaine really was let alone had seen Scarface).

 

And then San Andreas regrettably lost me a bit as I was in my mid-2000s, greebo, "rap music is crap" phase so didn't really see the appeal of the mid 90's hip-hop influenced setting. Obviously I've gone back since and really enjoy it now, but for me the nostalgia value is all in GTA3. I really remember the internet (or at least the GamesRadar forum, where I spent all my time) really hating the "gangsta" setting of SA. It's a testament to how gaming culture has moved on that that sort of thinking isn't really mainstream any more and lots of games have black leads now without it being a problem. 

[Fierce Poodle]

I assume this will have updated controls, mid-mission save points and GTAV-quality graphics?

[Floshenbarnical]

6 hours ago, Steve McQueef said:

IV is the only one where I tried to use bikes as much as possible, as the cars cornered like a fucking bar of soap on a wet road. 

it is known

 

i remember reading a review that gushed about feeling the weight of the vehicles and how you could hear the suspension creak as you ran over potholes and how Niko felt like a real person to control and would lean into corners as he ran and I thought it sounded sweet

 

then I played it and it all felt shit, like the gravity had been turned up to 1.5x

[Vimster]

Plus didn't you have to tap-run everywhere because Nico's walking speed was slower than a very cold glacier?

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

1 hour ago, Fierce Poodle said:

I assume this will have updated controls, mid-mission save points and GTAV-quality graphics?

Pffft....

[Gigawatt]

Any 3rd person game that doesn’t control like Returnal is dead to me now. 

[Dudley]

Yes but imagine going back to the start of GTA : SA every time you died.

[Steven]

On 11/10/2021 at 19:53, Fierce Poodle said:

I assume this will have updated controls, mid-mission save points and GTAV-quality graphics?

 

If they just did that to Vice City on its own it would be better than three half-arsed cash grabs. Be nice to have a game that let you try different things like that again. After RDR2, I can't say I'm that excited about their future stuff right now.

[marsh]

I'm so old I'm fucked if I can remember half of the shit I've played, let alone something from a trilogy 20 years ago.

 

I'm going to lap that shit up like never before come Christmas!

[p1nseeker]

You'll have forgotten how really, really dated they look now. 

[marsh]

44 minutes ago, p1nseeker said:

You'll have forgotten how really, really dated they look now. 

 

They were still good games though, and to the retro gamer in me that thinks what gta has become is a load of utter bollocks, why not? They should still hold up with a bot of spit and polish...

 

Simpler times.

 

[FishyFish]

Despite my memory being shit for important stuff I need to remember, I can still recall that Gary Numan's Cars was on the radio the first time I got in a car in Vice City.

 

Gary Numan's Cars will proabbly be missing from the soundtrack in the new versions but I still have my Vice City CD boxset If I want the nostalgia hit.

[Eighthours]

In GTA III, I remember either being able to block off the entranceway to the Mafia boss's house at the top of the hill with a bunch of cars before triggering the final big mission that took place before the second island (I think it was at that point in the story, anyway), or at least having enough time after triggering it to do so before all the enemy cars came up to kill me. It created an awesome kill zone where I could pick them off. This felt like me solving the mission the way I wanted to by coming up with a plan, which is a feeling that's been lost in the much more scripted games since San Andreas dropped. I remember the first time it felt like control had been taken away from me in GTA - there's an early mission in SA where you have to chase after a biker. It's a cool chase on motorbikes up loads of stairs in the hills. It's fun, and clearly Rockstar wanted me to see all the cool stuff they'd built in it, but the illusion was broken somewhat by the fact that you can't kill the biker until you're 'allowed' to by the game. I certainly miss the more sandboxy elements of some of GTA III's missions - having that with hopefully much better visuals and tighter controls is enough for me to consider buying the trilogy.

 

I also remember preview coverage of GTA IV going into the freedom offered by that game, but that only really showed up in a very small number of missions, including ones the journos just 'happened' to play at the preview event.

[bear]

I'm sure the multi-billion dollar corporation doesn't particularly need me to stand up for them but we haven't seen anything beyond a logo and most people seem certain that Take 2 are going to do a piss poor job with this whole project. I'm don't know why that seems to be the case. 

 

 

[Harsin]

The fact they haven't even shown a pixels worth of a game that's coming out in the next two months certainly screams quality product.

[Fry Crayola]

I wouldn't be expecting too much. High resolution, a bit of texture scaling, some undesirable soundtrack changes, and probably still not capturing that delicious orange haze that only seemed to exist on the PS2 version of San Andreas.

 

If there's to be any gameplay refinements at all, the only thing I'd ask for is modern twin stick controls. That'd immediately make this something I'd love to play. With the older control set, well, I've still got the original games and haven't gone back to them in the last 15 years, and can't see myself doing so now.

[Harsin]

As even their modern games feel like you're controlling Mr Blobby most of the time, it's probably a bit optimistic to expect much of the new controls.

[FishyFish]

44 minutes ago, Eighthours said:

In GTA III, I remember either being able to block off the entranceway to the Mafia boss's house at the top of the hill with a bunch of cars before triggering the final big mission that took place before the second island (I think it was at that point in the story, anyway), or at least having enough time after triggering it to do so before all the enemy cars came up to kill me. It created an awesome kill zone where I could pick them off.

 

I remember doing the same thing. Similarly in Vice City, you could cheat on the race missions by parking vehicles on the route to block your competitors. It's a shame that persistence of placed objects was lost in the later games.

[Steven]

Their stuff now reminds me of that one kid who always told everyone where to stand and who shoots who first when playing soldiers. The one who wanted you to have fun as long as it was his fun.

[Vimster]

47 minutes ago, Harsin said:

The fact they haven't even shown a pixels worth of a game that's coming out in the next two months certainly screams quality product.

This. If Rockstar had made any significant changes they'd be in full-on PR mode by now showing off everything that's new and amazing. No, this is just like when Capcom put Resi 4 on a new platform, do the barest of work, slip it out there with no fanfare. Quietly make sure these games are available wherever. 

[RubberJohnny]

I'd be fucking overjoyed at all of these posts that suggest rllmuk has finally cottoned onto remakes and remasters being absolutely cynical pandering projects that just represent the easiest money ever.

 

But you just know it's the usual anti-Rockstar thing that this place has had going on since GTAV and they'll be back to going like this the next time someone announces a 90s game or something "arcade-style":

 

[T Pot]

48 minutes ago, Fry Crayola said:

orange haze that only seemed to exist on the PS2 version of San Andreas.

 

I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that it was intentional as the PS2 couldn't run the game without nasty popup, so they added the haze to hide it.

[Fry Crayola]

RubberJohnny's got some nerve, he's been reposting the same thing since before records began.

[T Pot]

It's a reddit rumour / leak, but these bits of info have started floating out there:

 

• Game is running on Unreal Engine. Rockstart have a tool to port from RenderWare to Unreal
• Will have upscaled textures.
• Faces on models have been redone / modernised
• Hands will now have individual fingers
• Removal of pre-baked lighting to something more modern. Raytracing isn't mentioned. 
• Damage model on vehicles has been updated to be more dynamic
• Smoother / better animations in cutscenes

 

[Fry Crayola]

Just now, T Pot said:

Hands will now have individual fingers

 

I'm out.

[Steven]

23 minutes ago, T Pot said:

Hands will now have individual fingers

 

[Protocol Penguin]

3 hours ago, FishyFish said:

Despite my memory being shit for important stuff I need to remember, I can still recall that Gary Numan's Cars was on the radio the first time I got in a car in Vice City.

 

Gary Numan's Cars will proabbly be missing from the soundtrack in the new versions but I still have my Vice City CD boxset If I want the nostalgia hit.

Tangentially from this, wasn’t Vice City’s scenario remarkably novel back in 2002, daring even? Rather different to now, given that the whole ‘80s throwback theme has since become a stale cliché in this post Stranger Things world.