Like many GTA fans, I was disappointed by the recently released Definitive Edition remasters of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. The choppy frame rate on PS5 alone is enough to make me not want to play them in their current state—not to mention the bugs, questionable artistic decisions, and how the distinctive atmosphere of the originals seems to have been lost in translation. One of the best things I can say about them is that they inspired me to replay GTA 4, which I am having a wonderful time 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:rediscovering. But I don't think the remasters are all bad. The negative heavily outweighs the positive, and I'm not saying this stuff makes up for all the problems, but here are a few things I think they actually do quite well.
Lighting and reflections
The remasters run on the Unreal engine, which means these early 3D games can now take advantage of modern lighting, reflections, and post-processing effects. Having real-time light sources💧 that realistically illuminate the environment and objects around them brings a lot of extra fidelity to the world. When the lighting, location, and time of day are just right, the remasters can look pretty damn good.
Vice City
In the remasters, San Andreas and GTA 3 have sadly been stripped of the distinctive colour grading that was an important part of their atmosphere. ꦜVice City, however, is a massive improvement over the original, with gorgeous purple-tinged sunsets and vibrant afternoon sunshine elevating the luxurious 1980s vibe. Artistically, this is easily the highlight of🎐 the trilogy. The city has never looked better.
The countryside
The rural corners of San Andreas have had a similarly successful makeover. Now when you venture into areas like Back O' Beyond, it feels appropriately dense, wild, and remote. Realistic foliage has been borrowed from GTA 5 and sprinkled around the countryside, which makes these parts of the map look much more convincing. The absence of that familiar mist does strip away some of these locations' spooky atmosphere, though.
Checkpoints and autosaves
Back in the early 2000s, I was happy to butt my head repeatedly against difficult missions. But now, with more limited free time and a pile of shame the size of Mt. Chiliad, I'm delighted autosaves and mission checkpoints were added to the remasters to soften the challenge a little. Some purists may object, but game design has changed a lot in 20 years, and those frustrating difficulty spikes feel like a relic of the past.
Increased draw distance
This is a double-edged sword. In the air above San Andreas, the infinite draw distance is a disaster. You can see all three cities at once, and the ocean squared off in the distance. The world feels tiny, and I hope some kind of atmospheric haze is patched in. But on foot, it's the opposite. Being able to see all the way to the end of a street, and skyscrapers looming in the distance, brings a nice sense of scale to the cities.
Interior details
Interiors like the barbershops of San Andreas and the mall in Vice City have been dramatically improved by the addition of extra clutter and details. Some of this has been lifted from GTA 5, which has resulted in some anachronisms, like a 2010 bottle of wine spotted in 1992-set San Andreas. But compared to the lifeless, empty interiors of the originals it's a notable improvement, bizarre temporal anomalies aside.
UI upgrades
The addition of GTA 5-style radio and weapon selection wheels in all three games is a nice touch. I also like how the game slows down when you're switching between radio stations, because I was forever smashing into stuff in the originals as I searched the airwaves for a song I liked. The new GPS system, which calculates the quickest route to an objective marker, is also handy, especially for those long San Andreas drives.
But these things aside, GTA: The Trilogy still needs a lot of work. It would be remiss of Rockstar and developer Grove Street Games not to address the many issues players have raised—ideally in the form of a large and significant patch. There's really no reason for remasters of 20-year-old games not to run smoothly on next-gen consoles. Even so, fighting through the issues, I'm still having a lot of fun revisiting San Andreas. This is Rockstar's most 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:ambitious game, and even though it's aged quite a bit, you can still feel that energy. But still, I hope this trilogy eventually gets the TLC it deserves.