Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition (3/VC/SA remasters for current-gen)

[John Price]

Totally defective

GTA Trilogy chaos continues as ‘Hot coffee sex mini-game files’ reportedly uncovered | VGC

And they took it off the store because of this. So now nobody can play.

I was just getting into GTA III too.

 

[Beau Knows]

What a disaster

The source code was included in the game files, so were songs they couldn't get permission for, and somehow they allowed the hot coffee stuff to be included again despite how much money that cost them last time.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Disclaimer: I am a huge Grand Theft Auto fan and have owned and played every game in the franchise ever since the original top-down GTA came out back in ‘98 for the PS1. Sure, some of the games in the franchise are better than others but at the end of the day I love them all for various reasons. I also love “Bully” and “Manhunt” and have owned and beat those multiple times each as well.

Having said that, in a way I’m glad this “definitive trilogy” has been nothing short of a shitshow of comedic errors and backlash for Rockstar. Why?? Well because for a long time now Rockstar have needed a rude awakening/ a swift ego grounding back to reality after the massively successful launches of GTA V, RDR 2, and GTA Online. How come, you may ask?? It’s simple. It boils down to greed and their smugly egotistical way of thinking that no matter what they churn out (good or in this rare case…hilariously bad) that people are just going to blindly support them automatically. Even if it’s unplayable garbage like this. They’ve become about as greedy as EA. Almost.

Let’s face it, this disastrous launch shows exactly how little they really care about the games that helped transform them from little fish in the gaming world into the highly successful mega juggernaut of a company that they’ve been for many years now. Not to mention their blatant disrespect to all of us consumers (who loyally bought these original game upon their release all those years ago) by releasing this glitch-ridden half-assed mess.

At least they managed to get one thing right with this new trilogy…the name. Unfortunately the only true “Definitive” thing about this bundle is that it’s a definitive “f*** you” to longtime fans of the GTA franchise. Myself included. At a ridiculously priced $80 Canadian, I’m glad I held off on buying this.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Calling anything Definitive when you're cutting giant swaths of stuff from the games is certainly a decision that nobody could have possibly seen going poorly.

Huzzah for corporate greed. Do nothing to improve a product, jack up the price, wait for the profits to roll in. Rockstar really managed to go from the top of the heap to a company I want to see fail miserably over the course of the past decade.

 

[Blitzkrug]

GTA Online was the beginning of the end of what everyone loved about Rockstar.

Once they realized they had a cashcow they stopped giving a shit. Only reason Red Dead 2 wasn't shit was because a good chunk of the work was done on it before GTA Online became an absolute juggernaut.

 

[SniperHF]

Do nothing to improve a product

All the reasons for my lack of playing hardly any new games over the last half decade are readily apparent on the front page of this forum.

How many of the games listed are franchises and remakes? How many are actually well done?

 

[Osprey]

What a disaster

The source code was included in the game files, so were songs they couldn't get permission for, and somehow they allowed the hot coffee stuff to be included again despite how much money that cost them last time.

It's probably safe to say that this'll be the last time that Rockstar works with that particular studio. That said, it's still just as much Rockstar's fault because they should've checked that all of that stuff wasn't in the game, not to mention done extensive quality control and not released it in such a buggy state.

 

[Beau Knows]

All the reasons for my lack of playing hardly any new games over the last half decade are readily apparent on the front page of this forum.

How many of the games listed are franchises and remakes? How many are actually well done?

Not many aren't

Elden Ring: not part of a franchise, but essentially a spiritual successor to their previous games. Not out yet, but it looks great.

Cyberpunk 2077: not part of a franchise, but based on a tabletop game. It was a disaster.

Starfield: not out yet, but it's a Bethesda game, so it very well could be a mess.

 

[Blitzkrug]

All the reasons for my lack of playing hardly any new games over the last half decade are readily apparent on the front page of this forum.

How many of the games listed are franchises and remakes? How many are actually well done?

Mass Effect got a pretty significant upgrade in that series remaster. Overhauled the gunplay and other stuff to be more in line with the newer two games. Along with other stuff like integrating player creation options/actual updated models from the newer games too.

2 and 3 they just overhauled stuff like balance and boosted the framerate since neither of those games need much outside of small touch ups. and then of course including all the DLC and such.

That remaster was definitely worth it

 

[Dolemite]

Mass Effect got a pretty significant upgrade in that series remaster. Overhauled the gunplay and other stuff to be more in line with the newer two games. Along with other stuff like integrating player creation options/actual updated models from the newer games too.

2 and 3 they just overhauled stuff like balance and boosted the framerate since neither of those games need much outside of small touch ups. and then of course including all the DLC and such.

That remaster was definitely worth it

Agreed. Mass Effect remastered is the gold standard for game upgrades.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Agreed. Mass Effect remastered is the gold standard for game upgrades.

Easily. Mass effect 1 aged poorly and the remaster basically cleaned up everything that was wrong with it. It legitimately felt like a new game in the best way possible. 2 and 3 didn't need much work so all they had to do was upscale it and they both look better for it

It had a lot of love and care put into it since BioWare kinda needed it to breathe life back into the series. Which by all accounts it did. Far more than this pile of crap did

 

[Dolemite]

Here’s why you shouldn’t buy this. They missed stupid character skin bugs like this before releasing. This is the police station with the double ended dildo in the shower. It’s a great melee weapon.

Cyberpunk 2077: not part of a franchise, but based on a tabletop game. It was a disaster

They’re going to have a second act. They did the same thing with the Witcher 3, fixed it, and it became GOTY.

 

[Beau Knows]

They’re going to have a second act. They did the same thing with the Witcher 3, fixed it, and it became GOTY.

The Witcher 3 wasn't that bad though, and beneath the technical issues was an excellent game. That's not the case with Cyberpunk 2077, it's bad game and it's a buggy mess. They have a lot of work ahead of them to make that into a great game, it's already been a year.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Here’s why you shouldn’t buy this. They missed stupid character skin bugs like this before releasing. This is the police station with the double ended dildo in the shower. It’s a great melee weapon.






They’re going to have a second act. They did the same thing with the Witcher 3, fixed it, and it became GOTY.

Lmao if you actually believe that. All the patches in the world aren't fixing the deep core issues.

Nowhere near comparable to Witcher 3 since all the stuff people liked was there already, just buried under more technical/performance bugs

 

[Jovavic]

Did Rockstar have their C or D team code these? You'd think with the amount of money they have they would hire enough people to not have this problem.

 

[WaW]

I will say this. The vast majority of complaints for this remaster are for San Andreas. I played through 3 already and am on VC now. My only complaint with them are the crashes (PS5), which will likely be one of, if not the first thing patched.

From what I've seen for San Andreas though, the bugs and character models appear to be laughable. Whatever they did to "upgrade" the original didn't work all that well. I probably won't play that unless they put a fair bit of work into fixing its problems.

 

[Mikeaveli]

The Witcher 3 wasn't that bad though, and beneath the technical issues was an excellent game. That's not the case with Cyberpunk 2077, it's bad game and it's a buggy mess. They have a lot of work ahead of them to make that into a great game, it's already been a year.

Hard disagree there, the gameplay of Cyberpunk is miles ahead of Witcher 3.

 

[Osprey]

Did Rockstar have their C or D team code these? You'd think with the amount of money they have they would hire enough people to not have this problem.

Rockstar didn't do it. They outsourced it to Grove Street Games, a developer that almost exclusively works on ports, mostly for mobile games.

Grove Street Games (formerly War Drum Studios LLC) is an American video game developer based in Gainesville, Florida. It was founded in October 2007 by Thomas Williamson and Michael Owen. The company is known for developing mobile game ports, including several based on Rockstar Games properties.

 

[Osprey]

It has some impressive user scores at Metacritic:

XB1: Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition
PS5: Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition
PC: Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition

I didn't realize 'til now that it was possible to have an average score less than 1.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Rockstar didn't do it. They outsourced it to Grove Street Games, a developer that almost exclusively works on ports, mostly for mobile games.

You’d think with all their $$$ they’d have wanted to hire the best and not these D-league rejects.

 

[Osprey]

You’d think with all their $$$ they’d have wanted to hire the best and not these D-league rejects.

I would've even thought that they'd want to handle the remasters, themselves. It's only three of their most beloved games and the ones that made them big, after all. If they were too busy (on who knows what, maybe GTA6), OK, but the fact that they evidently didn't test it thoroughly before signing off on it is mind boggling. Someone at Rockstar should've said "this is not up to our quality standards" and thrown it back at the developer to patch it before release.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

I would've even thought that they'd want to handle the remasters, themselves. It's only three of their most beloved games and the ones that made them big, after all. If they were too busy (on who knows what, maybe GTA6), OK, but the fact that they evidently didn't test it thoroughly before signing off on it is mind boggling. Someone at Rockstar should've said "this is not up to our quality standards" and thrown it back at the developer to patch it before release.

Well said.

IIRC, I remember reading that the person who was in charge of quality control when III, Vice City, and San Andreas were made is no longer there.

 

[Osprey]

Rockstar Vows to Only Release Grand Theft Auto V From Now On

NEW YORK — Following the controversial and critical release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, Rockstar Games has pledged to only release new versions of their 2013 smash hit Grand Theft Auto V moving forward as a publisher.

“The people have spoken, and we’ve heard them,” said Sam Houser, president of Rockstar Games. “They’re not interested in these new versions of San Andreas and Vice City. They couldn’t care less, in fact. It just proves what we’ve known for years; players aren’t interested in the classics they played growing up, or even single player DLC that can extend the narrative campaign. They would just rather be playing GTA 5. We tried shaking up our formula and paying attention to something else, and everyone got really mad at us. We hear you loud and clear: just Five stuff from here on out. We’ve even put Six on the backburner for now.”

I take it that this site is like a tech version of The Onion.

 

[GreytWun]

Rockstar Vows to Only Release Grand Theft Auto V From Now On


I take it that this site is like a tech version of The Onion.

They can f*** right off if they put GTA VI on the back burner. GTA V popularity has already decreased and has a lower player base the past year.

 

[Osprey]

They can f*** right off if they put GTA VI on the back burner. GTA V popularity has already decreased and has a lower player base the past year.

In case you aren't familiar with The Onion, that's a made-up joke article.