Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Definitive Edition Revisited: BIG Improvements Since Launch

[@4kking966]

The biggest slap in the face is calling these definitive after removing the originals from storefront. Unforgivable!

[@butterflydreamer9649]

This, I wanted to platinum the original games but now I can only do definitive edition /:

[@xTheReapersSpawn]

It's why, on some level, I always support piracy. Let me also be clear I've bought far more games than I have, "sailed the high seas". It helps balance the power toward the consumer when mega-corporations get scummy.

[@eben216]

that's why we called it "defective edition" for reason

[@KJgoKraazy_253]

I’m glad I bought all the originals off the store before they removed them

[@konstantinliebich9427]

I'm so proud I bought all three the moment they announced this 'definitive' junk xD

[@TrevorFlorence]

My biggest issue with these remakes is that the color-grading appears to have been completely lost which drastically changes the feel of VC and SA especially.

[@xentiment6581]

I was genuinely hoping for absolutely incredible GTA V color grading in SA DE and I was so pissed they used... Whatever this is.

[@lolcat]

@@caseypenk Nah, they're just based on the mobile versions which in turn are based on the PC versions which removed the PS2 shading. Would've been better if they just used the PS2/Xbox version as a base.

[@destroyermcw626]

Not for me

[@roberto1519]

It's sad when artistic direction is ignored.

[@Aqua_Xenossia]

Some of it seems to restore itself with the contrast cranked up, but I do wish they’d enable a toggle for the color grading(I was never a fan of SA’s aggressive pee-wash, personally).

[@ludoviajante]

It's just baffling that there are still problems at this point. We're talking about a remaster that sold 10 million copies in the first few weeks. Here in Brazil we grew up playing these games, but they will never see my money. And honestly I'm worried about the future of the franchise.

[@skyen85]

Hello stranger, good to see you here ;-)

[@nicholsonfile]

It'll be okay! It's just corporate art!

[@YaaSalty...0_o]

F*** modern gaming

[@isaac3045x]

Same. I'd hate to see my favorite franchise go down the shitter, but it's looking more and more likely.

[@MillVillage]

The main games aren't quickly thrown together ports of mobile ports of existing games.

[@mza4739]

Rockstar's biggest mistake was giving this job to a small mobile phone games developer. They should've put together a team from their own development studios that actually have experience with AAA games to handle the remasters.

[@aussieknuckles]

When I first flew the Hydra above the map in the Definitive Edition, I could not believe there was no fog and just how immersion breaking everything was. It's like it killed my childhood idea of how big the map was. Like a nightmare.

[@chunye215]

It suddenly feels like you opened the map in blender to edit it

[@dapaintbrush6965]

The fog was only there tho due to render distance issues back then. It was so you didn't seen things spwan in ever second

[@chunye215]

@@dapaintbrush6965 I highly doubt that. Who in their right mind would think it looks good without it? It's pretty clear to me the people who created the defective edition were developers, not artists.

[@dapaintbrush6965]

@@chunye215 no I mean back when it first came out years ago

[@chunye215]

@@dapaintbrush6965 yes, me too. Just because the PS2 couldn't draw the whole map at once doesn't mean the original designers would have done that if the system would've been able to. There's plenty of new games released today that use fog and darkness when they technically wouldn't need that from a performance perspective.

[@NonsensicalSpudz]

the fact they have a performance mode and fidelity mode just boggles my mind

[@タイラー-p9x]

I'm saying especially on ps5 and xsx

[@Itstwistedroots]

💯

[@JoeTurok]

Exactly! I mean for games that are close to 2 decades old, remastered in this form and can't even manage 4K 60 locked is an absolute joke. On the flipside, GTA V which recently got remastered for PS5 and Series X, looks and runs miles better than this turd.

[@luichinplaystation610]

This new gen is about how you want to see crap run But not the maximum experience

[@andremalerba5281]

Exactly! This should have been able to run at 1080p 60fps without drops on the PS4

[@babyjoker997]

I just can’t excuse the blatant disrespect Rockstar showed to it’s developers and the fans. For me it’s not a situation of when they fix it, rather they released a broken product near the holidays to ensure maximum sales and seemingly not for the sake of preservation and a love for the series that made them who they are, but for the sake of a quick buck. I’ll pass indefinitely but I really wish these things were treated with more care.

[@eagleeyeliz3417]

My gripe is that they still had Wardrum Studios handle it, they could have actually done the games justice if Rockstar didn’t give a less experienced studio like them an unrealistic deadline. Better yet why have the studio that at this point was known for messing up this exact job up years before do the remasters a second time?

[@adriantrusca1245]

You're just poor. I've bought them twice. I can afford it. I don't care how unoptimized they are. They're just fucking games. Pretty cheap ones. Now quit your bitching.

[@paul1979uk2000]

Got to agree, considering the killing they've made on the GTA franchise, they really should be doing far better on the remasters than this. It goes to show that they don't really care about the fans and as long as people keep buying, they will continue to not care. With the reputation of Rockstar going downhill the last few years, this is the first time I'm not interested in a new GTA game like GTA 6 when they release that but sadly, I know a lot of gamers will be so the publisher will continue to screw them over and also, with how GTA 5 online is going, I can only imagine how GTA 6 is going to go.

[@calebb7012]

The 2000s are long gone. The days of gameplay first in order to sell a product are dead. It's shareholders or nothing.

[@willw.1466]

Raging is like a sport to you people

[@V12BigBlock]

I remember back in 2001, i was in high school when GTA III came out, internet here back then was virtually non-existent and for the very few people that had it, it was so awful that some wasted weeks downloading both CDs, with no way of knowing if what they downloaded would even run. I still remember the excitement and anticipation of installing the game for the first time on a Riva TNT 2 system with 128 MBs or ram and playing all night, 6 hours felt like 16 minutes as the sun came up. So many good memories with these games, you could see the attention to detail and the technical challenges they had to overcome, to make this work. Your review is mild in criticism, there is no excuse for what they've done, no matter how you look at it. Mobile ports... let that sink in for a second, they used something that's not even in the same hardware class to "remaster" one of the biggest cult classics in gaming history and then had the audacity to sell this broken mess for 60 dollars! That's how much they care, they gave an understaffed, unexperienced studio, a series of this caliber to literally butcher, they didn't even bother to do it themselves, they just wanted to profit off the name... no words

[@eivorsin7642]

so true i used to pay $0.50 at cafe to play for 1 hour

[@Fidolorous]

Yes, even with these enhancements these versions are fundamentally broken and disrespectful to the original releases, should be not recommended at all.

[@fuckingpippaman]

TNT2 !?!?!?!? Were you able to play?!?!? I just gave up.... it was so choppy.... But i only had 64Mb of RAM though....

[@YaaSalty...0_o]

I have some words... f*** modern gaming!

[@V12BigBlock]

@@fuckingpippaman 30 fps low details at 640*480 on an ancient 15" CRT, oh the nostalgia

[@Razinus]

My grandfather used to tell me: "It takes at least 5 years to build up a name for yourself...and 5 minutes to destroy it" I lost interest in this product and starting to lose it in Rockstar.

[@MTNDEWGANG]

GTA+ subscription service, "Expanded and enhanced", still not having dedicated servers, game breaking bugs and glitches that they can't be bothered to fix, instead they patch money glitches and harmless clothing glitches, oribtal cannons, god mod griefers, pretending that red dead online doesn't even exist: allow us to introduce ourselvws

[@TheExileFox]

The GTA San Andreas patch 3.0 is when I gave up on TakeTwo's offers (since they're basically owners of Rockstar) This patch broke missions by blatantly cutting out random stuff from the radio/soundtrack and that got the wrong music in some places, no music and sometimes it just crashed the game

[@brunoglopes]

The original phrase is from Warren Buffett and is even more impactant: "It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."

[@Stampistuta]

True. And you just know we’ll never get another Red Dead game because its online mode wasn’t a cash cow despite the campaign being incredible.

[@PPablinho]

With the rumours about GTA VI Rockstar is trying to be cool again, a lot of people seems to forgot the mess of the Definitive Edition and are believing that the old Rockstar is back again, but for me Rockstar is like Konami where people still believe they're gonna release a new Silent Hill even after Kojima's departure

[@SakaYeenVI]

Shoutout to the modders who actually have the skill and passion to make a true, appealing upscale of these games, many years before this monstrosity was even conceived of. Ray Liotta rest his soul look what they did to his masterpiece.

[@NFSBeast2365]

😢

[@MishaFlower]

Modders be like (Adds water on street, Enable performance intensive ENB. 16k textures that lag your computer. Done fixed)

[@milosstojanovic4623]

That was not a good thing, because engine had mega limitations in terms of how much of 'quality' it could take. GTA V in that regard is better, but still has limitations, i tested it. I added some collection of cars and world textures and it was semi stable, i continued adding some more vehicles that they did not replace, and after some point engine broke. It broke because GTA V engine probably has some hardcoded limit of amount of larger textures it could process (especially if large number of vehicles are spawning). It manifests the same as GTA SA when replacing too much vehicles, world textures are disappearing, or unable to spawn some vehicles because of already presented large amount of high-res vehicles or other textures.

[@BsERoss]

The issues in these games are unforgivable. Even after 6 months, there's problems...

[@horsestruggles780]

I played through san andreas. Didnt encounter issues, had a great time.

[@TheManWhoTypes]

@@horsestruggles780 a mobile port is complete bull crap. How in the hell does red dead redemption 2 run at 30 fps yet this trilogy can't manage to run at 60 fps in quality mode.

[@Madmetalmaniac42069]

Its not even six months technically. They technically had nearly 20 years to get this shit right, and they just couldn’t be asked.

[@kwedl]

@@horsestruggles780 "Works fine on my machine" Just stop already, people like you are the reasons why we get horrible remasters/remakes in the first place and why big devs can release broken games. Up until 1.04 all games had a ton of visuals issues. And even without the visuals issues and bugs the games have fundamental artstyle, lighting and gameplay issues that will never be fixed.

[@paralytaatylarap9715]

@@horsestruggles780 Than you must be blind or you didn‘t play it. There are hundreds of bug compilations on KZbin and the patch notes are larger than the bible and war and peace combined. I played through San Andreas at release via Xbox GamePass and I had so much popins, bugs, glitches, missing textures,… that I eventually stopped playing. This is not a real remaster, rather a bad port, but at least 12 months away from completion. I don‘t care that most characters look fugly and completely different from the original and that the devs didn‘t bother improving the wooden animation, but at least they should have finished the game before they released it.

[@childofvenus3781]

For me the biggest problem which makes me not play these versions is actually AUDIO. There are many videos comparing them and the ambient sounds like when you're near ocean, in a place full of wind, in sky, and some weather sounds are either completely missing or massively inferior to the original game. It ruins the immersion.

[@shakengandulf]

Also the flying papers as you walk around. Adds a lot to the atmosphere.

[@Nikownzyu]

These developers are so lazy, they ported all audio to mono for the mobile ports and used the same mono audio for the definitive edition.

[@sellingacoerwa8318]

Do you have your 3d audio settings correct? cus if you have it turned on, the default I think, it can sound awful if your settings are wrong or the thing your playing doesn't work well with it

[@chrisfratz]

@@richieqs7789 unfortunately at least from what I can gather the source uncompressed audio for dialogue has been lost so unless they want to spend the extra money to re-record them (which can also lead to undesirable results), that's what we have left.

[@Riotmakertk]

Don't forget the horrible surround mix, the gun fire is still over the top compared to the other sounds in the game. So poor.

[@svtoshi]

GSG lied about textures btw. They said it's impossible to find original reference textures. Modders have found many, MANY original textures and remade many others. Just search for RoSA Project Reborn, there's also a version for Definitive Edition named RoSA Project Evolved.

[@startedtech]

Even then, it's a city. Finding or making accurate substitutes wouldn't be difficult. And they have zero excuses for why the fonts are different, even if somehow a designer couldn't identify the commonly used ones. there's been font OCR tools for well over a decade.

[@ari-dynamicarchive]

It really begs the question why Rockstar keeps going to them to produce these ports. I don't know if it's common in the gaming industry but it certainly feels like R* exploits GSG for doing the most minimalist amount of effort: "Why spend our money when we can just give it to this tiny little company for dirt cheap?". More money has to go to Take-2/Rockstar's high-end execs and producers' fancy way of living than actually producing a rejuvenated and influential product of it's time.

[@AdamMi1]

​@@ari-dynamicarchiveit's properly just cheap

[@OneBrokeBloke]

I just want the ability to switch between old and remastered in realtime like Halo allowed me to.

[@gabrieleriva651]

That would require for Take Two to give a shit.

[@MinosDaedalus]

The old games, despite looking very dated, still manage to draw me into their worlds because all the textures, effects and visuals are consistent, believable and let some space for imagination (think of old, retro pixel games from the early 90s). A book you're reading doesn't have any pictures and often doesn't draw very detailed descriptions and leave something for your brain to create. This is how I see well-made old games like the GTA ones. Now you have this remaster which tries to bring photorealistic visuals (as in high res and modern features like AO, modern shader effects etc.) into a game that is, from the very basis, not been for that. That's why animations now seem awkward, why the shiny shaders on grass and sand is so unrealistic (new and "shiny" visuals doesn't add shit if implemented badly). The atmosphere from San Andreas is completely gone. I wouldn't give a fuck about a spelling error here and now or if this game ran at 4k or 1440p or would look like the old ones. The only thing they had to do, was to modernize the gameplay. Otherwise I couldn't just play the classic versions (which run like shit on PS4/5, though). This and the gameplay is the only thing that sucks in the old games by today's standard. After playing the old Vice City classic I realised how tedious it was: If you die, you'll lose everything. Great that they offer you a taxi to the mission, but it's kinda useless when you have to visit AmmuNation in order to restock everything. Pick ups are so rarely scattered, you can't rely on those either. The shooting itself isn't very fun, too, and AI is plain dumb. So instead of addressing those issues and modernize the gameplay with their port, they spend their resources also on things that didn't need to be fixed. Upscale the visuals and give it a clean, less jaggy and smooth look and keep it stylised, but don't try to slap on every modern visual feature just for the sake of it, for ticking your checkboxes. That there are so many issues with this game even after six months is just mind-boggling.

[@automation7295]

Why do people keep say "graphics look dated" when they know these were the technology available at the time?

[@MinosDaedalus]

@@automation7295 Because people judge them visuals from nowadays' perspective. There are games with stylised graphics that hold up very well and don't look dated. Then you also have games which have beautiful art and direction and still look great today. Usually 3D games with the aim of a realistic look back then looked old very fast, however. But Games like Rayman 2, Banjo Kazooie, etc. still look good today because muddy textures don't compromise the overall style and lovely animations.

[@automation7295]

@@MinosDaedalus Basically people hate some games when they age.

[@shariqhasan6220]

When I first heard about this remaster, I was mostly excited for gameplay enhancements like Tommy being able to swim in GTA Vice City but sadly it focused mostly on visuals, which I admit I am not a fan of.

[@automation7295]

@@shariqhasan6220 Would you also complain if some people can't swim in real life?

[@jjforcebreaker]

Considering how much money these games made and how important they were for these companies... Man ' Trilogy Definitive Edition' is such a shameful hackjob. Between this and WarCraft III: ReFunded it's amazing how little people managing these companies actually care about these games. All about maximization of profits and cutting as many corners as humanly possible. What a shame. These ought to be spotless.

[@WllKiedSnake]

Co-op is still missing from GTA San Andrea's. Using the OG Xbox as the source would of fixed this.

[@startedtech]

If it was truly all about maximizing profit you'd think they'd at least play test it before release 😂

[@azumag4432]

@@startedtech It was more about *cutting as many corners as humanly possible*

[@bern9642]

@@startedtech i'm sure they play tested and all that. they are not blind. they knew of all the issues and still released them instead of waiting and fixing them.

[@TheSafkan]

Demon’s Souls Remake showed us that with care incredible thing’s can be done. I’m not saying they needed to go to that extreme but not even using the original source code and lazily repackaging the ios port is just a big fuck you from RockStar.

[@MpWrproductions]

The absolute state of games right now lol "given the absence of a remake or port that has more respect for the source material, this is pretty much as good as it gets" I can't think of a single closing statement in history more accurate than this

[@kitano47]

so glad to have spent my teen years in the early 2000s with 0 DLC, free content and epic mods on all major PC games.

[@namedclaiming821]

@@kitano47 but storylines in the older games aren’t as good as nowadays

[@kitano47]

@@namedclaiming821 I'm mostly commenting about multiplayer. I didn't play much single player as the idea of playing with 64 people was too mind blowing

[@-PVL93-]

Unfortunately, the base artstyle/art direction and many awful character models have not been adjusted, and never will be without mods. The collection just has this generic "Unreal Engine Game" look which you can see in various "How would [game] look in UE?" videos on KZbin, or the stock asset flips sold on Steam for like 10$ The atmosphere of Vice City and San Andreas is completely lost, with III probably being the least offensive

[@eponymous7910]

yep, the proliferation of UE is one of the worst things to ever happen to gaming imo. Very few titles look unique these days

[@therobustmole1137]

I actually think GTA III is the most affected by this SA second.

[@d.a.b8756]

GTA 3 is the worse affected the whole look is wrong, suppose to be drap and dark. Now it looks like a gta 5 knock off

[@jimhultqvist2539]

@@eponymous7910 Yep. Plus, why are all the roads now brand new?

[@Reynsoon]

ROCKSTAR, HIRE THIS MAN!

[@coachsunnypatel3411]

The irony of the most slapdash remaster of all time being broken down by possibly the most in-depth, well constructed video I've ever seen! Great work.

[@YTN3rd]

Curious if any of these existing problems were fixed with 1.04.5 and todays 1.112 update which brought "classic lighting" mode.

[@shi-dt]

A small oversight: I don't think you covered the issue with lamp poles dissappearing into the world when they are hit. It's never been addressed since launch and it's really weird when such a large objects clip into the game world

[@onekie5787]

that existed in the og games , and they mightve kept it to keep the feel of the original game as they put it

[@qaz6754]

@@onekie5787 definitive edition unlocked framerate without fixing all bugs with high fps. So bugs which were happening super rarely in original games are happening super often now. For example suicide aeroplanes or Sweet being hit at the end of mission.

[@robertlawrence9000]

There are way more oversites that need addressed and fixed. These versions are still horrible.

[@shi-dt]

@@onekie5787 keeping such a weird bug just for the sake of having the feel of the originals? I don't think so, if it was like that they wouldn't have patched the ghost car bug from gta 3

[@onekie5787]

@@shi-dt it isnt a bug , it was due to the technical limitations of the time. the consoles couldnt handle bits of lamp posts flying everywhere

[@DenkyManner]

"shouldn't have passed quality assurance" You think they had quality assurance?

[@FreeAimDog]

with all the glitch videos i seen i dont think they do, i remember when videos of crazy glitches came out you could not escape them they were everywhere and almost every youtuber was talking about it.

[@IsmailofeRegime]

@@FreeAimDog IMO the rain effect in the unpatched version is enough to indicate they had no serious quality assurance.

[@lalalaLaFlex]

This is why you design games ground up, not converted from a conversion of a conversion.

[@dhgmrz17]

And why HD remasters usually end up just being slight tweaks like higher resolutions and slightly upped textures. Either you remake the whole game or just cleanup an older game to make it slightly more presentable in a modern age, this weird limbo between a remake and remaster clearly doesn't work.

[@aussieknuckles]

​@@dhgmrz17 straight up, so many "HD" releases even on PS3 were just straight shii. The Sly Racoon Trilogy on PS3 and Vita on the other hand, now that's how you do it. Looks amazing on the OLED Vita and on PS3 it looks phenomenal on my 3D TV as it's supported.

[@Snufflegrunt]

At this point I kinda want them to keep "bearboxes". It's hilarious and borderline iconic.

[@evilmonkeywithissues]

"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Mark Twain in reference to the GTA Definitive Edition in relation to the original Trilogy on Xbox and PS2

[@thanksbetotap]

Dear Rockstar: your work as a publisher is not done. These ports are still really far from acceptable. And that grass poking up through the street from the middle of nowhere… just lol.

[@JaviArte]

To me, one of the worst aspects: the really poor LOD management 😢 especially when flying.

[@Chipmunkboy]

Its so weird to zoom in on distant objects with something like a camera or sniper and still being able to see the low qaulity model regardless of FOV and exposes the auto generated LODs even further.

[@gokushkameha-ha-ha9344]

I'm still pissed flying in these remakes has a the worst camera I've ever used to fly literally ever

[@gokushkameha-ha-ha9344]

Regarding lod they definitely made extremely poor coding choices LAZY CHOICES

[@Astrothunder_]

What’s lod management?

[@JaviArte]

@@Astrothunder_ LOD: level of detail. One object may have different level of detail depending of the distance.

[@desmondbrown5508]

Thanks for the work here, Oliver. I can say, as someone whose worked on open source "remastering" projects before just to learn some techniques, that it's definitely still a LOT of manual labor. You can't just slap an AI algorithm on everything and let it go. The times where that's feasible are truly amazing, but extremely rare. And manual touch ups are also very time consuming. But that being said, this is Rockstar who made billions off of GTA V (still are making billions off of it). They CLEARLY have the manpower and resources to make this project viable. And especially when you consider projects like RE4 HD Project, which is a HUGE love letter to that game and did a MOSTLY phenomenal job with only a handful of people. It's depressing the state of these games by Rockstar/Take Two.

[@vergil1155]

Exactly man, they got billions already. What's the point of releasing a broken game on holiday just for scam profit? As the saying goes "the more you have, the more you want" This was a disgusting move. Also these are mobile ports of three classics. Just let that sink in.

[@automation7295]

Ban AI.

[@Tendo987]

@@vergil1155 were all attracted to things we don't have

[@vergil1155]

@@Tendo987 yea but if you have billions, what in the flying hell will more billions do? They were already up to their necks in cash and still are due to gta online and that hasn't changed. This was supposed to be fan service. Poorly handled.

[@yankoelgueta1116]

Idc how much they "improve" them , this defective edition was an insult to all fans

[@brucevandermescht6957]

Thanks Rockstar, you've given me plenty of reason to keep playing the originals on PCSX2 for $0.

[@exile9024]

I liked the overall decision to go with a remaster that had some modern quality of life improvements and a modest visual upgrade instead of a state of the art remaster however there is no denying that they delivered a half baked product.

[@WllKiedSnake]

I think the Arkham Asylum remaster is how you go about remastering a game. It to was ported over into Unreal Engine 4 and at launch it wasn't perfect. Playing it now it's fantastic! But these remasters are not good to me. I've finished GTA3 in this trilogy and it felt flat and soulless.

[@RedKnightInGotham]

@@WllKiedSnake Arkham Asylum's remaster still has quite a few issues although they aren't performance related. Mostly visual bugs and graphical issues but still nowhere near as bad as this remaster. Arkham Asylum is actually really close to being an excellent remaster if they would've just patched out a few of the visual issues that are still there.

[@WllKiedSnake]

@@RedKnightInGotham Yeah! Arkham City isn't up to the mark entirely. But Arkham Asylum I'm extremely happy with. They added indirect lighting for light sources Batman walks under, so now shadows will be cast when your under a light source. This wasn't present in the original. And that rain effect is fantastic! The people who remastered them didn't get all the time they needed. But what is there is decent. Arkham City though has a few choices that miss the mark. But not the worst way to experience Arkham City. The people behind the remasters are now rumoured to be working on MGS remasters/remakes.

[@Tomek_Zyla]

Each GTA game lost it's unique colorization and atmosphere in the "definitive" edition and it's not fixed.

[@ari-dynamicarchive]

The... 'fixes' are appreciated, but it feels too little too late. We could sit here all day and have thorough arguments asking why, pondering why, this wound up the way it did and why Rockstar keeps going to GSG with such a tiny crew to do this. Anyone proud of their billion dollar money-printing machine would've celebrated it by going full-throttle and putting in tons of time, a much larger crew, to make it feel like a million bucks upon release. There's a reason why Nintendo celebrates the hell out of Mario in the last 35 years he's been in the gaming lexicon, you would think Rockstar would do the same thing. And yet, for all the shark card money and celebrity endorsement with Dr. Dre and other rappers it still looks and plays like a beginner's first mod/rom hack attempt at best. This is not worth the $60 it's asking for. I'd be more inclined to just find this off of a torrent somewhere and maybe spend like a couple days on it before going back to the OG PS2 edition.

[@majormononoke8958]

They want to take the old games and make them unable to play otherwise, than they give you these games to rewrite history so you buy the newer games and get into gta online and stuff. Where you waste your money and time.

[@ari-dynamicarchive]

@@majormononoke8958 Sadly, I feel this is true. It's a shame, man.

[@FromSouthPark]

Just noticed in san andreas if you go to sfpd the underground garage is completely broken, the garage door doesn't have a collider and the underground area has an invisible wall going 45 degrees through it making it inaccessible

[@Free-4554]

Shoutout to the 21 developers(actual number btw) R* held at gunpoint to continue working on a project most people don’t care for.

[@alexsilva28]

The closing statement can be summarized as "Out of all the GTA Trilogy remasters made within the last year, this is the best one"

[@johnbowen7314]

What’s truly sad is Vice and SA do hold up as fun games to play, but this weren’t the remasters they deserved. I still can’t believe Rockstar allowed such hollow, wrong headed, versions to see release.

[@TheCrzyman0]

If this is how Rockstar and TakeTwo treat their legendary classics, I really worry what's next for their upcoming games. This is just a quick cash grab. Despicable!

[@MikeG-nz8gt]

Amazing footage and research! This video is well done. I understand much better from this than other videos can explain. Great work.

[@Koen1702]

The thing I don’t like in Gta 3 ‘definitive edition’ is that the atmosphere isn’t right. The game is to bright and colourfull, also the roads and buildings don’t have that weathered feel.

[@AgsmaJustAgsma]

Gotta love how half of the complaints from the video stems from Grove Street Games' ridiculous decision of using an AI upscaler for textures. I do find those typos charmingly stupid, though.

[@PsychedelicBroccoli]

I agree with charmingly stupid. Lol

[@startedtech]

Still blows my mind on how that passed testing.

[@HugoStiglitz88]

The textures actually look much better tho

[@kupokinzyt]

I love comments like this, ones that have actually watched the video and provide context rather than someone screaming first. Praise you for being an early Patreon.

[@MotherboardStandoff]

This might be a bit of blunt and uninformed reaction on my part, but I feel that A.I. upscaling is going to be abused for the foreseeable future as a cost saving measure. They don't wanna hire actual graphic designers to enhance or remaster the graphics of older titles, this thing (and a lot of other remasters) have to be as low cost as possible.

[@NeoDeXs]

And the money they save by doing this is basically pennies compared to the profit margins these things get.

[@ARIXANDRE]

I'm still not convinced. I was hoping to revisit these but they will forever be mobile ports to console in my eyes.

[@darkowl9]

The colour grading missing is still my biggest bugbear. It’s what gave the original worlds their flavour.

[@0ME96]

Always enjoy when DF return to games to review recent patches. How come the Switch release was absent from this analysis?

[@MoonSarito]

It's pretty cool to see that they're improving and that the remaster is pretty cool now, but I think it's definitely not worth $60 yet.

[@diegofrgc]

$20 is the sweet spot

[@WllKiedSnake]

I've seen it for 20ish pound physical over in the UK. I'd say that's a reasonable price. But these remasters are still lacking. All the clutter scattered on the streets are still not present in the remasters. The game feels souless without it. So know there are still many issues. Oh! Also Claude will sometimes slow down his movement for some odd reason while running.

[@trblemayker5157]

Even if they had a free giveaway I'd still feel ripped off

[@narutoledo]

I'm always amazed by the incredible, depth and complex analysis you make in all your review videos. The 5 minutes talk about AI-improved textures it's a good proof of it.

[@Aqua_Xenossia]

It wasn’t covered, but the Switch version definitely saw some visual and performance upgrades, with the odd slowdown areas in Vice City getting some much-needed cleaning up, and overall seems more stable across each game.

[@iwantthemoonback4198]

Is it worth buying now, in your opinion?

[@Aqua_Xenossia]

@@iwantthemoonback4198 I played through 2/3rds of the series before the 1.04 update, and found it still fun to play, with the updated controls making a vast improvement over the originals. With 1.04 I feel it’s absolutely worth it. I didn’t expect perfection, and Grove Street at least made sure to get the gameplay spot-on with what little time and resources they had. The occasional glitchy A.I. made for a blessing in Vice City and San Andreas, especially on the annoying race segments, so not all unresolved problems are really problems!

[@lay10vids]

@@iwantthemoonback4198 no. the games look worse than many wii games and still run terribly and are so blurry

[@CarlC9898]

@@iwantthemoonback4198 if you can get it on sale for $30 or less then yes its worth it at that price point, not $60 though.

[@leahtofu]

I rather just play the mobile versions with a controller connected to it, the art direction is more like the ps2 originals and you don’t have to play the lazy “definitive” remakes in 30fps

[@Wanted1Sama]

Thanks for covering this!

[@eetuthereindeer6671]

I can now accept gta 3 and vice city but i still think san andreas needs some work.... no updates in a long time either. I wonder if they'll ever fix the airplane hangar in las venturas airport, missing gas canisters entirely and visible smoke when flying a damaged airplane. Also cj makes a crash sound effect when walking into objects like cj weighed 4000 kg

[@eetuthereindeer6671]

@IGogetaX10I san andreas still feels like a fan mod made by 1 person on their free time

[@gunslingerplays]

I love these titles and was eagerly anticipating this release. Once I saw the reviews, I decided to skip it, no matter how nostalgic I could get about these games. They deserve a faithful, polished remaster and not some hastily put together cash grab. Seems like GSG did a great job going back in and progressively fixing most of the issues, and I can respect that. I'll wait it out a few more months in the hope that they release a few more patches and then be able to enjoy the games how they should have been re-released in the first place.

[@jesserogalski1402]

What's worse is they even attempted to delist the originals after the release. Making this what would be the only legal way of obtaining the games, outside of second hand on older consoles. They even started taking down mods that have been up for years, and threatening mod groups with law suits.

[@BleedForTheWorld]

@@jesserogalski1402 When modders compete with giant companies when it comes to their products. It doesn't get more cyberpunk than that.

[@mace9008]

@@jesserogalski1402 the PS2 versions are off the PS store currently.

[@gunslingerplays]

Best case scenario, they come up with a definitive patch squash all the bugs and get a bunch of headlines for doing so, and players who care about these titles and game preservation at large show up and support them for their work. We get a better game and they get their money from the people who were initially interrested but were turned off by the final product. Really hope for them that they pull it off in the end, they get their money back, good press and we actually get to play the definitive version of the games.

[@nickzx1082]

@@gunslingerplays they don t deserve the support after what they've done..Rockstar-The "Hardwood Butcher" of the Trilogy

[@startedtech]

I still don't understand how this collection got released in the first place. It was just so terrible in virtually every aspect, and it's not like it had a big hype release that couldn't have been delayed.

[@deagle7776]

I don’t understand why so many people still bought it smh.

[@startedtech]

@Kuma that's fair, they are beholden to their shareholders. but still I don't see how a company like Rockstar could release something in a state like this. Also, I assume it's only *partially* coincidence but TakeTwo's stock reached a 2021 high of $190 just a few days before release. Been on a downward trend since.

[@DJBV]

As long as the music of the originals are missing, it will never be the "definitive" version

[@marcanderson-jones3518]

Do you remember in 1999 when Soul Calibur was released for the dreamcast and 60fps was achieved at a constant? It completely baffles me that games struggle to meet that standard today

[@Aqua.man045]

360 had game at 60fps

[@izimsi]

I like how they didn't even bother to reanimate the palms in cutscenes on the improved models , as it should be done in modern times, so we can see how the npcs just wave static palms with weird finger placement so clearly now.

[@jesserogalski1402]

Why does it feel like them cutting the the remasters into sections and throwing them on different services like Gamepass and PS Now for a short period was just an ingenious way of TakeTwo/Rockstar actually getting paid for gamers to do QandA on the titles, themselves?

[@wolfpackgaming2492]

You might be on to something there 😳

[@GenerationZ313]

Speaking of game pass San Andreas was just removed from it a few days ago.

[@wolfpackgaming2492]

@@GenerationZ313 was it really? That’s a short time

[@GenerationZ313]

@@wolfpackgaming2492 as a subscriber of Game Pass since 2018 this sort of thing does happen from time to time.

[@wolfpackgaming2492]

@@GenerationZ313 yes it does. I’ve been regularly subscribed since the beginning of 2020 and can confirm. It was just interesting to note 📝

[@AsukaLangleyS02]

Thinking this game went through any QA, now that's hilarious!

[@Joseph_Soda]

These games are 20 years old!! There’s no reason that they shouldn’t be running at a locked 120 FPS and full 4K resolution on PS5 and Xbox series consoles & that at bare minimum they should be running at 60FPS and 1080 P for a previous Gens.

[@HugoStiglitz88]

You're obviously forgetting that this is running on unreal 4. Unreal 4 runs like ass

[@WllKiedSnake]

I think it's because it was ported into UE4. The engine isn't as good as you'd hope if you do this sorta stuff. But I'd also say it's down to talent and experience, and I don't think Grove Street Games has this.

[@BadMFJules]

Time for an update video?

[@adk4986]

For how old these games are, they shouldnt drop a single frame down from 60 ever, no matter what

[@WllKiedSnake]

There are still certain spinning signs in GTA San Andrea's that don't spin.

[@Mmongiardo]

I'd like to get some insight from a programmer or designers perspective and hear what it like rushing this out under rockstar's management. I'm sure some of them knew it was far from finished but were just doing their jobs as fast as they could.

[@efwfew]

99% of games that end up being terrible can be blamed on management. It's one of the most known game ever and one of the biggest game company ever, they have access to the best artist and so on, they all know what a mess it was. But at one point it's your job and you're not gonna go to the ceo office and start saying shit. It's honestly shocking just from the rain effect, any one could do just as good with a youtube tutorial. I suppose it's a loophole where one guy wants to change it but has to go through multiple people and be approved so in the end nothing happens

[@4horsemenoftheapocalypse58]

It's sad a bunch of Modders can do the PS2 GTA games justice than actual Rockstar

[@mr.chandler9555]

Looking to pick this up at the very end of the year when they have holiday sales going on. Hopefully by then another patch or two will come out fixing even more issues.

[@train_go_boom2065]

Its been a while since they patched it i believe

[@jmal]

At this rate, don't bet on it. You're better off hunting down the disc-based originals or torrenting them if that isn't an option.

[@dazza2350]

It's €30 on PSN rn which isn't a bad deal

[@zCREz]

​@@dazza2350 You cant be serious? I mean, you cannot possibly be serious when saying the def.ed is worth more than 2 coin?

[@117johnpar]

Its crazy to think how many times more powerful (especially in regards to memory capacity) the Series x is over the first xbox and it plays the same games at the same framerate.

[@FakYuhGoogel]

This is still the "Unacceptable Edition" to me

[@largolagrande]

So, I have to wait for a full AA production remake. It's not enough fixes. The lost art styles is also too much of an issue for me

[@WllKiedSnake]

The street clutter is still missing.

[@josedeleon1923]

Did they add back the missing music and cutted missions? No? I'll stick to the originals and silent patches thanks.

[@mrniceguy7168]

How are frame drops possible? The game logic is unchanged so the CPU isn't maxed out, and the graphics simply don't seem that complex or impressive. I am confused.

[@NeoDeXs]

They didn't optimize anything at all. The minimap radar being as GPU demanding as 3 GTA 5 cars (they did the math) is everything you need to know.

[@chrismorrison5301]

They need to scrap these remasters and do them again with a much larger team, budget and time.

[@PancakeInu]

I'm sorry but first impression is last impression. Pushing updates months later hoping people would forgive and forget ain't cutting it. Plus Take 2 suing modders who have improved and fixed their awful PC version is scummy.

[@dpm1700]

The Trilogy is a disaster and Rockstar is not going to fix it because they don't care. Period.

[@oneandonlyJonnySad]

It’s honestly laughable that there is a graphics/performance setting for PS5/Series X consoles for a 20 year old game. It should be 4K/60 off the bat.

[@kas2k4]

Great analysis Oliver! Love your style

[@razorsedge2208]

The trilogy still needs a lot of fixes, i also made some videos on my channel about bugs in patch 1.04 you can check

[@SteamPunk96]

The extremely harsh AO implementation reminds me of Far Cry 4, thanks again for revisiting this Oliver.

[@kriskater]

Ao?

[@USAS12]

@@kriskater Ambient Occlusion

[@Web720]

It was in FC3 as well, that was the originator of the overly harsh AO in FC games. It's still in FC series to this day.

[@kriskater]

@@Web720 I remember 4 having a really far draw distance ? You can see almost the entire valley from the starter camp ?

[@Wogle]

I think the crowd spawning and AI is fundamentally broken. For example, when you do a rampage in Vice City, TONS of enemies spawn. FAR more than in the original game. The positive is it reduces the stress of running about trying to find enemies that spawned, which was always an issue in the older games. The negative is that depending on how many gang members aggro on you and the weapons that are in use, you can get caught out and die very easily. Having said that, it only happens for about 5-10 seconds then they just goes into a vegetative state

[@Aqua_Xenossia]

It makes for an interesting situation- the A.I. gets borked, but it’s a positive borking! I loved it during races and especially the Hillary mission in V, since after a few tries I managed to get him stuck in a traffic jam.

[@FabledFiend]

This from the same company thst made a masterpiece like RDR2.... Their standards went a long way down. Couldn't they just at least used 100 people of their own workforce to do these remasters?

[@CosmicHarmony58]

What? It was Grove Street Games who did the Remasters. Rockstar was just the publisher

[@deaderdandead1484]

This is a very ignorant comment. It is not made by an in house Rockstar developer. It's outsourced to grove street games who have previously worked on ports of mobile games pretty much exclusively while being a small part of development on games elsewhere. One thing we can agree on though is that Rockstar did not supervise this project.

[@riekopo7638]

No more updates coming?

[@sloth7d526]

A game this old should be running 120fps on next gen consoles easily, even if they upgraded some textures. I mean that's basically all it is, the base game with hd textures. That goes to show how unoptimized the trilogy definitive edition is. The PS5 and Xbox Series X are around 2070ti level GPU performance. 120fps should be NO issue at all.

[@Секундыминуты]

the fact that its not already done even when the game came half a year is ridiculous, its not cyberpunk jesuschrist why this game is not finished yet

[@onizuka4534]

I would like to see the revisiting of the Switch version, which is absurdly bad

[@calebb7012]

You'd be better off playing Saints row for the "GTA" fix on the switch.

[@theR3N36AD3]

"Thank you for all your hard work! We ideally would spend thousands of dollars paying people for QA testing and debugging. But why hire people when we have a great fan base that would do it for free? Thank you for the free labor. Sincerely, Rockstar."

[@SEGARetroBR]

What's the song playing at the 12:00 mark? I went through these games OSTs and I can't find it!

[@dreammfyre]

What about the textures from the old PC versions? Aren’t those the same as the Xbox version?

[@paulbell3682]

No. The PC versions use higher res versions of the PS2 textures.

[@Unprotected1232]

They should've remastered each game one by one. Then do a double dip when the trilogy is complete with a complete trilogy version. That way you don't have to rush out unfinished, broken and faulty remasters to the dismay of gamers. Not that any of this matters. Rockstar and Take2 have shown that they've become greedy and apathetic to their own fans. Whatever Rockstar used to be is no more.

[@robertforster8984]

Wow. It still looks horrible. Definitely the worst way to play the GTA trilogy.

[@dookie_12]

Thanks for revisiting this. Just the other day I was wondering what the performance was like with the current version.

[@Acksiel]

2:04 so let's press the issue !!! Digital foundry over to you

[@icky_thump]

You know, I'm almost embarrassed at how heavily i probably annoyed my friends on social media by sharing all the announcements and latest news about this "definitive" release, prior to launch. Because once it came out, myself and I'm sure many others just went radio silent with regret. Thankfully I didn't preorder, but it's still kind of humiliating supporting something you have such high confidence in, just to be absolutely crushed upon release.

[@IsmailofeRegime]

Alas, I kept my expectations low, cautiously refrained from preordering, and was *still* disappointed.

[@milosstojanovic4623]

@@IsmailofeRegime same, i knew that REMASTER is never gonna be good, because engine was too old. Those games needed REMAKE, to implement better animations and improvements to now day standards.

[@Gosti85]

would have loved to know if something changed for the switch version

[@Ponaru]

It has received patches and you can basically same the same thing for that version. Lots of improvements, much better performance...but still not perfect. You still get framedrops, glitches, and errors. San Andreas in particular still needs work. Its a much better collection than it was at launch, but a lot more can be done.

[@MasterTactics]

They should ban this remaster from the every platform and allow the GTA 3 and Vice City Fan Remake to replace it. It looks like the fans will do a better job than these developers. Perfect example is Streets of Rage Remake.

[@GiovannaPrates]

We need Red dead redemption 2 update for PS5/XBSX

[@WllKiedSnake]

Yeah! 60fps would immediately fix that heavy slow feeling the game has. Also the latency issue with the game. Image quality would also look better because of the reconstruction being used. 60fps can improve image quality in games that use upscaling techniques.

[@CC42_]

That update should've happened many months ago..fuck you Rockstar

[@ajflink]

There are always the reverse-engineered versions of GTA III and Vice City; however, there is no San Andreas version as Rockstar prevented that from happening. You can still find the reverse-engineered versions of the other two games for PC. However, they did not bother including variable movement speed for controllers. Everything else is great about them though.

[@babyshambler]

I don't actually mind a spelling error or two. You see them a lot in cities where English is a second language for many. Also...why are older PC games sometimes difficult to play on modern PCs? I'd have thought they could play anything.

[@AlbertoJMarcano]

This great to see, but the Switch version is where I want to see what's been improved!

[@undisclosedsteve6361]

Ik, that's where I'm gonna buy this

[@WllKiedSnake]

It was also improved.

[@Rodox2k10]

You get what you paid for, and you paid for a shitty device whose technical "features" were already outdated when it came out in 2017. And now you come up here and asking how well a poor and rushed remaster would run on your shitty hybrid paperweight? Well why don't you purchase the game and see for yourself? Ohh that's right, because the "big n" doesn't allow refunds. That's nintendo for you.

[@bern9642]

@@Rodox2k10 dude, the improvements are exactly the same. the framerates are just as improved just like the xbox and ps version. same with textures and all. and the same visual mistakes are pretend.

[@dawoodwilliams3652]

@@Rodox2k10 are you ok?

[@maxpayne7030]

I used a mod which made the OG editions use RAGE. That really hit the sweet spot after some ENB and ICEnhancer mods with FPP, 360º camera, etc. Don't buy the Disaster Editions as they won't match the OG Editions

[@DeadPixel1105]

I've been playing through the Definitive Edition the last few weeks. There's still *a lot* of bugs that need to be fixed, but it *is* definitely much better than it was months ago. Especially the performance. The games have been optimized a lot and run much better now. Just like the bugs, the performance is still not 100% up to par, but it *is* much better than it was. Ultimately, despite how much improvements have been made, there is still *A LOT* of work left to be done with the Definitive Edition.

[@Crimsongz]

I’ll stick with the originals

[@knivez786]

I just brought this game Have not started it yet is it worth it or shall i return it back to Amazon

[@IsmailofeRegime]

​@@knivez786 Just get the original versions if you can. The DE versions seem like a generally inferior way to experience the games.

[@MenkoDany]

The only thing I care about is whether they fixed the one where they rounded off a visual pun of a cog making it into a round wheel completely ruining the joke. When they fix it, I'll try the ""definitive edition"" (ie. I might pirate it if I'm not lazy)

[@robbiefazle7802]

Nice review, pal, really in-depth and deep. Good job!