GTA: The Trilogy in the test: Loveless Remasters who are not worthy of the masterpieces

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition is a collection of 3 games of the Grand-theft cars and truck collection: Grand Theft Car III (2001), Grand Burglary Car: Vice City (2002) and Grand Theft Cars And Truck: San Andreas (2004).

The magic of Grand Theft Auto has always been in the bursting with personality game world with their absurd and yet lovable characters — and the best characters the cities we have always taken this spell started with GTA III, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas and is now. Win the hearts of new and old GTA fans in revamped version. But wants to succeed really not, because despite some welcome updates the GTA Trilogy — Definitive Edition Remaster an uninspired that returns the originals without heart and passion — and even incorporates some new quirks.

Before we look at the good and bad sides of the Definitive Edition, let me say that we do not value here primarily the games (for all three titles are milestones), but how this Remasters prepared the classics.

GTA Trilogy — The Definitive Edition: What is that ?

The story concept of GTA is always the same: you learn a protagonist in an awkward position to know, does contract jobs for various gangsters and become the Kingpin gradually themselves. GTA III, the first 3D game of the Grand Theft Auto series, you added to the gloomy rainy Liberty City, Rock star version of New York. In Vice City it controls the Hawaiian shirts bearing Tommy Peretti by neongrelle parody of Miami. San Andreas leads you to the West Coast and designs with CJ perhaps the best main character of the series.

All three games were Remastered. The Definitive Edition contains no fundamentally new developed games, but only one Aufhübschung the originals. The blocky graphics of the PS2 so stay in to Remaster, but the games now appear in HD and with many new textures and character models. The Definitive Edition provides in addition to these cosmetic procedures also some gameplay innovations such as a simplified weapon selection and better driving mechanics.

You can not buy the games also individually, but only every three as a package. Is spoken still in English, but subtitles and menus are also in German.

What makes GTA Trilogy — Definitive Edition properly ?

The most striking thing is certain, the revised graphics. Although not open any new design decisions (more on that later), the graph of the Definitive Edition has to offer a lot: The successful new lighting effects clearly give the games more depth. The neon lights shine brightly in Vice City, the evening light falls red over San Andreas. Above all, the cars are much more detailed than in the past and the additional textures on the walls of buildings make the world a noticeably rougher and physical.

New players inside the graphics will not tear off your feet, because look at the Remaster not like modern games out, but just as revised PS2 games. But fans of the originals are likely fun to have them familiar places like the Grove Street, the main venue of San Andreas, to finally see in HD.

Especially the extended draw distance, so the radius of the charged objects, is a welcome addition. Perhaps some remember the Pinewood sign from San Andreas, which viewed from a distance looked blurred. In the Definitive Edition is now available from afar everything sharp, and when the evening the lights come on the skyline of Los Santos, the world has the same effect much more alive.

And what about the gameplay?

The controller has been upgraded and now works similar to GTA V. So you have to you, for example, not laboriously through your weapons click (the original), but have a Waffen-SS for quick selection. Also driving better off thanks to the accelerator and brake control over the shoulder buttons. The checkpoints were distributed generous; one lucky because the originals are notorious for unfair check points that you could repeat many times throughout missions.

Even while shooting, there is more freedom. Your automatically is targeting opponents and can then target freely. This feels not quite as intuitive as on GTA V, but offers more precision than the original, where you had rather arbitrarily shoot through the area.

The Remaster lack the sense of what makes GTA

Despite these basically good changes but the Definitive Edition is a disappointing Remaster. This is mainly due to the shallowness of the graphical updates: The Definitive Edition refurbishes some, but leaves a lot also unaffected, which are to be adjusted would have been better. Thus, the graphics look unfinished and never as a unified whole.

Clear, fantastic cars with more details are nice, look at the still textures streets but almost surreal. The wooden jumps and completely exaggerated case animations are even Lerner in HD. A more precise target system is good and beautiful, but the struggles are as inaccurate and chaotic as at that time. Instead of individual cosmetic procedures, there would have been a very fundamental vision for the innovations of this Remaster.

The figures appear in the definitive edition in a revised cartoon style (reminiscent of the GTA series cover). This is not bad in Liberty City and Vice City; The cartoon look fits well into this anyway very shrill and transcribed worlds.

In the story San Andreas, however, these masking faces are trusting. For example, at the beginning of San Andreas, CJ is picked up by his friends, but in to Remaster, however, all work lifeless and in some cases (Ryder is particularly negative) also strangely uniform. Compared to the silent protagonist from GTA III, CJ and his friends are quite complex figures that would have needed a less transited look. Just this sense for the different qualities of the games is missing the definitive edition but completely.

The advanced Draw Distance is in the core as I said a good innovation, because it makes, as described above, the world in many places more alive. But she also has its disadvantages and in the worst case, it even destroys the atmosphere: the characteristic fog, which then overplayed the limits of the PS2, but also for a mysterious, almost dream-like mood has now disappeared.

As a result, the world often looks flat and artificial, especially if you look at it from above. On a bridge or a mountain she looks down on a slice-like earth. This shows that the definitive edition has no sensitivity to the atmospheric details of the originals. The rain in Liberty City falls, for example, so strong that the character disappears completely — this is no more cool film noir mood anymore, but just annoys. Here, to Remaster would have to think more about the advantages and disadvantages of innovations and weigh these exact.

Technically anything but definitive

Although the games are mostly fluid, but also the few burglaries are too much when we remember that this is PS2 title. Textures often appear only after a few seconds. In addition, several bugs have noticed us, which were not dramatic, but did not precede in the originals. For example, in GTA III, you run more often against invisible walls and San Andreas there are some streets through which you easily pass.

In which catastrophe the Remasters, on the other hand, mutate on the switch, is experiencing that in the detailed tech test of colleague Chris, which at the same time serves as buying warning :

Where are Michael and Co.? The soundtracks of GTA are legendary. Therefore, of course we also have to mention that in This Remasters some songs are missing — for example all tracks from Michael Jackson from Vice City. Whether it was licensing problems is not certain, but one thing is certain: in a Remaster called definitive edition, that s disappointing.

Worth to Remaster in 2021?

The answer to whether this Remasters is worthwhile is a clear no — at least not for newcomers. Many elements such as the inaccurate struggles or the weak I of the opponents will be new players inside and in the long run. To Remaster does not do enough to prepare these classics for a modern audience, which is used to more fine zip.

But with fans of the classics, it should be enough for a short nostalgia trip. The magic of the originals is also available in to Remaster. It feels wonderful to dive back into these worlds and just to revel a bit in nostalgic memories.

Through the streets of Liberty City splash and feel like a gangster, on the beach of Vice City in Cabriolet Cruise — all this is as fantastic as always. However, this is due to the quality of the originals, to whom the Remasters hardly add something — on the contrary, in some places, the innovations even destroy the atmosphere of the originals, which is why hardcore fans may be better served if they actually grab the objected originals.