Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy

[Cube]

21 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

 Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis on GBA (Hey @Cube, now you don’t need to feel so bad about that one!).  

I still have nightmares. My only solace is that i played it to see if it was so bad, I didn't buy it when it came out and put it in the console full of excitement.

 

Also, that ridiculously smoothed nut photo (that sounds wrong) is pretty amusing.

[bob]

Holy Shit!!
[/url] This thing is a literal joke.  Fan mods are more competent than this cluster fuck!
This literally is the Lazy Devs meme in real life!

Is the issue that they used SubD to increase the number of polygons?

Other than not checking the nut, isn't that what SubD is for? They aren't going to remake every single model from scratch, so is this not a legitimate way of improving the models for a remaster? I'm not a game developer, but I don't really see that its all that lazy.

[Ashley]

24 minutes ago, bob said:

Is the issue that they used SubD to increase the number of polygons?

Other than not checking the nut, isn't that what SubD is for? They aren't going to remake every single model from scratch, so is this not a legitimate way of improving the models for a remaster? I'm not a game developer, but I don't really see that its all that lazy.

Yeah, laziness is not closing your link tags. 

[bob]

Yeah, laziness is not closing your link tags. 

Links open, come on in!

[Cube]

26 minutes ago, bob said:

Other than not checking the nut, isn't that what SubD is for? They aren't going to remake every single model from scratch, so is this not a legitimate way of improving the models for a remaster? I'm not a game developer, but I don't really see that its all that lazy.

The lazy part is not taking care in what does and doesn't get the treatment. Some things look odd due to it, but on top of that, doing it too much also has a big impact on performance. 

[Jonnas]

5 hours ago, Dcubed said:

right down there with the likes of [...] Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis on GBA.  Just a monumental fuckup of biblical proportions

[Josh64]

I'd like to see the sales numbers on this and whether or not the big negative online reaction has trickled its way down to the casual buyers who would pick this up on nostalgia that don't have much exposure to the gaming world other than the respective online store front they occasionally buy from. 

[Julius]

An update from Rockstar:

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Hi everyone,

We want to provide an update regarding the unexpected technical issues that came to light as part of the launch of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition.

Firstly, we want to sincerely apologize to everyone who has encountered issues playing these games.

The Grand Theft Auto series — and the games that make up this iconic trilogy — are as special to us as we know they are to fans around the world. The updated versions of these classic games did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect.

We have ongoing plans to address the technical issues and to improve each game going forward. With each planned update, the games will reach the level of quality that they deserve to be.

A new Title Update is on the way in the coming days for all versions of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition that will address a number of issues. We will update everyone as soon as it is live.

In the meantime, it pains us to mention that we are hearing reports of members of the development teams being harassed on social media. We would kindly ask our community to please maintain a respectful and civil discourse around this release as we work through these issues.

While one of the goals of the Definitive Editions was to allow players to enjoy these games on modern platforms for many years to come, we also understand that some of you would still like to have the previous classic versions available for purchase.

We will be adding the classic PC versions of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas back to the Rockstar Store shortly as a bundle. Additionally, everyone who has purchased Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition for PC from the Rockstar Store through June 30, 2022, will receive these classic versions in their Rockstar Games Launcher library at no additional cost. We will update everyone as soon as these are back in the Rockstar Store.

Once again, we'd like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding while we work through these updates to ensure these games meet everyone's justifiably high standards.

Sincerely,
Rockstar Games

Very much a boilerplate statement, wouldn't be surprised if they threw this together beforehand. One of the unfortunate downsides to games like No Man's Sky successfully turning the ship around after years of hard work, and the increasing number of early access titles, is that massive companies like Rockstar that - let's be honest - can get away with releasing collections like this, when they should be getting something like a remaster right the first time around, and frankly have no reason for a game feeling like an incomplete and unpolished product at launch. 

[Dcubed]

"Sorry we got caught, but we're so generous that we'll let you buy the original games again, but only exclusively on our own PC launcher, and only as a bundle; oh and fuck you if you want the original console versions put back on sale too."

Not exactly the most rousing Solumn Jpg apology ever really.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Dcubed

[Sheikah]

I just find it funny that they say these issues have just come to light at launch. If that could possibly be true then that'd mean they were ridiculously negligent by not monitoring its development progress or the final build. That excuse just makes them look even worse than if they said nothing.

[RedShell]

43 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

but only exclusively on our own PC launcher

Absolutely hate this trend on PC, so stupid.

I already have Steam as it's where the majority of my games are, Xbox for Game Pass stuff, Epic Games for the freebies and GOG Galaxy because it actually offers some cool features and is attempting (at least) to unify things.

But I have zero desire to install EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar or any other superfluous launcher on my PC. I'd actually prefer to just not play their games.

[Julius]

Digital Foundry's look at Vice City and San Andreas is up:

The parts on performance from their write-up on Eurogamer - details regarding the Switch version in bold: 

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At the top of the pile is PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S in quality mode - all targeting 30fps and suffering from inconsistent frame-pacing. Key visual upgrades here include improved shadow resolution, reflective puddles in rainy conditions and volumetric clouds. PlayStation 5's performance mode - oddly - includes all of the features of fidelity mode, just running with an unlocked frame-rate (which makes performance lower than Series X). Series S also sits in the top tier, but loses volumetric clouds. Middle tier versions deliver the base visual feature set, and that's what you get in Series X and Series S performance modes.

Meanwhile at the very bottom sits Nintendo Switch, which loses higher resolution art, motion blur, shadows under point lights, higher quality water rendering, ambient occlusion and interior mapping for some rooms behind windows. On top of that, draw distance is also reined in. The loss of AO and pared back shadows means that nothing looks connected to the ground any more and with that in mind, there's a genuine argument that the PS2 original looks better than Switch, which had sprite-based shadows located under characters and vehicles that at least tried to ground these elements into the scene. Performance on Switch is routinely abysmal, with low resolutions combined with frame-rates often in the low 20s and incorrect frame-pacing if you do hit 30fps. It's really disappointing.

Sticking with performance, Series X in performance mode has the best chance of hitting 60fps locked, but still has some lurching drops, even though it's only targeting 1800p. It's the same with PS5, which suffers even more in performance mode owing to its use of the top-tier visual feature set. Series S, meanwhile, aims for 1080p in its high frame-rate mode and runs much the same as Series X. Looking at the quality modes, Series S moves up to 1440p while PS5 and Series X remain at 1800p - however, the 30fps cap is poorly implemented with frequent stutter via inconsistent frame-pacing. The startling reality is that no version of GTA Definitive Edition runs smoothly in either 30fps or 60fps modes - unless you run PS4 Pro code on PS5, and take a big, big resolution hit in doing so. It's just nowhere near good enough.

Ultimately, you can't help but wonder about what might have been. These remasters are based on already compromised mobile ports that always had issues and already deviated too far from the source material. Rather than going back to these games with a Bluepoint-quality Shadow of the Colossus style remaster/remake that respects the original material and puts serious resources behind the modernising process, the decision was made to double down on already flawed work, resulting in something messy and inconsistent with sub-par performance. It's also a product that's entirely at odds with what we'd expect from Rockstar - the meticulous, cutting edge ethos behind games like GTA5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 simply isn't present at all in GTA Definitive Edition. This is a profound disappointment and we do have to wonder where Rockstar goes from here: bugs can be fixed, performance can be optimised, art can be revamped - but to what extent can things truly improve when the core foundations of the Definitive Editions are so flawed?

 

[Josh64]

Physical delay! 

Quote

Rockstar Games has announced a delay for the physical release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition for Nintendo Switch; rather than launch on December 7th, 2021 as planned, physical copies will now arrive sometime in “early 2022.”

The delay also affects Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, which will launch 10 days later than planned on December 17th

Sauce

[Helmsly]