A comprehensive analysis of the correctness and inaccuracies of the newly remastered versions of GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas.

This week Rockstar launched Grand Theft Auto: Trilogy, which is a collection of three classic GTA remakes. The studio’s most influential PS2 era games, Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001), Vice City (2002) and San Andreas (2004) can now be played in 4K resolution on modern consoles, and With updated visual effects and gameplay adjustments. But to be fair, the response was mixed. Some people welcomed the new art style, which tried to retain the beauty of the original game, but with modern lighting and post-processing effects. Others were less enthusiastic, and they expressed their disappointment on social media and GTA fan forums, and in some cases expressed anger. I? I fell somewhere in the middle.

Since the launch of the trilogy last night, I have been playing all three remakes. In some ways, I am very impressed with what Rockstar and developer Grove Street Games have achieved in reinvigorating these games from 20 years ago. However, in other respects, I feel that some of the essence of the original has been lost. I have a page of notes full of things I like and dislike, mainly from an artistic point of view, so let's analyze it. I won’t talk about adjusted controls, newly added quality of life features, or battle changes here-instead, I want to focus on art, atmosphere, and world design, which to me is about the Grand theft car game.

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Adding real-time lighting and reflections can easily be the biggest improvement in these remakes. Light sources such as car headlights, street lights, and signs on buildings now look more convincing—and actually illuminate the surrounding environment. Driving a shiny car along Las Venturas Avenue, you will see the flashing lights of the casino reflecting on the body. Walking along the ocean beach of Sin City, the neon lights of the 1980s cast colorful lights on the sidewalks and pedestrians. Of all the upgrades in the trilogy, this is the most influential. I like the combination of low-poly models and realistic lighting. It still has the unique, stylized look of early 3D GTA, but with additional fidelity.

But what's the atmosphere? In the original version of San Andreas, Los Santos are bathed in a thick orange. This is not only reminiscent of the similar tones of Los Angeles movies and music videos in the 1990s, but it also makes the city feel warm and smoky. This exaggerated color grading is an important part of the game's aesthetics, but it is completely absent in the remake. The new city looks good at certain times of the day. The evening did bring back some familiar dim orange, albeit in much less ways. But in general, everything is too sterile and clean. The feeling of being in a hot, heavily polluted city is gone, and Los Santos has lost some of its characteristics.

Unfortunately, Grand Theft Auto 3 was also affected. The original Liberty City had its own unique color palette, which also defined it. The shades of green, blue, and gray reflect the gloomy feeling of the east coast city in autumn. It is bleak and unpopular, in keeping with the tone of the game's nihilism. As I described in detail here, this brought a weird and weird atmosphere to the city. Unfortunately, the remake failed to continue this atmosphere. From a technical point of view, new lighting effects, weather and other visual upgrades undoubtedly make this place look better. However, most of the essence of the city has disappeared-which can be said to be more important than low-resolution textures and simple geometric figures.

But, hey, I must say that Sin City looks spectacular-and it's a game in this remake of a trilogy, and I think its atmosphere is a lot better than the original. At sunset, the sky turns into a vivid and vibrant purple shade, and the building is illuminated by large swaths of colorful neon lights, truly blending into the glamorous and luxurious atmosphere of the 1980s. Undeniably, these games have undergone a lot of Unreal Engine technology upgrades, and when it runs, it runs very well. Assets borrowed from GTA 5 also brought more details to the world. Sharpening the texture and adding more clutter and geometric shapes is great-I just hope that people will pay as much attention as possible to the feeling of constantly rebuilding these cities.

As an early 3D open world, GTA in the PS2 era was troubled by the extremely short drawing distance. Now, this is naturally no longer a problem-but it is both a blessing and a curse. At the street level, greater distance makes the city feel richer, more complex, and larger. Being able to see the skyscrapers of LS downtown from Grove Street adds to the illusion that you are in a large and sprawling metropolis. Climbing up a grassy hill at night, overlooking Los Santos, you can see that the entire city landscape is lit up, not just a few low-detail buildings gradually disappearing into the fog. There are also new details, including houses scattered on the empty hills surrounding Liberty City.

In Sin City and Liberty City, looking further is not the real problem-but in San Andreas, the situation is different. Now, from some vantage points in Los Santos, you can see the desert and the bridge of San Fierro. This ruthlessly destroyed the illusion that San Andreas was a vast country. This is an example of the fact that fog is actually popular. Of course, there are not as many as the original, but it is enough to cover up these distant details. To make matters worse, when you steal an airplane and fly into a cloudless sky, the situation gets worse. You can see the entire map at once, which doesn't feel right. Even the slightest haze or mist will make this approach less harsh. There may be technical reasons, but it still looks disturbing.

However, I must attribute the rural areas of San Andreas to Rockstar and Grove Street Games. Places like Red County and Back O'Beyond have been greatly improved, updated with dense dense foliage, which is also borrowed from GTA 5. These parts of the map have always been the most suffocating technically, so explore the countryside of San Andreas to make it actually look like a countryside, not just a pile of empty areas covered by mist, occasionally covered by low The dwarf tree interrupted. In fact, the palm trees of Los Santos and Sin City are more realistic, with grass swaying in the wind, and your character’s feet will crumple it when you walk through it.

The texture changes are interesting. In most cases, they look great. Some large gang murals in Los Santos and the Luigi Club in GTA 3 have undergone major upgrades. But there have been many reported cases of misspellings or meaningless words on signs and storefronts-this may be the result of artificial intelligence being used to upgrade those tiny, low-resolution PS2 textures and misidentify certain characters. However, I can ignore this: there are five cities in this trilogy, so it might be impractical to make every texture by hand. In general, I think the texture work is good. Leaving aside some weird spellings, being able to actually read the details in the environment helps to make the world alive.

Sadly, performance has always been a big disappointment for me. On PS5, even in the lower resolution performance mode, all three games have difficulty maintaining a stable 60fps. So far, Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City are the worst. The frame rate can become distracting while driving, especially at night when there are a lot of real-time light sources. San Andreas is significantly smoother, but still inconsistent. I haven't experienced any serious slowdowns that disrupt the game, but the frequent declines in my 30s and 40s are enough to curb my enjoyment. I mean, these games are very old-a stable frame rate doesn't seem to be required, especially on next-generation consoles. I am praying for some kind of performance patch.

Finally, talk about those character models. This is one of the most inconsistent things in the remake. I like the appearance of some of them: the thick, almost plastic beauty is a good way to preserve the cartoon style of old games. The redesigned main character looks good, but in a scene featuring a group of people, things get strange. The "hero" character has obviously been upgraded, but the extra characters that linger in the background are usually only a little better than the characters in PS2. This can cause some stylistic mismatches, which can be distracting. Oh, the less they say about what the barber Reese did, the better. This should enable the character artist to reach the six-star wanted level.

Of the three remakes, I like San Andreas the most. In terms of pure playability, it is better than GTA 3 and Vice City in all aspects, with better car handling, shooting and mission design. In fact, it runs smoother and looks better on PS5 than others, which helps. These redistributions ended up being a very complex package. I knew they would cause a split at the moment the first trailer dropped, but I didn't expect them to cause such a split among GTA fans. I am very divided myself, I appreciate some things, but deeply question other things. But leaving aside the flaws, returning to San Andreas is still a pleasure, dressing CJ like an idiot, cruising in the desert, listening to K-DST. There is a strong sense of nostalgia.

Next post: Interview: Rockstar remakes the classic 3D GTA game for the new generation

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Andy Kelly is the feature editor of TheGamer. He likes detective games, anything with a good story, weird indie games and Alien: Isolation.