Thankfully I was fashionably late to the GTA Definitive Edition party as by the time I played, most of the graphical issues had been ironed out.
The updated lighting effects, resolution and texture pack updates make the game look incredible. I’ve said it before, I love the nostalgic look of games that aren’t jam packed with loads of different elements like set dressing. Just wide-open blocky spaces. A lot of the upscaled textures look amazing but there are still some as of August 2023 which have been missed out and are either warped or have noticeable AI artifacting. I did however set the game’s graphics mode to ‘Performance’ over ‘Fidelity’ to get that sweet, sweet 60fps so I didn't witness the maximum lighting effects for long. Let me tell you, it felt weird and alien-like to be playing GTA III at 60fps, just not something my brain was used to.
Grove Street have done a fantastic job to update the visuals and a few odd gameplay mechanics to bring the game closer to modern day’s standards without affecting the game too much. There are a lot of features we take for granted in the newer GTA instalments that are noticeably absent in this game such as: swimming, jumping out cars while moving, shooting people driving cars from outside, a stamina bar/stamina that lasts longer than 1 second and reasonable car physics. I failed many missions over and over due to mental AI or me landing in water and drowning right away. This was very frustrating. There are checkpoints at the start of each mission which you can take advantage of but can be frustrating in longer missions. On that subject, I do love how the missions are very varied and never get repetitive. I did give up with the side-missions though as each side mission will take you into enemy gang territory and you and your vehicle don’t last long at all.
I struggled to really follow the storyline and I put that down to the non-linear aspect of being able to go to whatever main mission next out of order and the fact the game features a silent protagonist ‘Claude’ means that character interactions are very limited. What doesn’t help is there being no on-screen objectives for the current mission you are on, meaning you need to go into the pause menu then read the chat log to try and piece together what you are doing and why.
I only played the main story missions this time around as I’d like to get on with the other two games. This is a fantastic way to play the original GTA III for younger audiences that never got to play the original version on the PS2/Xbox. They may struggle with its age but that’s just how it is. 3 Stars may be considered low for such a classic game but even at its release, it was never a heavy hitter for me due to how lacking the game felt.
The updated lighting effects, resolution and texture pack updates make the game look incredible. I’ve said it before, I love the nostalgic look of games that aren’t jam packed with loads of different elements like set dressing. Just wide-open blocky spaces. A lot of the upscaled textures look amazing but there are still some as of August 2023 which have been missed out and are either warped or have noticeable AI artifacting. I did however set the game’s graphics mode to ‘Performance’ over ‘Fidelity’ to get that sweet, sweet 60fps so I didn't witness the maximum lighting effects for long. Let me tell you, it felt weird and alien-like to be playing GTA III at 60fps, just not something my brain was used to.
Grove Street have done a fantastic job to update the visuals and a few odd gameplay mechanics to bring the game closer to modern day’s standards without affecting the game too much. There are a lot of features we take for granted in the newer GTA instalments that are noticeably absent in this game such as: swimming, jumping out cars while moving, shooting people driving cars from outside, a stamina bar/stamina that lasts longer than 1 second and reasonable car physics. I failed many missions over and over due to mental AI or me landing in water and drowning right away. This was very frustrating. There are checkpoints at the start of each mission which you can take advantage of but can be frustrating in longer missions. On that subject, I do love how the missions are very varied and never get repetitive. I did give up with the side-missions though as each side mission will take you into enemy gang territory and you and your vehicle don’t last long at all.
I struggled to really follow the storyline and I put that down to the non-linear aspect of being able to go to whatever main mission next out of order and the fact the game features a silent protagonist ‘Claude’ means that character interactions are very limited. What doesn’t help is there being no on-screen objectives for the current mission you are on, meaning you need to go into the pause menu then read the chat log to try and piece together what you are doing and why.
I only played the main story missions this time around as I’d like to get on with the other two games. This is a fantastic way to play the original GTA III for younger audiences that never got to play the original version on the PS2/Xbox. They may struggle with its age but that’s just how it is. 3 Stars may be considered low for such a classic game but even at its release, it was never a heavy hitter for me due to how lacking the game felt.