Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City & San Andreas Demastered

[Asura]

Not sure I can empathise with the "they're 20 years old" thing; Rockstar is selling the set for £55.

I could get on-board if they were really like the originals, but the problem is that they aren't.

[Dogg Thang]

Not sure I can empathise with the "they're 20 years old" thing; Rockstar is selling the set for £55.

Would this be a great purchase if it was £25?

[Asura]

Would this be a great purchase if it was £25?

It'd be x0.454 outrageous.

[Dogg Thang]

It'd be x0.454 outrageous.

But it wouldn't actually be a better product. I don't think this is about price. I'm not even convinced it's about age. Nobody objects to paying full price for a blu-ray of a 20-year old movie. These games are immense and three of them together should easily, without the slightest hesitation, be considered worth £55. I don't think that's an issue.

The issue is that this is a really atrocious version of them. Which would still be true if the set was £10. It would still be true if the games were five years old. Or 40 years old. The issue is that these are just bad.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, sort out the performance issues and obvious unacceptable level issues and I'm fine with the package. Quirk glitches etc were part of the joy and experience of the trilogy so I don't mind them not being perfect. There's no reason they're not solid 60fps though and there are obvious issues that need to be fixed. If they patch those elements though I'm fine with the package in terms of price/content, it's just the issues that push it beyond unacceptable.

[wakka]

I'm interested to know what price you think would be fair for these games Asura?

Because I'm inclined to agree with the guys above, I'm not sure how much age comes into it. I paid £45 for Mario 3D All Stars and that is literally 3 ROMs and I have no regrets, to me that is worth it because they are sublime games and now I have them on Switch. Now if I'd invested that £45 in some kind of Ubisoft to-do list slogathon I'd probably feel ripped off, even though that is a brand new game and contains 42,000 hours of gameplay.

In fact I did feel massively ripped off paying £70 for Ratchet and Clank (R&C fans please - don't @ me). I'd get a hell of a lot more fun out of the OG GTA trilogy, even if the changes they had made were much milder than what they've actually done. Which would have course actually be preferable as what they have changed they've largely cocked up.

[Asura]

Nobody objects to paying full price for a blu-ray of a 20-year old movie.

They absolutely do if the blu-ray looks like a VHS transfer.

In fact, that's a good analogy. Full-price blu-ray; for the sake of argument let's say they make a big song-and-dance and make it a steelbook, and it's from a shoddy VHS transfer, slightly off-centre, and parts of the movie have poor framing.

I mean even off the top of my head, people complained about how Highlander: The Immortal Edition had inconsistent filtering that made the day scenes look too clean and the night scenes look too noisy, so much so that they had to do another edition with a better blu-ray transfer.

Or for a better example, I guess; someone who owns the digital SD version of a movie on Amazon would probably object if they bought the HD version, and found it was just the SD file which had been upscaled to HD (if they were discerning consumer), because they'd rightfully question what they're paying for.

I think the point is valid. The games are 20 years old, but that's not the problem; a very good "transfer" of them is still worth a decent asking price - but that "very good" version would be free of faults, run really well on modern systems and respect the art direction of the originals. Right now, that version doesn't exist.

These don't do that, so Rockstar could have sold it cheap (like they did when these were mobile games; I mean they were like £2.99 because they knew full price wasn't justified), but they didn't take this approach either.

I don't get what's so objectionable about this. A good quality product is worth more than bad quality product, surely? So if you've got a bad quality product, people might view it with less disdain if you sell it for less.

[Dogg Thang]

You're entirely proving my point here. The issue is quality.

[Asura]

You're entirely proving my point here. The issue is quality.

I'm confused, weren't you disagreeing with this thing I said?

I could get on-board if they were really like the originals, but the problem is that they aren't.

[wakka]

I actually think we are all violently agreeing now that the reason it's not worth 50 quid is because it's a really bad version, and if it was a good version, it would be.

[Dogg Thang]

I actually think we are all violently agreeing now that the reason it's not worth 50 quid is because it's a really bad version, and if it was a good version, it would be.

Exactly. But not that the price point is the problem. Not that the age is the problem. The quality is the problem.

[Brad]

The games aren’t 20 years old. They just came out. These are the definitive editions. Except they aren’t. They’re utter **** and everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed. A ps2 emulator and bundled roms would have been better.

[Cassius_Smoke]

The games aren’t 20 years old. They just came out. These are the definitive editions. Except they aren’t. They’re utter **** and everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed. A ps2 emulator and bundled roms would have been better.

I've got SA running on my phone using a ps2 emulator and it's spot on...

[Neon Ignition]

https://rockstarintel.com/gta-trilogy-remasters-get-big-new-update-three-years-after-release/

[wakka]

Sounds improved. I find it funny that they even offer the remasters' original lighting as an option still when it's obviously so much worse.

Interesting that the article notes that they removed mention of Grove Street Games from the title, too. Maybe they are pissed off with them for cocking it up so much.