Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition (let's just say 'GTA Trilogy' for the rest of the article) arrived with plenty of buzz yesterday, though aside from a near-launch trailer there wasn't a huge amount of build-up. There wasn't much footage either, or reviews, which perhaps led to some nerves around how good and 'definitive' it would be.
We shared some footage of GTA Trilogy on Switch yesterday, which is just gameplay without any commentary, and we are working on a review. Though some are certainly happy enough with the results, we've had various members of our team and others on social media being distinctly unimpressed with various aspects. In fact, considering the hype and excitement that normally accompanies a Rockstar / GTA release this feels like a mis-step, at least if online noise is to be believed.
Beyond all of those opinions, though, the wider game is having its issues. One topic that affects all versions is the licensed music on the various radio stations, with a number of tracks being cut.
In a bit of a weird twist, dataminers digging around the PC code have discovered that the audio files for this music weren't actually removed, but instead they're just 'skipped'. On Twitter @Ash_735 shared the following.
Some others have been digging and found development notes that are rather blunt, you can see an example here.
Away from datamining, on PC the game has had serious issues due to its exclusivity to the Rockstar Games Launcher (thanks, Eurogamer). The launcher fell into issues that affected the ability for users to even play the game; the launcher has been taken down for maintenance and the game temporarily removed from sale on the platform. In all likelihood it'll be resolved relatively quickly, but it's another bad look for the release.
In any case, if you've taken the plunge on the GTA Trilogy for Switch let us know what you think so far - are you happy with the end result?
Comments 56
Did they not learn from the Hot Coffee incident?
You have to remove code and assets that mustn't be available to the end user, not just omit parts that might access it conventionally.
I didn't even know Rockstar had its own launcher, lol.
Just put it on Steam, you weirdos.
The music industry is one of the worst when it comes to bring stingy with copyright, 5 seconds of copyrighted music in your YouTube video, and either the video goes, or your money from it goes.
Rockstar can probably be sued and lose thanks to this.
It’s a shame we aren’t allowed to call devs lazy…. Coz this isn’t lazy at all…
“It’s a hard enough job as it is” apparently….
Once a patch comes to fix these issues & the game drops to $30, I might be tempted. I’m definitely not paying $60 for this buggy mess.
Rockstar took the $10 PS3 versions offline and replaced them with this 🙃
The late announcement, lack of previews and no gameplay footage were all very suspicious. It smelt like a rushed port right from the get-go, I’m not surprised it’s full of bugs. I’m just glad I didn’t pre-order. Hopefully they’ll fix it with patches.
About the music, maybe devs went ahead and brought all the old music to be sure it worked while the higher ups dealt with copyright and etc. When the music got cut, they simply left it out from users' end.
Though it was a bit amateurish to leave notes in the age of datamining
While not perfect the game isn't bad, people keep expecting miracles on what is old hardware at this point ..games like doom, crysis, witcher 3, outer worlds pretty much is the best we're gonna get out of the current switch we need to stop being mad.. hopefully they will smooth it out some more but we need to stop acting surprised... I picked this over the superior ps and pc version not for gyro controls but because its PORTABLE GTA!... Im having fun, I'm just happy the game isn't a headache inducing blurry mess like crysis where it's impossible to see enemies unless they are right in front of you... I knew what I was getting into when i paid $60 for gta on switch without any reviews or gameplay footage... At the end of the day I'm sitting here playing games I've put in thousands of hours into when i was a teen.. lets hope they can keep my attention ...switch version or not
Has anyone seen a review for it yet? I'm waiting for the Nintendo Life review before making a decision.
Far too many articles on this website are annoying me lately. Didn't you guys recently post about how it's not appropriate to call developers lazy? And how it's better to explain what the problems are rather than just saying a few unhelpful words. So then why yesterday did you post a video and simply put "grand theft oh no". Better post that review up soon or you guys are just being hypocrites.
Telling people not to do the same behaviour you are actually encouraging from your readers with posts like this. Maybe you guys are becoming the problem? Just a thought...
I picked up Saints Row 3 expecting to have a nice "Wander-em-up" game, where I could admire the scenery and views, without my motion sickness getting in the way..
How much did I play?
You know in the tutorial when you're on a giant pylon, looking down at tanks, and having to blow them up by swinging around and around and around and around and around and around..
Vomit-city!
Didn't get past that.
I was hoping to get this and have a fun wander without throwing up.. It's not looking good, folks!
I’m going to avoid using the term lazy - as that seems to be a source of debate above - but this is definitely an indicator of their overall approach to spending the time and effort required to make this the “definitive edition”.
Purely from a file size bloat perspective - surely this would be an easy win compression wise so that the mandatory download isn’t as high?
Also... just want to say. I miss the days when there wasn't a new article every half an hour. And I feel like some of you guys don't even really like Nintendo. Not saying names, that's up to you guys. But there are some people writing articles that get a lot more controversy than others... that is an issue and is turning off older readers in favour of this new more toxic variety
@RupeeClock I sure hope that's sarcasm. Every game has cut content in it that just has access to it cut off. That's because there's likely a huge amount of code that references the cut content, and to remove all references to it would take a lot of work and QA testing to make sure it works afterwards. Removing the content completely can break the game or introduce more bugs.
Obvious holiday rush job to appease shareholders.
Another Cyberpunk 2077 case except it's a 20 year old re-release. Good grief...
@Stocksy I'd guess it has more to do with budget and time constraints set by executives than the work ethic of the developers.
@MarioBrickLayer Rockstar didn't send out any pre release copies to reviewers so they are playing through it at the same time as everyone else.
I expect they knew many people would buy on day one without reviews so why let reviewers persuade them otherwise.
Picked it up last night and been playing it pretty much straight since. About 10 hours in to GTA3 and am having a blast. Yes it's a 20 year old game - it hasn't aged particularly well but if you take it for what it is, then it's still a whole load of fun. People keep expecting miracles then surprised when they don't get them. Just be thankful we have these pieces of gaming history on the switch at all!
I've played 3 or 4 hours of Vice City and it plays fine, definitely could be better performance wise but miles away from being unplayable and no worse then I remember the originals or GTA5 on PS3. Handheld I'd say its pretty good. They're clearly not the "definitive" experience but they're still fun games and hopefully the performance niggles will get fixed
@Stocksy Call them whatever you want. This GTA trilogy release is both lazy AND a victim of Rockstar being cheapskates with the budget.
I was all set to get this a month ago. Now? Lol.
@Dr_Corndog what? Removing the files or not in this case is just lazy…. I’m pretty sure a executive didn’t insist the dev left the files in and skip them…. In fact I think going on past legal issues the executives will be most unhappy….
@EVIL-C I believe 90% of the issues are down to being cheapskates but to skip the files and not remove them is on the dev and is lazy….
@BongoBongo Personally i'm happy all the music files are included, makes them much easier to patch back in on PC!
@themightyant yeah for the end user it’s a godsend.
Shame I won’t be able to on the switch.
@Stocksy True. It will be interesting to see if these files are in any of the other versions. If not then it would have been quite deliberate on the part of the developer to include them and not the 'lazy' approach everyone is immediately gravitating towards. But gamers seemingly have to have their pound of flesh...
In my company the devs have a task and alarms to remind them to remove ALL test code before going to the end user.
I guess those people don't have such practices.
My main criticism is that the characters look like some kids TV show and make the whole game seem like a comedy. That was not the case before the remaster.
@themightyant I think it’s naive to think devs aren’t lazy. Police people are lazy at times, Doctors, Refuge collectors, Teachers, Shop workers…..
Everyone is lazy at times and some people are just lazy at work and have bad work ethic and just coast… dunno why the word lazy triggers so many people…. Loads of stuff is lazy…. People don’t have often the highest standards in their own work. They’ll do just enough. It’s a fact of life.
@ballistic90
No, you are absolutely not in the right here.
Rockstar's incompetence here lead to the distribution of licensed music they did not have the license to.
And the Hot Coffee incident lead to lawsuits that shook the gaming industry, because they didn't remove content that was not suitable for classification.
Even if you can't access this content through conventional play, you cannot ever rule out that people will modify your distributed works and gain access to otherwise inaccessible content, which is exactly what happened with the infamous Hot Coffee mod.
At the end of the day if you do not make the proper effort to remove content that mustn't be distributed, there will be consequences for it.
Even something as innocuous as pages from a Sailor Moon manga not ever visible to the player can cause issues years after the game was originally released, which is what happened with Punch-Out Wii.
@Scapetti yep…..it’s the way this site is heading unfortunately. There’s some decent writers on here but also a few who seem to be promoting their own agenda.
@Stocksy "I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." - Bill Gates (probably not) lol
I don't disagree that devs, or anyone, will find shortcuts to do things, that is working smarter not harder and sensible in most things in life. It's a positive trait. But it's knowing specifically when you can cut corners that is important.
I don't think that is the same as being lazy, which is indolence and sloth and a negative trait. There's a difference between the two.
As dumb as the whole Hot Coffee incident was, it set a precedent and it's kind of crazy they thought this would be fine. I mean, if just some inaccessible adult content was enough to get the game pulled, then inaccessible audio you don't have the rights to definitely is going to.
What a disaster these unfinished “definitive” editions have turned out to be.
I’m now tempted to grab the trilogy via iOS instead.
Hopefully none of this trickles down to the upcoming Quest 2 VR version of GTA: San Andreas, which is the only version I'm remotely interested in.
@Stocksy How about "incompetent"?
@Ralizah if you buy it in Steam you still need to sign in. I bought EA's Star Wars Squadron on Epic that had me sign into EAs launcher which launched Steam to play in VR.
The DRM is crazy anymore.
Nothing like a "definitive edition" with less content than the original.
Also from what I understand it's a slightly polished version of the mobile ports. They pulled a Chrono Trigger with these!
“Poorly executed” - Definitely
“Rushed” - Highly likely
“The programmers all are apathetic pancakes who can barely roll out of bed” - Seems bit of a long shot
Criticise a product to its very last flaw. Pick apart its every failing. Consumers should absolutely express what they find unpalatable. But to attribute those flaws solely to a single moral failing on behalf of the coding team while ignoring so many other factors that influence production is itself extremely mentally lazy.
The development process could perhaps be described as dysfunctional, panicked, and even incompetent. But I highly doubt the root cause of this was just coders wanting to catch up on their beauty sleep.
I played about an hour of Vice City last night without doing a single mission! I was laughing my ass off at how dated the game really is... but it's so much fun that way! Also, the only music missing in the game is just Michael Jackson and Ozzy Osbourne. Otherwise all of the other classics are still intact. 😁
Well good thing I held onto my original PC versions. Try and remove those Rockstar. They definitely botched this one.
@MarioBrickLayer And they're waiting on them to make enough money from rush buyers before.posting the normal 8 they give almost every game that could be considered good or decent.
If you download the crack on pc you don't need the rockstar launcher
Maybe to try & avoid getting Sued they'll actually get licenses to use the music & enable it in a patch
@ParadoxFawkes @gwyntendo
"people keep expecting miracles on what is old hardware at this point"
You guys do realise that these three GTAs run fine on 8-year-old Android phones, right? It's no miracle to get the PS2 era GTAs running on the Switch, it's just that Rockstar didn't want to do it. And now that they are ready to bless us with their presence, it's this half-effort travesty.
I know that NL did that article recently about "lazy devs", but come on - spelling mistakes, crummy driving physics, and character models which nobody in their right mind could have looked at and said "yes, that is an acceptable improvement". Clearly, no love has been given to this endeavour, it is Minimum Viable Product all the way. They needed to put something out the door to convince people on non-Switch platforms to buy GTA 3 again, so they did.
But hey, at least it has bloom!
@N64-ROX if they had just done straight ports I'd say yes they are old games fundementally but since its made on unreal it on the technical side a new game...yea they arent great, I agree on the slackjob and we deserve better but we need to stop acting so outraged when we already half expected this..rockstar has made it clear its about the money this last generation when they focused mostly on gta online and left so many great IPs collecting dust..and those mobile ports sucked and were more or less (probably less) straight ports of the originals with ass for controls
@HamatoYoshi I thought maybe it was just me but my comments are getting a surprising amount of upvotes considering I basically just berated the website!
(I don't hate the website by the way, I'm just worried lately how things have been going and I miss the good old days of Alex and his silly videos)
@ParadoxFawkes fair point, and you're right that we should have half- seen this coming. And I'll also admit, I'm still going to play these when I travel because they're the best we've got on the Switch.
It's just that, you know, when a beloved developer such as Rockstar takes something great and makes it much much worse, just for the sake of having a new SKU to sell, no amount of cynical foresight can ease the pain completely.
@Scapetti I have noticed this too lately. Lots of virtue signaling coming from Nintendo Life, but they're also more than happy to incite vitriol and ride the waves for the clicks and comments. It just reeks of money and hypocrisy. This is what happened to Kotaku AU before I stopped visiting there years ago
@N64-ROX nope and I agree it sucks but its the best we got.. the worst thing to happen to gaming was microtransactions and monetization with dlc causing a ripple effect across the entire industry.. I hate that the best skins in cod are all $25 and not unlockable and that the battle pass is mostly crap when all I want is guns and skins that was not a thing 20 yeaes ago... Gta online ruined rockstars drive for creativity in the industry when they don't have to try hard anymore and can just focus on gta online.. and don't get me started on EA haha
@AJB83 ameican kotaku is biased opinion pieces and whining mostly these days... with a very limited and judgemental viewpoint usually to push some agenda that has nothing to do with videogames
@ballistic90 Exactly and since it's a budget $20 game, they probably didn't want to spend the money to do the necessary QA testing.
WHAT? It's not a budget game?
@Ralizah Man alive... I bought Red Dead Redemption 2 on special on Steam... Only to be thwarted by the terrible Rockstar launcher. I fiddled and faddled with it for hours but could not get it to work so had to request a refund.
@CharlieGirl
The remasters weren't released on the PS3
@Scapetti I’m the same, I don’t hate the site and it’s still my go-to for anything Nintendo but there’s definitely writers on here who are putting their personal agendas into their articles.
@HamatoYoshi same with Vooks
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