nowhat
Member
I wasn't really interested in PS+ Premium, but as I already upgraded to Extra to get Stray (it was cheaper than buying the game), upgrading to Premium later on wasn't that much more. When my annual subscription renews in March, I don't think I'll opt for for either tier, but for now I have the additional tiers of "free" games, so why not take them for a spin.
Which is why I'm typing this rant. I played the original way back on PS2, and probably wear nostalgia glasses thinking back about it, but some things still work. The radio stations are terrific (although I want more talk radio, the NPR clone is just hilarious) and I'm a sucker for that 80s vibe. What doesn't work that well is the mission design, which is very simplistic, but you have to account for how old the game is.
But those were features of the original game - how does this "Definite Edition" change things? Not for the better. I'm not playing the game at launch, the game has received several patches, and if this is the state that Rockstar considers "fixed", I have little hope for GTA6. I'm not trying to completely downplay the game, so let's start with the positives. Driving around at night can look nice at times. Not good, not great, just nice.
...and that's pretty much it. Everything else though, holy fuck this is a stinker. The environments look just so sterile and lacking detail. I don't think the added resolution does the game any favors, despite (or because of) the AI-upscaled models and textures. The character models and especially NPC animations range from hilariously bad to nightmare fuel. The controls are really sluggish and floaty (I suppose this is a Rockstar tradition). The checkpoint system remains as-is, which is to say non-existent.
And the bugs, oh the bugs. I didn't bump too much into invisible objects, but frequently you see cars just flying in to the scene randomly, NPCs behaving really strange, animations glitching and such. Two bugs really stood out to me. First, there's a mission where you have to go to a location with Lance to start it. And no dice, I try driving over the marker, going over it on foot, restarting the mission several times but it just wont trigger. Was about to give up, but googled it. Turns out, the game requires both the player and Lance to be close enough to the marker, so you need to be on a bike for the quest to trigger (this is the "fixed" version according to Rockstar).
The second very memorable bug I encountered was a mission where you have to dress up as a rival gang member and infiltrate a gang funeral/kill the gang leader. The leader and his companions escape on a hearse, and will throw coffins at you from the back of the car. I can't remember if in the original game the amount of coffins was unlimited, but this seems to be the case here, so I really spent my time just chasing the hearse and watching those coffins fly by. Eventually got bored and killed the target. But what happened afterwards was that all those coffins remained in the game world, still do when I reload the game. I can't collide with them, but they just exists sprinkled all over the city. Which is kind of amusing but also infuriating.
I'm almost at the end (some properties to buy and then the two final story missions), but I don't know if I'll make it. I've been "hate-playing" (like "hate-watching" a series) this pretty much from the start. I paid nothing (well, specifically for this game anyway) and still feel ripped off.
Which is why I'm typing this rant. I played the original way back on PS2, and probably wear nostalgia glasses thinking back about it, but some things still work. The radio stations are terrific (although I want more talk radio, the NPR clone is just hilarious) and I'm a sucker for that 80s vibe. What doesn't work that well is the mission design, which is very simplistic, but you have to account for how old the game is.
But those were features of the original game - how does this "Definite Edition" change things? Not for the better. I'm not playing the game at launch, the game has received several patches, and if this is the state that Rockstar considers "fixed", I have little hope for GTA6. I'm not trying to completely downplay the game, so let's start with the positives. Driving around at night can look nice at times. Not good, not great, just nice.
...and that's pretty much it. Everything else though, holy fuck this is a stinker. The environments look just so sterile and lacking detail. I don't think the added resolution does the game any favors, despite (or because of) the AI-upscaled models and textures. The character models and especially NPC animations range from hilariously bad to nightmare fuel. The controls are really sluggish and floaty (I suppose this is a Rockstar tradition). The checkpoint system remains as-is, which is to say non-existent.
And the bugs, oh the bugs. I didn't bump too much into invisible objects, but frequently you see cars just flying in to the scene randomly, NPCs behaving really strange, animations glitching and such. Two bugs really stood out to me. First, there's a mission where you have to go to a location with Lance to start it. And no dice, I try driving over the marker, going over it on foot, restarting the mission several times but it just wont trigger. Was about to give up, but googled it. Turns out, the game requires both the player and Lance to be close enough to the marker, so you need to be on a bike for the quest to trigger (this is the "fixed" version according to Rockstar).
The second very memorable bug I encountered was a mission where you have to dress up as a rival gang member and infiltrate a gang funeral/kill the gang leader. The leader and his companions escape on a hearse, and will throw coffins at you from the back of the car. I can't remember if in the original game the amount of coffins was unlimited, but this seems to be the case here, so I really spent my time just chasing the hearse and watching those coffins fly by. Eventually got bored and killed the target. But what happened afterwards was that all those coffins remained in the game world, still do when I reload the game. I can't collide with them, but they just exists sprinkled all over the city. Which is kind of amusing but also infuriating.
I'm almost at the end (some properties to buy and then the two final story missions), but I don't know if I'll make it. I've been "hate-playing" (like "hate-watching" a series) this pretty much from the start. I paid nothing (well, specifically for this game anyway) and still feel ripped off.
