GTA The Trilogy: The Definitive Edition (November 11, 2021)

[TheAbyssWalker61]

9 minutes ago, Nighcisama said:

That is exactly what I don't want for international games, for games to be as mangled as the German versions, and yet it likely is exactly where the road ultimately leads to once the door is opened further for censorship. Most people don't believe me when I tell them the absurd extend of censorship in German versions of games, not just symbols being changed in games like Wolfenstein, even characters being redesigned and renamed, text being edited, big story elements changed, hell in old GTA games there were entire missions being cut out, whole features being taken out of the game, blood and limbs being severed was taken out too in a game that had the highest age rating in the country. I had to create an austrian account to even get and replay a game like Prototype because it is outright banned in Germany.

 

I don't get why people don't just mind their own business with something like this. If a game offends me or shows/does things I really don't like, guess what, I am not buying it, but I am not demanding that the people who do buy and play it stop doing it, nor do I demand that the game gets changed to my liking, a game does not have to appearl to everyone. Complaining about things you don't like in a game is fine, I know I have done it before, thats a long path away from things being censored. Also not sure how some people are so dense that they don't understand its a matter of principle, not an individual case for each case of something being changed or removed, perhaps its because they don't have any principles, or they are too dense to realize that censorship is not a one time thing, but something that escalates as far as it is allowed to.

I have study the german case and man i don't understand how you can have movies like "Melancholie der Engel" but not Dead rising lol, it doesn't have any sense the first example its extreme worst in all ways than a videogame... snowflakes and governments should keep their heads in ther asses and stop annoying people, it's 2021 we can go back censoring, not even nuns, boomers  and monks are the ones who complain lol, are the 15 years old twitter warriors with the brain washed with garbage, i hope in some moment all this stupid thing can be a dream and in 5 years or less we can laugh of these people and how the stupidity peak was reached, it's a cultural americanization of being offended but i know it will stop, the hope it's on Japan, China and South Korea.

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

I had no idea there was any "controversy" surrounding these remasters until I skimmed the last few pages of this thread. Can't say I'm too surprised, there's always something to complain about nowadays, no matter how minor it may be. As far as "censorship" goes, I don't think it's possible for me to care any less about this one personally, I wouldn't have even noticed the change myself unless someone pointed it out to me. With how often some people like to claim people are too easily offended nowadays, it always seems to be those same people that get the most riled up over these things. And I'm in no way supporting censorship, but we don't live in an ideal world where everyone is content with everything ever, there's always going to be decisions made in media or whatever that upsets someone or other, "censorship" doesn't even need to factor into it. It's not unusual for an author or artist's work to be "censored" or otherwise edited before they ever even make it to the public eye anyway, if we wanna get real anal about the topic. At least we've come a long way from the moral panic days of games being blamed for school shootings and parental negligence (for the most part anyway).

 

Anyhow, I was aware that some people dislike the new, more cartoony graphical style. I personally don't mind it, it's nice to see they actually have done a fair amount to improve these games visually, and it sounds like they have some pretty nice QOL improvements. I'll definitely be picking these up, especially since it's been confirmed the trilogy is getting a physical now.

Edited October 25, 2021 by SuperSmexy500

[RedDevil757]

9 hours ago, yellowwindow7 said:

a remaster for GTA 4 ( Without the Online Trophies Nonsense! ) , Liberty City Story, Vice City Story and Chinatown would be lovely and far more welcoming than these three that I played to death by now.

 

I believe the PC ports of the trilogy have fixed the pop in's.

Yeah no issues with the pc ports. Those are what I played back in the day. I was shocked at how bad the PS2 ports were tho. I found Vice City unplayable and didn't either bother trying San Andreas after that

[rebelkiller93]

As far as censorship goes, I don't particularly care about the removal of the Confederate Flag symbol that's on screen for a combined total of like three minutes across the entire game and adds absolutely nothing to the original story. 

[StraightVege]

1 hour ago, SuperSmexy500 said:

As far as "censorship" goes, I don't think it's possible for me to care any less about this one personally, I wouldn't have even noticed the change myself unless someone pointed it out to me.

 

I've played damn near every game in the franchise other than GTAV and the PSP ones (ages ago, to be fair), but I can't for the life of me even remember the shirt guy. Was he an important character? In any case, the Confederacy getting owned yet again won't stop this game from selling like gangbusters. Almost a pity I lost my taste for the series after IV, because I rather enjoy the fitting new visual style, and my teenage self would have been hyped to the moon about this trilogy.

[Eagle]

2 minutes ago, ScarecrowsFate said:

I've played damn near every game in the franchise other than V and the PSP ones (ages ago, to be fair), but I can't for the life of me even remember the shirt guy. Was he an important character?

 

It's Phil Cassidy. He is one of the most important characters in VC, yes, but removing the Confederate flag from his shirt literally changes nothing to the story of the game itself... which is why these "literally 1984" people end up being so annoying. It's not being discussed anywhere else in the Internet - it's just in here, where the same bunch of people end up nitpicking some really minor thing that 99% of people wouldn't even notice and then proceed to derail every single interesting topic (happened with Saints Row reboot, GoW: Ragnarök, etc.) saying how much society is woke and how the videogame industry is leading itself to ruin (which I agree, but for completely different reasons) and if you disagree you're a "SJW" (which is thrown around so much nowadays it doesn't mean anything anymore), yadda yadda.

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

12 minutes ago, ScarecrowsFate said:

 

I've played damn near every game in the franchise other than GTAV and the PSP ones (ages ago, to be fair), but I can't for the life of me even remember the shirt guy. Was he an important character? In any case, the Confederacy getting owned yet again won't stop this game from selling like gangbusters. Almost a pity I lost my taste for the series after IV, because I rather enjoy the fitting new visual style, and my teenage self would have been hyped to the moon about this trilogy.

 

Honestly if anyone told me there was even a confederate flag in any of the games, I'd have to look it up myself because I don't remember seeing 'em at all. It's been a long time since I last played any of the PS2 GTAs, but I think the character in question is a fairly minor NPC if memory serves.

 

I don't see myself replaying these for quite some time, not a huge GTA fan any more either, but I'm definitely a lot more intrigued by these remasters now after initially not really expecting much of anything.

[StraightVege]

11 minutes ago, Eagle said:

It's Phil Cassidy. He is one of the most important characters in VC, yes, but removing the Confederate flag from his shirt literally changes nothing to the story of the game itself... which is why these "literally 1984" people end up being so annoying. It's not being discussed anywhere else in the Internet - it's just in here, where the same bunch of people end up nitpicking some really minor thing that 99% of people wouldn't even notice and then proceed to derail every single interesting topic.

 

Ah, thanks! Wow, and I played that game to absolute death... Diagnosis: old brain.

 

You're mostly right, but unfortunately it's not just here—there are dedicated Reddit pages and whatnot where status quo warriors congregate to work themselves into a frenzy about just this sort of thing.

[Dauersack]

18 minutes ago, rebelkiller93 said:

As far as censorship goes, I don't particularly care about the removal of the Confederate Flag symbol that's on screen for a combined total of like three minutes across the entire game and adds absolutely nothing to the original story. 

Let me tell you a secret, I don't really care about someone having a Confederate Flag on his shirt either, this flag means nothing to me, American only problems go right past my backside. There are two big reasons why this pisses me and other people off anyway.

 

One it is the fact that censorship, no matter how little it starts, always escalates further if it meets no backlash, especially if it is done for mundane reasons like "maybe this will offend someone". There is always someone who is offended about something these days, today its a shirt, tomorrow its phrases being changed, then old characters that don't fit in the woke agenda get drastically changed or even removed ( if it can happen to beloved characters like Apu from the Simpsons it can happen to any character), then its features and content, and then welcome to Germany levels of censorship in videogames, do you want that? Just because many people can only think as far as they can throw each other does not mean that this is not a valid concern.

 

The second one is inconsistency and proportionality. Sony is legendary for inconsistent censorship for example, you can see some naked people fuck on camera in one game, and in others you get outfits that show too much of the legs changed because seeing some thighs is somehow offensive. In this GTA case here they go out of their way to take out a flag that people think it bad, while your character goes around murdering people and committing acts of terrorism, its so stupid and clearly shows that people in favor of this have lost their minds.

 

Rockstar went as lazy as they could possibly be with this slightly visually improved trilogy, they couldn't be bothered to put in effort, but for something like this they take the time, and thats not supposed to frustrate people?

[objectioner]

Its interesting seeing how people respond to this kind of censorship.

 

"Its a small thing no one will notice changed, so it doesn't matter, why do you care?".

But if it so insignificant why change it all?

The desire to make the change, especially if its so 'insignificant', raises a lot suspicion on your intentions.

 

And its funny, the Confederate flag, which people still claim is a 'hate symbol' despite both black and white people from the south see it as a symbol of 'southern pride' nowadays.

André 3000 famously wore a large belt buckle with the flag on it, in the famous video for "Sorry Miss Jackson".

Edited October 25, 2021 by objectioner
Grammar

[Pumpkin Head Cthulhu]

On 8/12/2021 at 1:53 PM, tony_snake_24 said:

This is thowing around the words "remakes" and "remasters" interchangeably like it's the same thing. Which is it?

Yeah that is annoying because then people start using the wrong one for the wrong game. If I am correct this trilogy is a remaster as I do not think they are rebuilding these games from the ground up like say MediEvil.

 

However they also mix in Re-Imagining which is also completely different, they will make a re-imagining and it will be called a remake.

 

Here is a rough breakdown of the 4 that keep getting mixed up:

 

Port - a straight transfer of the game with no improvements outside of QoL and trophies

ex: Primal, Rogue Galaxy

 

Remaster - an improved version using the Original code as the base

ex: Onimusha, Shadow Complex Remastered

 

Remake - a completely rebuilt version of the game from the ground up

ex: Resident Evil on GC, Destroy All Humans, MediEvil

 

RE-Imagining - a divergence form the source material akin to "Inspired by" or "based on", makes Massive changes to Story and/or gameplay.

ex: Resident Evil 2 (PS4), Wild Arms Alter Code F, Final Fantasy VII Remake

 

Hopefully that answers the question tony.

 

Also I hear they are now censoring these games. That is rather odd considering the content of the game, Yahtzee sums it up best with tis video:

 

 

Let us remember this quote: When you cut out a mans tongue you are only proving you fear what the man would say not that he is a liar.

 

Not the exact quote and I forgot who said it originally.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Void

[Zephrese]

Slightly more on-topic, but I don't know how to feel about this collection in all honesty.

 

$60 is asking a bit too much, imo, and the visuals are 50/50 to me for the most part.

(And, while it doesn't effect me personally since I already have them, it was still pretty shady of Take-Two to take down the existing versions regardless of their reasoning)

In some cases things look too smooth and/or oversaturated, and some things look even less detailed than before. Other things do look better, but it's kind of jarring regardless.

 

I'm also still a bit iffy on the people who're responsible for developing these versions given their past track record with these games and how they've ported them, but I digress.
I'll probably still end up buying it when it goes on sale anyways, which will be like the millionth time I've thrown money at these same three games by now, so Idk. lmao

Edited October 25, 2021 by Zephrese

[kinnyman]

When I 1st heard this was being done I honestly thought it was going to be this:

If this was the case, I'd have preordered already.  But this constant remastering, rereleasing, rehashing the same old thing with minimal improvements is just...retarded..

 

Now seeing it, not interested at all.

Edited October 25, 2021 by kinnyman

[Viper]

3 minutes ago, kinnyman said:

When I 1st heard this was being done I honestly thought it was going to be this:

If this was the case, I'd have preordered already.  But this constant remastering, rereleasing, rehashing the same old thing with minimal improvements is just...retarded..

 

Now seeing it, not interested at all.

People really need to learn the difference between Remaster and Remake. 

[kinnyman]

2 minutes ago, Viper said:

People really need to learn the difference between Remaster and Remake. 

 

I guess so, but still, I don't see any reason to get this unless you have never played it already.  Even then, as a trophy hunter, if Take the Cannoli is still tied to shooting accuracy and they patched out getting to the other island early, good luck.

[Viper]

16 minutes ago, kinnyman said:

 

I guess so, but still, I don't see any reason to get this unless you have never played it already.  Even then, as a trophy hunter, if Take the Cannoli is still tied to shooting accuracy and they patched out getting to the other island early, good luck.

But the games aren't just graphical improvements. They get Quality of Life upgrades as well...that means the shooting is more like GTA V. Which means it's going to be much more accurate and feel more like a modern game than just a PS2 port. All these things people complain about are a problem because PS2 controls didn't age well at all...if you update everything than it's likely going to be a lot easier than it was before. 

 

I'm pretty positive these trophy lists are going to be more time consuming than they are difficult. 

[BloodyRutz]

48 minutes ago, kinnyman said:

When I 1st heard this was being done I honestly thought it was going to be this:

If this was the case, I'd have preordered already.  But this constant remastering, rereleasing, rehashing the same old thing with minimal improvements is just...retarded..

 

Now seeing it, not interested at all.

 

Too bad I didn't know about this video when I was making my point earlier. This is exactly how I did NOT want the trilogy to look like. This feels nothing like the trilogy I used to love when I was a kid. This looks just like another GTA 5 (which obviously makes sense since technically it is GTA 5).

 

To each to their own but I'm glad this is not the case.

 

Edited October 25, 2021 by BloodyRutz

[kinnyman]

21 minutes ago, Viper said:

But the games aren't just graphical improvements. They get Quality of Life upgrades as well...that means the shooting is more like GTA V. Which means it's going to be much more accurate and feel more like a modern game than just a PS2 port. All these things people complain about are a problem because PS2 controls didn't age well at all...if you update everything than it's likely going to be a lot easier than it was before. 

 

I'm pretty positive these trophy lists are going to be more time consuming than they are difficult. 

It sounds like you are excited for this game.  I hope it's everything and more that you wish for.  For me, the biggest issue in III and VC was the static camera.   But am I going to drop $60 on a remaster because they fixed the camera and I can lock-on headshot people now....no.  Even other qualify of life improvements wouldn't convince me to buy these games again.  I'd prefer a remake, or at least include something like VC stories or Chinatown Wars or something extra.  I think we just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Edited October 25, 2021 by kinnyman

[Viper]

3 minutes ago, kinnyman said:

It sounds like you are excited for this game.  I hope it's everything and more that you wish for.  For me, the biggest issue in III and VC was the static camera.   But am I going to drop $60 on a remaster because they fixed the camera and I can lock-on headshot people now....no.  Even other qualify of life improvements wouldn't convince me to buy these games again.  I'd prefer a remake, or at least include something like VC stories or Chinatown Wars or something extra.  I think we just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Not really excited, I'm just trying to think rationally here. People always talk about how AAA games have gotten too easy these days, and I fully believe it has less to do with actual difficulty and a lot to do with developers figuring out the small things...such as the QoL improvements we take for granted now and streamlining controls to make more sense than they used to. 

 

I'm not dropping $60 on this either, I said before I was expecting $40 at most and was even going to wait for a sale then. I'm probably not picking this up until it's $20. I'd prefer remakes to remasters too...but even if they said remake I would have never expected your video. Those look better than GTA V, and Rockstar isn't having that until 6 finally drops lol. 

[ziggypossum]

Day one. Physical. That's all.

Censorship? Yeah, fuck it.

Can you do smth about it? Nope.

Times have changed a lot in the gaming industry over the past 20 years, and so the world.

We are not going back to the "good old days", that's all I know.

[AJ_Radio]

8 hours ago, SuperSmexy500 said:

I had no idea there was any "controversy" surrounding these remasters until I skimmed the last few pages of this thread. Can't say I'm too surprised, there's always something to complain about nowadays, no matter how minor it may be. As far as "censorship" goes, I don't think it's possible for me to care any less about this one personally, I wouldn't have even noticed the change myself unless someone pointed it out to me. With how often some people like to claim people are too easily offended nowadays, it always seems to be those same people that get the most riled up over these things. And I'm in no way supporting censorship, but we don't live in an ideal world where everyone is content with everything ever, there's always going to be decisions made in media or whatever that upsets someone or other, "censorship" doesn't even need to factor into it. It's not unusual for an author or artist's work to be "censored" or otherwise edited before they ever even make it to the public eye anyway, if we wanna get real anal about the topic. At least we've come a long way from the moral panic days of games being blamed for school shootings and parental negligence (for the most part anyway).

I feel in ways we haven’t really progressed much as a society.

 

In the old days it was commonplace for middle aged mothers to blame violent video games for school shootings. The Columbine incident in 1999 sparked a debate on violent video games because two kids killed a bunch of high school students. It wasn’t video games, it was those two kids who clearly had mental issues.

That is mostly in the past now. Nowadays over 20 years later I feel most of the controversy is coming from keyboard warriors who feel fit to complain about anything that doesn’t fit their agenda. What pisses me off is instead of us telling them to fuck off and get a real life, we are instead having to bow down to them. 
 

Rockstar was one of the few big western gaming companies left who hadn’t gone politically correct and having to censor something as to not offend a group of people out there. But that is no longer the case, hence the removal of the flag in Vice City. 
 

For a company so used to controversy, and one I used to look up to as a teenager back in the day, I have lost a great deal of respect for them. 
 

Rockstar should of left Vice City alone and instead focus on making new games. But that is already asking too much out of them. 
 

The vision of Dan Houser is gone, replaced by suits that only know how to milk as much as they can out of a financially successful franchise such as that of GTA. 

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

27 minutes ago, AJ_Radio said:

I feel in ways we haven’t really progressed much as a society.

 

In the old days it was commonplace for middle aged mothers to blame violent video games for school shootings. The Columbine incident in 1999 sparked a debate on violent video games because two kids killed a bunch of high school students. It wasn’t video games, it was those two kids who clearly had mental issues.

That is mostly in the past now. Nowadays over 20 years later I feel most of the controversy is coming from keyboard warriors who feel fit to complain about anything that doesn’t fit their agenda. What pisses me off is instead of us telling them to fuck off and get a real life, we are instead having to bow down to them. 
 

Rockstar was one of the few big western gaming companies left who hadn’t gone politically correct and having to censor something as to not offend a group of people out there. But that is no longer the case, hence the removal of the flag in Vice City. 
 

For a company so used to controversy, and one I used to look up to as a teenager back in the day, I have lost a great deal of respect for them. 
 

Rockstar should of left Vice City alone and instead focus on making new games. But that is already asking too much out of them. 
 

The vision of Dan Houser is gone, replaced by suits that only know how to milk as much as they can out of a financially successful franchise such as that of GTA. 

 

History repeats itself. The confederate flag being removed is just a reflection of our current zeitgeist, just as how religious/demonic imagery was often removed or censored in a lot of media back in the day (and still is in some countries) to avoid offence, or Swastikas being removed/censored after the events of WWII, even though the Swastika was and is still used in many Eastern religions where it originated. To much of the Western world however, it's an offensive symbol, for obvious reasons.

 

Rockstar have definitely censored their content in the past before this, Bully was called Canis Canem Edit here in the UK and other PAL territories due to anti-bullying campaigners and just general "video games promote violence" moral panic. I believe many instances of the confederate flag were also removed from GTAV around 2015 or so.

 

I don't know if they've commented on why they removed the flag, and I don't know if it really matters considering nuance and context rarely means anything to outrage culture. I don't know how much Rockstar really cares about not causing offence considering RDR2 allows you to murder both feminists and the KKK alike, and not to mention everything else their games tend to contain. I guess there may be some things they'd rather not get tangled up in though, who knows.

[Jeanolt]

I don't understand the people that is tired of those who complain and get offended easily, while at the same time, complaining and getting offended easily every single time this happens. It's a flag in a 2002 game.

[AJ_Radio]

1 hour ago, SuperSmexy500 said:

History repeats itself. The confederate flag being removed is just a reflection of our current zeitgeist, just as how religious/demonic imagery was often removed or censored in a lot of media back in the day (and still is in some countries) to avoid offence, or Swastikas being removed/censored after the events of WWII, even though the Swastika was and is still used in many Eastern religions where it originated. To much of the Western world however, it's an offensive symbol, for obvious reasons.

 

Rockstar have definitely censored their content in the past before this, Bully was called Canis Canem Edit here in the UK and other PAL territories due to anti-bullying campaigners and just general "video games promote violence" moral panic. I believe many instances of the confederate flag were also removed from GTAV around 2015 or so.

 

I don't know if they've commented on why they removed the flag, and I don't know if it really matters considering nuance and context rarely means anything to outrage culture. I don't know how much Rockstar really cares about not causing offence considering RDR2 allows you to murder both feminists and the KKK alike, and not to mention everything else their games tend to contain. I guess there may be some things they'd rather not get tangled up in though, who knows.

Germany takes Swastikas very seriously, because of the history of violence and despair they went through under that symbol. Perhaps they look at censorship differently than they do, but they are so ashamed of it they went and censored Wolfenstein II. 
 

Here in the United States, we have this agenda against Japanese games featuring characters in the nude. Yet we allow full scale violence and brutality such as that seen in The Last of Us Part II. There is an obvious bias here that isn’t just restricted to California, where Sony Interactive Entertainment is headquartered. It’s a standard. Officials in the UK saw Bully as offensive so the name was changed, but we allowed it here in its original form.

 

Red Dead Redemption 2 is basically a fictional take on history that is more or less supposed to reflect a part of American culture. Racism and KKK were commonplace just as much as there were whorehouses. Sexism was also prevalent. Life was rough as an outlaw, and the decline of the Old West was felt in the cowboys and gunslingers of that era. 
 

The Mafia franchise likewise is a fictional take seeing thru the lens into the life and history of the American Mafia. In Mafia III upon starting the game you get a message that the developers made an attempt to accurately portray the period in which the game is set. Segregation, which is evident in the ‘No Colored People’ signs you saw by the front doors of shops. The dialogue between Lincoln Clay and a member of the KKK. Segregation happened and brutal racism was there. 
 

Censoring either game (RDR2 or Mafia III) would of been a giant slap in the face and a great disservice. But we’re talking about an old game (GTA Vice City) having something removed from it because it may cause great offensive, despite the fact the flag itself isn’t seen for than maybe a couple minutes throughout the entire game.

 

That’s my issue in this.

[SpaceIsDandy]

To the people whining about a flag being removed: Will you still be purchasing the game? If so why whine you are supporting the censorship. If you arent planning to buy why comment on the thread at all? It's for a game you dont plan to own after all...