Grand Theft Auto III Review (Larry)
Heh, yeah this is bad...
It looks like crap, the animations are very stiff, there's audio issues from the start. The audio from the original has been made worse. It looks and feels like a bad one man mod.
It just has this hollow feeling to it. It feels like characters were manually placed in a spot just to be there to the point they may as well be T-posing in place that's how little care was given for this "Definitive Edition."
While the graphics have technically been "upgraded" the way they've done it and removed certain filters it looks much worse than the original. It's better to see it for yourself than to read what I'm saying it's like:
Original intro mission:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoQStKto_n4&ab_channel=GTASeriesVideos
"Definitive Edition" Intro missions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmNIrt3XRmc&ab_channel=GTASeriesVideos
The audio is noticeably worse. It sounds like it was recorded on an oldschool tape recorder from a monologue TV speaker with the game playing on it in an empty room.
There's a reason these are called "Definitive Editions" and not Remake or Remaster: They're crap and there's no way they could pull this off as a remake or remaster.
It's a very bad version of the games. These should have been treated with a lot more care and respect considering they are great games in and of themselves just not in their current iteration as seen in The Definitive Edition.
Honestly, the only reason I'm keep this is because it runs on the STEAM Deck and on such a small screen without a headset on it's a lot harder to notice these issues as opposed to on a high end PC. A bit of nostalgia for me would also be the fact that this game plays far better with a controller which makes it a better fit on the STEAM Deck.
In summary: Don't buy this to play on a modern PC or even console. I would only suggest buying this if you want to play it on the go and have a STEAM Deck. That or you never played the original three games on the PS2 and can no longer buy/play the original games on modern hardware and even then I would say hold off until you plan to play it on the go using a STEAM Deck or something else.
Also, keeping in mind that when broken down with the current price(50% off for 30 bucks) each game amounts to 10 bucks. If the collection was more expensive than 30 it would be a strong "No" from me regardless of playing on the STEAM Deck. To add to this: The collection should have been defaulted to 30 quid.