

In short, I don't know where I land on this, and probably won't until I'm playing it. Phil Savage, UK Editor-in-Chief: My first reaction was "Huh!", followed closely by "Err?" and finally settling on "Hmm?!".

It was unrealistic to expect these remasters to reverse-inherit the fidelity and style of modern GTAs-that would be asking Rockstar to make three massive games roughly from scratch.

Can a remaster capture that energy? Would it even want to? That said, my experience with the early GTAs is playing them in the cramped bedroom of my brother's best mate, putting up with his mean-spirited jokes because your parents wouldn't buy you 18-rated games. The kind of thing you'd see on a '90s mag or some sort of spoofed game showing up in the background of CSI. This remaster attempts to retroactively declare that a deliberate stylistic choice, and what you end up with is this uncannily shiny lo-fi look. Nat Clayton, News Writer: It's a really weird aesthetic! GTA 3 through San Andreas came out at a time where you couldn't really pull off the grounded, gritty look of 4 and 5, and so get around it by heightening their look and tone. I honestly wasn't that excited about the GTA Trilogy, but all of a sudden I just can't wait to get back to the gorgeous, pastel-soaked Vice City, stick some Duran Duran on, and burn rubber. Like many people, I imagine, I haven't played these games in well over a decade so my memories of them are always 'better' than how the things actually looked at the time, and seeing this was like Rockstar had reached into my brain, fetched out the nostalgia goggles, and somehow made it into a game. Rich Stanton, News Editor: What blew me away was the simple trick of transitioning from the 'old' scenes into the new, which really emphasised how much brighter and cleaner those environments look.
