DEfinAtIVE eDItiON

 The writing was on the wall

I wonder what the big thing everyone is still talking about is? Hmm, it's still the Grand Theft Auto The definitive edition? How is that even possible? You'd have thunk that growing up in the modern world of gaming, fraught with development studios who vastly overestimate their own abilities to deliver upon their lofty development goals in the pitiable time frames they assert over themselves, we'd have gotten just that little bit used to disappointment. I mean, despite the vast deluge of exemplary examples from Rockstar's own history, most of Nintendo's catalogue and special little one-offs like The Witcher 3 all proving that when you take the time to make the right game in the right way, the final product lands with so much more staying power and fans play it for longer, these people insist on shooting themselves in the foot and their fans through colleteral. You would literally be making less work for yourself, in needing to keep up with some impossible two year cycle, if all of these stupidly rich video game companies would just exercise a modicum of restraint. But I guess we can't be happy with restraint, now can we?

But I like to think that the general revoltion runs a little deeper than that for this particular mistake, which is why we can all tell pretty early on that this is going to be one of those blunders that really sticks. There's some misbelief rubbed into those grubby waking eyes, something muggy sticking to the sluggish ducts of those waking up and seeing what Rockstar really are. Lazy. Greedy. Unrepentant. It's something that they've hidden decently well to a lot of people out there with their suite of incredible games as far back as anyone can remember boosted by their cavalier non-conformist attitude, appropriate of their moniker, which made them seem entirely distinct from the rest of the gaming industry. These were the developers who just got the job done. Who dotted their I's, crossed their T's, and who delivered nothing but the full package. Only those who really paid attention to the hack-job online modes their previous two biggest games launched with could really start to see the obvious signs that some major dissonance was readily present in their QA standards. And the Definitive Edition, unable to be masked by the release of anything else before it or upcoming, demonstrated that dissonance nakedly on a stage before the world.

By accounts coming out now, and what is obvious to all, The Remasters of the GTA games were not handled by the main studios, but rather by a smaller separate studio that has been working with the Rockstar collective for some years now, Grove Street Games. Now you may look upon that name and go "Hey, I recognise that name! 'Grove street' from San Andreas, right? These guys are an official part of the Rockstar team, then?" Not quite. In fact, anyone actually familiar with this smaller group's work would have seen immediate neon embedded, silk woven, burning red flags if Rockstar had been more forthcoming about their association with this team in these remasters, because their blunders have made them legendary. Grove Street are the guys responsible for the mobile ports of the original trilogy of games, all of which are dotted with issues here and there, but for San Andreas, the grand game which Grove Street decided to try their own little remaster for, the damage was piquant.

San Andreas was treated to a port that came with it's own bunch of lighting fixes, vibrancy modifications and code updates. Nothing on the scale of these remasters, but enough to make people initially interested in this old classic's new facelift. But when it dropped that version of the game arrived with a slew of obvious issues that couldn't be shied away from. Glaring physics problems, control issues, missing controls, distracting auto-jump, comparative graphical shortcomings, and no anti-aliasing whatsoever. Grove Street also handled the special HD Remaster for San Andreas PC which, surprise surprise, was just a lazy port of that bizarre and arguably inferior mobile version with problems almost entirely untouched and a hatchet job UI rip-out which occasionally revealed the mobile flesh this skin-job was hiding. And of course, Rockstar worked with these guys to patch this version of the game over their originals on all platforms so that everyone had their flawless original replaced by this slight mess. Further proof that this reality is written by George Lucas where everything does, once again, rhyme.

It's hard not to look at what is happening right now and not turn around on Grove Street Games for continuing to be disappointments after so many failed attempts to make these games better. I mean, I very much want to recognise that these are a studio full of people and the mistakes they make are honest and not vindictive. I want to say that the assumed AI upscaling they did for most of these remasters (which would explain some of the distended skeletons and misspelt textures) is due to this team trying their damndest to meet a heavy demand from Rockstar. But I hear that apparently this remaster has been in development for two years and it becomes a little bit harder to be understanding, and then any lingering pity is stamped out when CEO of the company turns full bitter sarcastic stand-up comedian on Twitter with the comment "It’s so fun to see players out there really enjoying what we’ve put together for them. I’m honestly enjoying this unparalleled level of scrutiny on our studio." Seems our man loves pissing off the public and hearing the consequence of crappy work, so why deprive the man of what he wants? 

Theirs isn't the only company with executives that don't know how to stuff a sock down their throat when it's needed, although at least the main Rockstar team aren't doing this stupid stuff on Twitter. No, instead people have been pulling out an interview where a Rockstar executive was explaining how their company's unique dedication to the remastering process makes their remasters so much more successful than others. A questionable alleged supremacy to boast about in this modern industry where remasters have given way to full blown remakes, but I understand the sentiment. It is always more special when the developer manages to touch up the originals during the remaster process in order to bring them closer in line with modern game design standards whilst simultaneously enriching the nostalgia of those who loved the originals. Yet, once more, this was handled very questionably with this collection. Improvements to controls, movement and camera are present, and life changers, but outside of these raw controls, the very art of the game has suffered causing what many are calling an all-around inferior product. (And no matter where you do fall on such an issue, I think we can all agree it's overpriced for what it is.) So all in all, dated statement is dated.

And then we come around to that surprising back and forth job Rockstar did where they released the game and then immediately unreleased it on PC. Within a day the entire Rockstar launcher went down (preventing people from playing any Rockstar game which uses it) only to go back up after some maintenance with the new title utterly removed. Rockstar have been tight-lipped about exactly why the title needed to be immediately reworked, and despite the online faux-bravado of their sardonic CEO, Grove Street Games aren't in the mood of outing their own short-comings, so we're left with speculation. But as for that speculation, we have a couple pretty good contenders. The first is the theory I mentioned last time, where the game was immediately cracked and Rockstar pulled the trilogy down in order to protect their files being absconded and piracy drumming up. But the much more believable theory, which I'm starting to believe more and more with how lazy Grove Street Games has proven up until now, is that the Hot Coffee sex minigame which got Rockstar in trouble 16 years ago (and directly led to Rockstar falling out with the larger industry and refusing to go to E3 in the years since) had it's dormant files still in the newest release. This is something that the game had all the way back when it first launched on PC, and mods have since come out to reactive the content so everyone could look and laugh about what all the fuss was about. (It was silly and it's even sillier today) But to think that this little chunk of a minigame could persist across a port to mobile and back to PC, (because we know the San Andreas remaster comes directly from mobile port) well, let's just say that's a perfect summary of Grove Street Games' dedication to perfection. They have none.

Grand Theft Auto Definitive Edition is the Cyberpunk 2077 of 2021, and they managed it with a fraction of the amount of money put into a marketing campaign. (take notes, CDPR; these guys can match your disappointment on a budget) Just as with Cyberpunk, I get struck with a distinct clinging miasma of sadness when I think about this game and the ruined potential, as well as the burned bridges that 2K helped facilitate with their removal of the originals and the assassination of various modding projects. (One of which I saw mentioned was just a freakin' shared save file, which is edging ever closer to a point where their lawyers are going to overreach, inviting a landmark counter-suit and, in doing, set a groundwork which ultimately screws over digital file ownership for ever single greed-drenched corporate worm like them and I cannot wait for that glorious day.) It just sucks because all I wanted out of this was a good Remaster. Heck, at least I bought the originals back in the day so I can still play those.