Grand Theft Auto 3: The Definitive Edition Review

Note: Grand Theft Auto 3: The Definitive Edition is part of the GTA Trilogy: The Definitive Edition.

Grand Theft Auto 3 is probably the most influential game of its generation for molding and shaping up the open-world sandbox genre’s foundations and also introducing a more mature storyline for adult audiences in video games. Even though it wasn’t meant for young kids and young adults to play it, I grew up loving the over-the-top storyline and characters over the years.

It comes as no surprise that the announcement of Grand Theft Auto: The Definitive Edition got me excited. After all, it is remastering some of my favorite videogames to modern standards. However, playing the games, I wished they did a better job of doing whatever they were trying to do.

Grand Theft Auto 3: Definitive Edition is an upscaled sloppy, shiny mess with glitches, character models looking like plastic dolls, and the whole game is devoid of its intended atmosphere and art style from the original release. While I could’ve gone forward and reviewed all three of the games together and been done with it, all three games have various levels of improvements and not-so-good improvements. We are breaking all three of the games separately.

Grand Theft Auto 3: Definitive Edition and the curious case of a clean city with blinding rain

Before we start on with anything, the new version of Grand Theft Auto 3 does not feature any cut content, new missions, or new side missions of any sort. It is a by-the-books remaster of the 2001 game by Rockstar Games. What it means is that everything that was there in the original release is there.

The story for the game is still brilliant, and even though the gameplay might’ve aged poorly in certain cases, the story shows its satire on America and everything it stood for really well. The story, for once, never feels boring, and it was refreshing to replay through the whole campaign while chucking in certain moments.

Now on to the environment and character models. Boy, I have very mixed feelings about this. The character models have been reworked and “modernized” to fit the current standards. And that is where the problem starts.

Image via Grand Theft Auto 3: Definitive Edition

The character models in Grand Theft Auto 3: Definitive Edition look like plastic dolls shoddily made by some Asian production shop to meet deadlines. The hands look awkward, proportions look even more off-putting when trying to capture the original feel using current-gen graphics, and even in certain places, it looks cartoonish. It’s not bad, but you have to find a thin line between modernizing and making sure things don’t look out of place.

For the environment and lighting, every piece of the building’s texture has been upscaled, most probably by an AI Upscaler from the looks of it, and the foliages have been changed. The grass looks greener and fuller, buildings look cleaner and more detailed, and even the lighting has been reworked to bounce off of the surface more realistically.

The new lighting effect benefits a lot during the nighttime, where Liberty City manages to look pretty. At the same time, the oppressive high-rise location of Liberty City makes the game look darker and difficult to see at nighttime because of the new lighting.

Now here is the thing: the original Grand Theft Auto 3 on the PlayStation 2 made some artistic decisions which made the game run well on the console while at the same time giving the game its distinct feel and atmosphere. The definitive edition manages to ruin the original art style by trying to make everything too realistic and clean, essentially killing the feel and atmosphere of the original game.

The fog effect of the original game, which was there to hide the far-away city areas and cityscape, is non-existent, making everything at a far-way distance look jarring as hell. The high draw distance of the new version does not help the case at all. Oh, and yes, the rain effects are bright. So much so that it is sometimes difficult to see anything on the road because of the drops.

Same old gameplay, with new, much-needed changes

Grand Theft Auto 3: Definitive Edition has some much-needed gameplay changes, which helps make the game less of an annoyance in certain cases.

For starters, the game finally features a weapon and radio wheel. Gone are the days where we had to scroll through each weapon or radio one by one. Players can now switch their weapons and radio inside their vehicle whenever they want quickly by holding the weapon wheel button.

Similarly, players can do the same and change the radio stations, the keybind for both are the same, and you cannot switch guns inside a car.

Speaking of guns inside cars, drive-bys have never been easier. Players can now perform a drive-by just looking towards the way they want to shoot at. Turning the mouse towards the left will make Claude shoot left, similarly for the right. By default, Calude shoots left and not the front. Players can still perform the old-school way of drive-by if they want to.

Foot gun mechanics have also changed. Previously, players could only lock onto enemies and shoot at them without any individual limb targeting. In the definitive edition, players can still lock onto their enemies while aiming but can now target individual limbs while doing so.

It is great if players want to get some headshots in. At the same time, the lock-in mechanic doesn't feel snappier enough, and in closer situations, Claude would much rather punch the enemy rather than shoot at them because of the way the game was designed.

For car handling, it has been made smoother from the original release. It feels satisfying to handle cars in the definitive edition, and it is certainly something good. To make traveling objectives easier, the game now allows you to put waypoints on the map, and the waypoint also shows the path to take while driving in the mini-map.

Furthermore, the original Grand Theft Auto game doesn't allow missions to start immediately if failed. In the definitive edition, missions, if failed, can be immediately started.

It doesn't have a checkpoint system, but at least players won't lose all of their guns and money upon death and don't have to travel back to the start of the mission.

Overall, changes like these are welcome, and at least try to make sure that an old game like this is better to play.

Apart from this, there are tons of glitches—a ton of them. From weird traffic glitches where they start acting erratic to gameplay glitches, one might wonder if this game has been QA tested adequately before release or not.

Push it to the limits, but don’t fix the sound effects

Speaking of audio and soundtrack, Grand Theft Auto 3: Definitive Edition uses the original audio files from the 2001 release. None of the sound effects, or voice lines, have been re-recorded for the remaster. Because of this, some sound effects either don’t sound good, like, for example, the garage door sound looping continuously, or sounds muffled and compressed in certain cases, which is strange.

Fortunately, radio songs have not been omitted from Grand Theft Auto 3: Definitive Edition. You can still listen to the original soundtrack on the radio in higher quality, which is good. I missed driving around the city with Push it to the limits playing in Flashback FM.

Performance

Grand Theft Auto 3: Definitive Edition was tested on a PC with the following setup:

Ryzen 5 2600 (CPU)
16GB DDR4 Ram @3000 MHz
GTX 1050ti @ 4GB Ram
1TB HDD
No SSD

Speaking of performance, the game managed to run at a full 60fps in 1080p, with shadows set to medium, clouds kept to volumetric, and everything else set to high.

I only found a few noticeable cases where the frame dipped to 45-48fps when there were too many cars in an area, and the lighting was bright. This is absurd because this is the first time I see dips because of the lighting effect. Regardless, the game looks good, but again, it’s not for my taste.

Conclusion

Image via Grand Theft Auto: Definitive Edition

While Grand Theft Auto 3 revolutionized the genre and paved the way for future titles to flourish, Grand Theft Auto 3: Definitive Edition does nothing exceptionally well for the game, which is disheartening and disappointing in many ways. Given how much Rockstar Games always go out of their way to say good things about their legacy series and how much they respect them, the new version contradicts their claims.

As of now, with a heavy heart, I cannot recommend Grand Theft Auto 3: The Definitive Edition to anyone out there. The games are not available for purchase separately, and the current package does not warrant the asking price from Rockstar on either the Rockstar Games Store or Console.

Disclaimer: The review was written prior to the massive patch that fixed a lot of issues.