There are video games to which you offer so many hours that when you start the game you almost feel like at home. Others convey the feeling that they have already offered you everything they could give you by skipping the end credits. GTA San Andreas belongs to the first group, but I am also aware that nothing I do – or do again – will give me back the glorious experience of playing it for the first time.
Go ahead that Rockstar Games master the difficult art of playing daring games, hooligans and that constantly promote freedom. He has created a school and continues to teach, perpetuating himself above the rest with open worlds that end up trapping you until you become part of it. What’s more, the way he’s expanded his most recent projects after their launch is to take his hat off.
A milestone that was reached with Gran Theft Auto III, perfected in its sequels and that, 20 years later, returns with its definitive edition. Preserving their respective status as the living history of the video game. Enhancing even more that iundisputed condition of classics almost timeless. Which is not exactly common in games released after the turn of the millennium.
Yet when I have seen el tráiler de Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition what has struck me the most is not the renewed appearance of Claude, Tommy and CJ, the protagonists of each game; but the amount of hours, mischief and collectibles that the lot overflows. And that’s when I think about throwing myself at all or just one of them again and I’m overwhelmed. I get bored just thinking about it.
Although, on the other hand, I did not expect to see Umberto Robina Losing my nerves for the umpteenth time I stole a smile again.
Grove Street, the other neighborhood of my adolescence
While I played dozens of hours at GTA III, I confess that Vice City and San Andreas they are two very special games for me. Possibly for my entire generation. Not just because I spent months and absurd amounts of time on them, but because they are part of my DNA as a passionate about videogames.
I squeezed them to the fullest on PS2, I returned to play -without completing them- on later consoles, PC -and even mobile- and, despite the fact that a terrible end of 2021 is coming, it is highly probable that I will go back to walk through the other neighborhood of my adolescence, Grove Street, to see what is cooked. To check that everything is the same as the last game that I left halfway.
Because something has changed, and I am not referring to the aesthetics of the games or how the protagonists look compared to current games, but to me. For me to stop by Grove Street solely and exclusively for a visit and not to stay or do some mischief before I go.
It’s a selfish thought, I know. They are games that, both individually and as a whole, deserve and must be preserved and restored, and to which they have many good stories and anecdotes left to offer based on its sandbox component. The adventure of getting lost aimlessly in its streets or doing the igamesnews until filling the scoreboard with stars. A survival mode? Rather, the most common way to close out the game in a big way.
Give me a DualShock2 and I’ll do the sequence to play doubles in San Andreas based on muscle memory. What’s more, I could still do various memory tricks for you. I would have no problem getting my favorite cars and vehicles as I still know where to find them or how to make them appear. When you memorize the button combination with which you make a tank fall from the sky, not only is the greatness of the Rockstar sandbox experience manifested, but the experience puts a total spin on the action.
And that’s when I ask myself: do I want to replay each game of this new edition on new consoles or just I have the whim of getting her? Do I have as many free hours as 20 years ago?
Definitely, These are three essential titles. But there comes a point in which before each acquisition I ask myself if it is convenient for me to promote more that digital diogenes syndrome which I have been feeding for years. Even being a very outspoken believer Xbox Game Pass and the game in the cloud.
Well known or new to know? There it is the dilemma
I could not tell you how many hours I have been walking around those Liberty City and Vice City that I traveled aimlessly through my DualShock, but if I have something clear: separately there have been many more than I have given it fireproof and full of possibilities GTA V. Which is curious: the installment starring Trevor, Michael and Franklin has not stopped adding content for almost a decade.
Go back to a game where you have given everything or start a new one or that I had pending? I confess that right now I am at a point where I am not very clear that I prefer to put upside down Vice City a second time. Perhaps, for not opening that Pandora’s box again or it may be for playing new things.
I insist again, games are wonderful, but I am at a different stage than when I discovered them. See Carl Johnson and Tommy Vercetti in the definitive version of the Trilogy of GTA it is almost like discovering by surprise that your old friends have taken age. Friends, or rather accomplices of mischief … And fat women.
But I confess that, even looking overwhelmed, I would have liked that, beyond the visual push, Rockstar had given the batch new content with which, instead of reliving what has already been played, it would save me from feeling the uncertainty that I will constantly be doing the same thing for the second time.
Based on the game description, the definitive editions will offer a Grand Theft Auto V-style targeting and control system, and that’s a very plus point, but I mean elements that invite me to pick up the story where I left it or discover the respective open worlds under a new prism. Something that Rockstar not only knows how to do, but is great at it: there we have the brutal prequels GTA: Liberty City Stories and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.
I know very well. I have very limited weaknesses and I know that when the new version of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas reaches Xbox Game Pass soon the other two final versions will be added to my library. If I don’t reserve them before on Switch, a console that has been asking for years to have its own Grand Theft Auto.
The chances that you will complete all three games or any of them are very few. I will not see them with the same eyes or the same perspective as 20 years ago. There is no longer a wow factor or elements to discover and I cross my fingers that content has not been removed seeing the times. Like I cross them for the future of the saga.
It is time to talk about Grand Theft Auto VI, and Rockstar knows it well. And despite the fact that there is nothing to warm the atmosphere of a new installment the relaunch, in this case the shots – never better said – go for the imminent version of a new generation of GTA V.
But even with those, and without a definite plan, it is clear to me that GTA3, Vice City O San Andreas, even for a little while, it is already more of a pilgrimage to well-known places to resume bad habits with my old accomplices: it is a reunion with my self from 20 years ago. Of course, with all the missions to do and in 4K.
