GTA Trilogy Disaster Shows How Mass Effect Did Things Right

GTA Trilogy Disaster Shows How Mass Effect Did Things Right

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Both Grand Theft Auto and Mass Effect remastered their classic trilogies this year, but the latter shows how much the former got wrong.

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GTA Trilogy Disaster Shows How Mass Effect Did Things Right

Remastering old games is not a new concept, but two classic trilogies were revamped this year for modern hardware: Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition and Mass Effect Legendary Edition. The GTA Trilogy has received immense backlash from fans, turning its highly anticipated release into a debacle. Mass Effect Legendary Edition, on the other hand, enjoyed a rather smooth launch, standing as yet another stark example of how great a failure the Grand Theft Auto remasters are.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is – aside from a mouthful – a remastered collection of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. These three titles are referred to as a trilogy, constituting GTA’s PlayStation 2 era. Each game has been ported to multiple platforms since their original release, but initially came to the PS2 before any other console. GTA 3 shepherded the series into the 3D era, became a massive hit, and was quickly followed by two sequels, each with different characters and settings. With The Definitive Edition, Rockstar and developer Grove Street Games attempted to overhaul all three games’ visuals and introduce control schemes more in line with the series’ most recent entry, Grand Theft Auto V.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition had much the same goal – to remaster BioWare’s science fiction RPG epics. The first Mass Effect was perhaps not as groundbreaking as GTA 3, but its scope in setting and depth of gameplay was impressive for 2007. Over the following five years, it would receive two sequels which depicted Mass Effect’s Commander Shepard resisting the Reaper Invasion that threatened to destroy all organic life in the Milky Way galaxy. The final entry had a disappointing finale, but not bad enough to sour the whole experience. The original game received a majority of the Legendary Edition’s focus, since it required the most graphical work and some tweaking to its gameplay mechanics.

GTA & Mass Effect’s Visual Improvements

GTA Trilogy Disaster Shows How Mass Effect Did Things Right

The most immediately noticeable difference in approach to remastering between the GTA Trilogy and Mass Effect Legendary Edition is each collection’s graphical updates. It’s important to note that Grand Theft Auto 3 came out in 2001, six years before Mass Effect, but the latter’s remaster is much more effective in maintaining the game’s original vision. All across the GTA Trilogy, characters look very weird, and not just because of the numerous bugs that affect the models. There is certainly room for some artistic license when bringing graphics out of the PS2 era, but even before the game was released, many criticized the art direction for the GTA Trilogy. Many of the GTA characters hardly resemble their PS2 models, while Mass Effect Legendary Edition did a great job preserving its characters and upscaling their models to 4K.

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Even outside of character graphics, Mass Effect Legendary Edition does a much better job of modernizing the originals’ environments and atmosphere. Some die hard Mass Effect fans have been vocal about the lighting being too bright in the first game’s cutscenes specifically, but a large majority of the trilogy benefits from new post-processing effects. Inversely, the GTA Trilogy feels like a major step backward in its atmosphere when compared to the original PS2 releases. The GTA Trilogy’s heavy rain got a PC mod as it’s been a heavily scrutinized effect, but the “improved” lighting has made much of the game worlds appear flat and sterile compared to their original incarnations. GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas didn’t necessarily have the best graphics on the PlayStation 2, but their art direction gave them a cohesive vision that’s been lost in the AI upscaling of the remasters.

GTA & Mass Effect’s Gameplay Improvements

GTA Trilogy Disaster Shows How Mass Effect Did Things Right

Both remastered trilogies hoped to modernize their original versions in terms of gameplay mechanics. The GTA Trilogy revamped the PS2 games’ controls to operate more like GTA 5, with weapon and radio station selection wheels, and a switch to the triggers for aiming and shooting guns. On top of this, it added the option to immediate retry a mission upon failure, instead of the classic route of having to take a taxi back to the mission’s start. These are welcome additions, but they ultimately feel like the bare minimum that was required to promote improved gameplay. It’s understandable that the GTA Trilogy is a remaster and not a remake, but extra effort put into Mass Effect Legendary Edition is now extra noticeable in comparison.

As previously mentioned, the original Mass Effect was the Legendary Edition’s most important remaster. Combat was improved with a variety of tweaks to headshot multipliers, squad commands, weapon accuracy, and more; the Mako’s controls were overhauled; the elevator ride cutscenes that hid loading screens weren’t nixed, but given a skip button; the HUD was updated to match the sequels’ aesthetic; and many other small changes. Mass Effect 2 had similar gameplay improvements through combat encounter reworks and ammo drop frequency, while Mass Effect 3 had widespread mechanics changes in its Galaxy at War systems since its multiplayer was left out of the Legendary Edition. Playing the Mass Effect remasters feels like every inch was combed over to try and make improvements and consolidate the three experiences, while much of the GTA Trilogy feels as though it was done hastily without thorough consideration.

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GTA & Mass Effect’s Consumer Transparency

Another noticeable difference between the two, which has affected the discourse for each, is the amount of transparency from the developers and publishers leading up to the respective launches. Grand Theft Auto is one of the largest franchises in games history, and the announcement of the remaster trilogy brought a massive amount of excitement. Many quickly grew skeptical when Rockstar and Grove Street Games didn’t show any pre-release gameplay of GTA Trilogy, only promising improvements alongside a curated trailer. Mass Effect Legendary Edition’s launch, on the other hand, was preceded by numerous blog posts and videos from EA and BioWare outlining all the changes that players can expect, comparisons between the original and new versions, and a walkthrough of the process for how exactly the development was being handled.

Games companies don’t necessarily have to show the consumer the product prior to release, and keeping details close to the chest is something of a Rockstar modus operandi, but it lacks a certain tact. This issue of consumer respect is only exacerbated by the fact that the new GTA Trilogy is now the only versions of those games available for purchase. If someone new to these earlier GTA games wants to play them, their only option is the halfway broken versions, since GTA Trilogy led to delisting the original games from digital storefronts. The original Mass Effect, ME2, and ME3 are still available on Steam alongside the Legendary Edition bundle. Mass Effect Legendary Edition was highly anticipated and faithfully remastered the originals with a wealth of improvements, whereas Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition promised much the same, but delivered a version that in many ways is inferior to those that came out in the early 2000s.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/gta-trilogy-mass-effect-remastered-comparison-good-bad/

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