The GTA Trilogy Available For Your Phone

Few video game franchises have had the impact of Grand Theft Auto. Starting with GTA 3 in 2001, gamers couldn't believe what they were seeing. An open 3D world that allowed you to steal, shoot, drive over pedestrians, or otherwise cause mayhem. It wasn't long before everyone was talking about it, ultimately turning the developers, Rockstar, into an overnight sensation.

Not long after GTA Vice City dropped. Rockstar took everything that fans already loved and pushed it even further. Players were now transported to a video game version of the 80s, complete with copious drugs, disco clubs, and menacing biker gangs. Genuine celebrity star Ray Liotta voiced the central character, adding a dash of glitz to an already popular franchise.

It was, of course, GTA San Andreas that came next. Featuring an enormous map, interesting story, and all the mayhem fans had come to expect, how could it possibly get any better? It did, with GTA 4, but that isn't part of the recently released GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition.

Back And Better Than Ever

The original trilogy has been remastered and has already dropped for PC and consoles. The definitive edition has reworked textures and a new lighting engine, but is otherwise exactly as fans remember. Plus, mobile gamers haven't been forgotten. Rumour has it that a mobile version of the Definitive Edition is already in the works.

No exact date has been given, but that may be for the best. The PC and console releases were not met especially well, with outraged players declaring that the bugs were far beyond acceptable. Some have even hinted that the remastered versions were amongst the biggest disasters in gaming history. If this is or isn't true is debatable, but thankfully Rockstar seem to have put in some serious effort to fix the damage. Either way, mobile gamers will certainly be happy to wait if it means getting a version that isn't falling apart at the seams.

Do The Original GTA Games Hold Up?

But lest we forget, as classic as the first 3D GTA games are, they're also rather old. Going back to 2001 is a pretty big jump unless you're playing bingo online, and many gamers these days may well have never even played it. So can a game decades old really hold up?

The short answer is that GTA 3 isn't a particularly good game these days, even if it did kick start a gaming revolution. Calling it simplistic and underdeveloped is an understatement, and most will likely not get more than a few hours of entertainment out of it. GTA Vice City and San Andreas, on the other hand, are a bit more palatable. San Andreas in particular is about far more than just the aging graphics, offering potentially hours of quirky entertainment. Most tend to forget that the game, despite coming out in 2004, is still impressive in its scope.

The GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition is expected to be out for mobile before the end of 2022.