Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Definitive Edition launched in a laughable state. Since then, it has received several updates addressing the deluge of bugs, poor performance, and graphical blunders that plagued these beloved games. At the time of writing, patch 1.03 went live, and I have only reviewed the patch notes. I will endeavor to give you my unbiased impressions as I only recently dug into the background of how and why these games launched in the state they did. While I attempt to not jump on the dogpile of gifs showcasing the bizarre and befuddling bugs, I do want to give my honest impressions.

Having played the originals (Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) when they first launched in 2001, 2002, and 2004 respectively, I expected the rose-colored glasses of my youth to get a reality check. What I didn’t expect was to continually scratch my head and think, “that doesn’t look right.” Public relations crisis aside, how do they play, and more importantly are they worth $60?

For the uninitiated, the gameplay is exactly what you’d expect. Faithful to its name, you steal cars, mow down mobsters (or civilians if that’s your thing), larceny, arson, and general skullduggery. You’ll get updated controls, however, even updated controls for Rockstar games are still PS2 controls. If you’ve ever smashed an X button to death in order to outrun the law, then you’ll be right at home.

Playing through the games, you see the original design concept of an open-world game that reacts to you. This was groundbreaking at the time and with each title, Rockstar steadily increased scale, complexity, and quality. Grand Theft Auto III feels so small in comparison to the other two games. Likewise comparing this old watershed game to modern open-world games is like revisiting your childhood bedroom. It just felt so much bigger when you were younger. This isn’t a bad thing as you can beat GTA III in about 5-7 hours. The other two games are a good bit more time to see credits roll. Although this is on the patch list, when you saw fly over San Andreas, you get a sense of how large games are now in size.

Modern control schemes and native resolutions built for today’s televisions are a great touch, but it’s the bare minimum I’d expect of any game. The games ran well enough on my Xbox Series S|X, but the issues come in when you consider what they’re running. Of course, I’d expect modern consoles to run PS2 games without dropping frames. The issue comes in when you look too closely at the character models and textures. To understand what graphically is happening you have to understand how the game was developed. It’s one thing if character models, set pieces, and rain effects were designed to look artificial, but we know that the original intent was gritty, immersive, and raw. Instead what we see is plastic-looking, artificial, and bizarre.

The project was outsourced to a development house that specializes in mobile ports called Grove Street Games. You can begin to see how this project lost its way. No disrespect to the studio, but they are clearly marked as a support studio that specializes in porting console games to mobile. It is apparent that the studio used AI image upscaling to streamline the workflow of “remastering” the assets. The result is inconsistent at best and characters look like melted action figures at worst.

To make matters worse, not all of the beloved soundtrack is present in this definitive edition. The music industry’s notorious copyright deals are a nightmare to navigate. However, if the aim was to bring these old games to a new generation, they missed the mark. I must assume someone was in charge of playtesting these games before going gold and charging people a premium. Because Rockstar saw fit to issue take-downs to modders who had worked on PC versions graphical upgrades, this is now the “best” legal way a consumer can experience these games. I hope Rockstar continues to release updates and seeks to make right what was an unforced error. Furthermore, given the revenue generated from GTA Online, there really was no reason to release this at this time. Consumers should expect more from publishers and developers. Likewise, console storefronts should have higher expectations for the content they allow to be sold.

I can’t say that I had no fun knocking around my old haunts. The older quest structure and dialogue made me nostalgic for the times when we’d turn the TV volume down lest my parents find out what games we’re playing. However, the launch version of this game was unacceptable. The Definitive Edition should at the very least hold up to the original Likewise, fans who purchased this at launch because it was a Rockstar game, have every right to be upset. There’s a long hill to climb to reclaim the goodwill Rockstar games carry in the meantime, I still have a couple of PS2’s lying around.

Toy Soldiers was originally released on the Xbox Live Arcade platform in March of 2010. The unique blend of 3rd person action, tower defense, airborne dogfights, armored vehicles, and top-down real-time strategy was acclaimed at the time and sold nearly 5 million copies. Fast forward 11 years and the quirky World War One game is looking to attract a new generation of gamers by releasing an HD version. Likewise, it includes the two DLC packs, The Kaiser’s Battle and Invasion! Faithful to its origins, the following review was played on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. At the time of writing, the current price is $30 to jump into the trenches once more.

Toy Soldiers HD was developed by the original studio, Signal Studios, and published by Accelerate Games. The Seattle-based studio was the original developer of the 2010 success and I was excited about what they could do given how much more powerful both online infrastructure and hardware have become. I recall playing this back in 2011 and loving how replayable each skirmish was, due to how many different variables were at your fingertips.

From the moment you fire up Toy Soldiers HD you can see and feel that this is a raw port through and through. The loveably, cheesy vintage song plays and classic oversaturated colors of lead-based paint and miniature models fill the screen as you’d expect. The game is as charming as ever, but as you load into the first campaign mission, the novelty wears off.

You will command one side of a world WWI conflict where your opponent will rush at you in waves. As expected your defenses will be tested more and more as the waves continue. Some missions have a different variety like boss battles the farther you get into the campaign, but the premise stays the same. You switch between a top-down god view to a 3rd person action game to eliminate the enemy forces and achieve victory. You are in control of placing battlements, defensive equipment like barbed wire and calling in various strikes from your top-down view. However, when you zoom into an encampment like a machine turret you’ll aim and mow down the enemy cavalry and infantry as they attempt to overrun your position. Each kill earns you more money that you can use to purchase new ordinance, upgrade your encampments, repair damaged equipment, and more. I typically am too bullish in these types of games and end up painting myself into a corner regularly. For this reason, I played on easy and thought it was a good balance for my play style.

Jumping into the single-player campaign reminded me how much more I expect to be onboarded by a game’s initial tutorial.  It’s not to say that the first few hours of the game aren’t curated enough, but it does stand out as a bit more obtuse of an interface than we’re used to today. Today’s game landscape of remakes, remastered and reimagining muddy the water for consumers as to what distinguishes the level of quality attached to a dollar value. In this case, with a $30 asking price, I’d expect more than just a port. Furthermore, I had anticipated the game to look and run much better than what I saw with the title of “HD.”

Everyone has played a bad game in high fidelity; likewise, we’ve all loved low-resolution gems that are just fun to play. Sadly, Toy Soldiers HD lies somewhere in between. The same fun, I felt in 2010 was there. I thought about how I could jump from one end of the battlefield to the other in order to counter an offensive. However, the game’s fidelity and resolution were so antiquated at this point, that it was very distracting and didn’t meet my expectations of what $30 should buy you as a consumer. Every game doesn’t need 4k, HDR, 120FPS, and ray-tracing. However, every game’s visual presentation should complement the gameplay. In this case, I didn’t think the “High Definition” was present in the package and the muddy polygons running at me weren’t as charming as they once were.

Another disappointment was when I tried to test the online gameplay. At the time of review and running the latest version available, I could not join or host an online session. My collaborating reviewer was on an Xbox Series S and said he was able to get into an online session, however on my Series X, I was unable to join him. After an hour of reinstalling, restarting, and refreshing I am afraid I have to report that I was unable to test the multiplayer aspect of the game due to the game’s technical faults.

I wanted to like Toy Soldiers HD. Every time I started having fun though, something about the visuals or tedious exposition pushed me away. The multiplayer not functioning for me is so disappointing when this original game was one of the early showpieces of how online multiplayer can create infinite replay-ability given the right support. In the end, I have to advise that only the most hardcore fans shell out the asking price to march into these trenches. I have to raise the white flag and say wait for a deep sale if you’re at all interested.