I'll be honest, its the first time I've ever been excited for a game in a LONG time, and not just "Oh, a new CoD" excited, I mean excited. Like I could jump up and down, off the walls excited. This is a re-release of what may be the greatest GTA ever. GTA V beware, you may see a server drop for about a month until your Xbox One release. Leave your comments below, I wanna hear how this game makes you feel, does it make you scream like a little kid again seeing it come back better than ever?

EDIT: FIY, Its being released Oct 26th, for Xbox 360.

Original Xbox servers have been shut down so unless it's a new port and not just an emulation of the original version, there won't be any online play.

Also, I thought 4 was the first multilayer GTA? I could be wrong.

San Andreas never had online play. I assume by "server drop" he means decrease in player count online on GTAV because people will be playing SA re-release instead. Somehow I really doubt this (because comparatively GTA:SA controls really poorly).

@mhumphreys89: Please note this is a question-based thread, I asked how this made you feel, not about some multiplayer crap. San Andreas never needed multiplayer to make it good. All it had was free roam goodness and the arsenal to boot, and that's all you needed.

@bollard: I respect your opinion, but even you have to agree: it has a much bigger map, a better story compared to most GTA games, and some real free roam fun.

I am actually considering trying to go through this, despite my huge backlog. I have gotten pretty far in it twice but never actually finished it for some reason, and I always wanted to. Plus if they increased the draw distances the jetpack will be even cooler.

Okay, let's be honest, there's no way to make the jetpack cooler because it was already at maximum cool!

What? Today? Is this a digital release?

@laserguy: Yes, I imagine it will be released sometime at 12:05 pm, I'd check midday though, around 3. I'll post on here when its out, or if they say a specific time.

Could that reason be because the final mission is like 45 minutes long and is from a time when GTA didn't have checkpointing.

I wonder if any music got cut from the soundtrack like it did with the other 10 year anniversary rereleases. Vice City had like half the hip hop station missing, so if the same thing happened here that would be a huge bummer.

It's been on Steam forever. It really doesn't hold up.

I was talking purely about the gameplay and mechanics which feel outdated. As someone who is enthusiastic about GTA speedrunning, I can't disagree about those other points, just I don't believe it holds up as well as it might in your memory.

Mhmm.

@bollard: Probably because its the first game to get me into GTA. I mean your right I guess, but still. I can imagine that they will make a neat profit off this.

I'm not trying to be a smart ass or too negative but Rockstars games probably age the worst out of any developer I can think of. It might just be because each major release seems to make a huge impact (I've stayed up all night playing at every GTA launch) but the mechanics seem to date incredibly fast it's damn hard to go back and even play GTA IV for me now but the PS2 games border on unplayable.

Maybe. I also remember that remote airplane mission being damn near unbeatable.

@mhumphreys89: I never said it was the best game in the world, I said it may be the best GTA ever made. At the time, it was a big deal, controversial, and a long game. That being said, it does border unplayable. But, even if its a graphical makeover, or they smooth over a few things, I don't care. I can replay my early memories of this game once again, and have fun doing it.

An edit to your edit: I know, but I will defend this game, because its the first GTA I ever played, and yes I agree with all of you, but for me its the nostalgia of seeing an old game being brought back, no matter its flaws, and a few of its flaws are what made it fun as all hell.

I didn't like San Andreas when it was new, so I doubt I will like it now. I would rather have Vice City, but honestly I wasn't a fan of the 3D GTAs before IV (or maybe V actually).

Just noticed that it's only £3... BUYING

I would advise people to buy it for the PC and get the Multiplayer mod for it, if its still up and running that is

Yeah, $3.75 on the xbox live marketplace. I'd call that money well spent! You cannot argue that price in any way shape or form!

SA was pretty awesome! Although I remember thinking that it looked worse than Vice, but perhaps that was part of a trade off, given the size of the map. It was definately the stupidest game in the series as well, it had features you didn't need or want lol.

Come on, fat/skinny/muscular CJ was an awesome feature!

I'm not excited about this because I'm having a hard time deciding whether I like San Andreas less than GTAIV or not. For context: I think GTAIV is the worst GTA game ever made with the possible exception of SA. San Andreas lacked serious focus, while still trying to tell a focused story. It has the least atmospheric and interesting map out of any of the GTA games and the checkpoints were awful. It was filled with random crap that you didn't want to do, nor need. At least GTAIV knew what it was and went for it.

I am, however, excited about GTAV launching on PS4 and XO pretty soon. I'll be getting that. I think GTAV is right up there with Vice City as the best GTA there is.

@superfriend: yes, yes it was. It was even better watching CJ's tattoos stretch with every burger shot meal lol.

@zevvion: it's definately inferior to Vice in a lot of ways. I'm of the option vI is the worst because I didn't find it as much fun to play but SA has the worst mission design overall.

I'm playing through the first few missions now and it's weird. It's pretty much the mobile re-release, with the cleaner graphics and new menus. The menus are a tad slower, and there are moments where the frame rate gets choppy for a second or two. Though, it looks like they added checkpoints, too which is neat.

Regardless... it's San Andreas for less than 5$ and after playing it on and off for the past 10 years, I still think it's a really great game. I'm gonna keep playing this version for a little bit and see where it ends up. I'm some kinda silly San Andreas purist, so these minor changes bug me but it's a steal for anyone who wants to jump back in.

I would recommend this over anything for someone who wants to jump back into San Andreas. That multiplayer mod is something else. I easily spent 500+ hours and countless all nighters playing that nonsense.

@ajayraz: I'm pretty much in love with San Andreas, due to the fact that its everything Rockstar shot for in GTA. The balance between role play and missions kinda killed it yes, but when your running around with a minigun, nothing can stop you, other than a tank...

I really love this game, I still got my original Xbox hooked up to play every now and then.... the controls are better then gta 3 & gta:vc but are really crappy compared with IV & V, love the story and almost rpg element to it with building CJ's stats, the last story mission the firetruck suck ass but everything from the main story to the side missions and just so much to do in those 3 cities and countryside....

"Better than ever" doesn't really have that much of an impact, when we're only talking about 760p resolution and better draw distance for a game that's already 10 years old...oh, and achievements. I doubt this is really going to interest those who started playing GTA when IV was released, so that mention of a server drop of yours might be a tad overexaggerating.

But for what it's worth, I remember enjoying my time with the pc-version back when it was released. Never finished it because of some shitty airplane mission, but it was fun 'till that. Nowhere near as brilliant as Vice City, of course. I don't think that really holds up on gameplay/graphical side either, but I'd probably still play that over SA.

@alexdaj: Beat GTA 3 and VC, but ran out of steam during the last location in SA, but this was years ago. Picked up GTA3 recently and really missed the checkpoints. With SA they would definitely have to have checkpoints for me to even come close to consider it. I remember wasting lots of time in SA just driving to the missions, IMO this one had the most time wasting just driving back to the mission when you died not knowing what they wanted to do at some point during it.

Put me down as a don't really care and rather have VC remade on current gen systems.

@agentboolen: Good news everyone! Checkpoints are in! And Autosaves... I think, at least thats what happened to me when I restarted the game after a 5 minute break/laugh session.

It appears to be £2.99 on X360 right now for some reason. Maybe a glitch so if you care take advantage of it while you can.

Can't find it on 360...where is it on the store?

@dan_citi: Check new releases on Games on Demand.

Man this brings back memories. Once I get about halfway through, I'm gonna take a few days to just mess around.

From the look of the menus it seems to be related to the iOS version

So did they rework any of the controls, or at least provide some options to get them closer to what you would expect from a GTA game these days? I bought the Xbox original version a long time ago, and it felt awful shooting with the face buttons.

Anyhow, for anyone wondering, here's a video of the new version:

Heh, kinda gives me a GTA V tech-demo vibe. Looks smooth at least, so that's something.

I like this thread because it reminds me of this.

@spaceinsomniac: I'm, like, 99 percent sure you could shoot with the triggers in the original on Xbox. I recently played through the game for the first time and I'm sure I would have remembered something that terrible. I think it might have been right trigger to aim and left to shoot though?

I bought it just in case the price is in error. Worth it anyway. I already own it on PC and PS2 but I can't be bothered with figuring out controller support on PC.

@spaceinsomniac said:

@alexdaj: Yeah absolutely, will probably be really popular.

I'm completely uninterested. I think it's pointless that Rockstar has put resources into porting two old generation GTAs to release on a newer console in the same fall a month apart. This game was good, but not worth porting to 360. Anyone who loves it has played it and owns it for PC or a console. I'm not really interested in owning a third copy nor playing it a third time.

Considering it was only £2.99 can't complain really. Was odd unlocking achievements I will admit.

So is there any word on this coming to the PS4? They have the ps2 classics version much like microsoft had the games on demand one.

$4! That's about $1 for each Samuel L. Jackson scene!

I am tempted to buy this because it is less effort than setting controls up on the PC ver I have \o/

It's probably my least favorite from that generation, but still a remarkably fun game. I feel about it similarly to how I feel about GTAV. Mechanically, technically, and aesthetically it's a fucking marvel for its era, but that sort of stuff wears away with time. I played the shit out of it, and I've played the shit out of GTAV, but I don't think either tell particularly profound stories, and I don't think the stories they do tell are always told particularly well (though, I'd admit the multi-character thing V did is incredible). Both games probably suffer from too much frivolous garbage. It's great that there's tons of variety to the games, but most of that stuff doesn't do anything for the larger piece and isn't fun to play on its own. Having said that, their worlds are cool to hang out in, and massive, so I loved just dicking around in them.

The price is right for this, and although I don't really feel like plugging my 360 back in, I might be willing to do that. Any word on if the controls are still awful?