[41m33]

Anyone else played this?

It still blows me away, the fact I can play the full game on my phone. I remember desperately trying to get my hands on a copy 10 years ago, and being so excited to play it.

and now I can take it with me. With no loss of graphical quality or gameplay quality.

I hope Rockstar will release Vice City & San Andreas ...or maybe that's pushing a little too far!

[MojoMaster]

I love it. Feels odd but great playing it on a small screen.

Although when I think about it, the SGS3 screen size is comparable to the PS Vita, so not that odd!

[41m33]

Hm that's true! I find I have reached the age, where things like playing GTA on my phone, and the xbox kinect blow my mind. ...and i'm only 24 :/

[JasonWatkins]

i bought it full price when they had it for about 80p i think - it was that or something equally dirt cheap. i'm certainly in the "mind blown" camp as well, considering the size of the game and the fact that they've retained the graphical quality as well.

i suspect vice city will be the next one to appear. obviously san andreas would be amazing but i wonder if that's just a little too big ?

i'd quite like to check out the android version of the first max payne game as well - apparently there's no loss in quality with that as well.

[Ash_735]

You'd be surprised, the biggest challenge for San Andreas (Vice City not so much as, erm, Can't say) but yeah, for San Andreas the biggest space user is Audio, considering the Audio on San Andreas is already compressed, it would be one hell of a challenge to somehow get that down further, adding into the dynamic radio engine and on the fly sound spacing, there's just too much space on the audio to try and get it within reasonable limits, even after doing quick checks it would still come in at over 3GB, compared to the 700MB of GTA III (iOS and Android). Vice City requires less work, the original work file is 1.4GB, we've already cut 300MB off that by using newer compression on the radio streams and there's still some other things that could be easily compressed further to hopefully get it under that 1GB mark.

[JasonWatkins]

I suppose one potential way around the sound issue is to re-jig it slightly to use whatever music you have on your phone as a custom radio station.

maybe they could work it so that each song, or couple of songs, could be interspersed with some random radio idents and talking. could potentially take up a lot less space i suppose.

[Ash_735]

Originally Posted by JasonWatkins

I suppose one potential way around the sound issue is to re-jig it slightly to use whatever music you have on your phone as a custom radio station.

maybe they could work it so that each song, or couple of songs, could be interspersed with some random radio idents and talking. could potentially take up a lot less space i suppose.

It's not just Radio Audio that's a problem, it's archived audio and GENRL audio banks, San Andreas has LOADS of audio, it was the start of when Rockstar really started laying into the Audio work, the break down is like this:

Radio - 1.1GB
Audio Banks - 2.13GB
Video Streams - 25MB
Map, Models, Textures, Animations, etc - 1.4GB

Now compare that to Vice City:
Radio - 600MB
Audio Banks - 513MB
Video Streams - 30MB
Map, Models, Textures, Animations, etc - 451MB

You can see a pretty huge jump in what needs to be compressed and sorted to try and get it down to the magic number of 1GB or less.

[JasonWatkins]

Originally Posted by Ash_735

You can see a pretty huge jump in what needs to be compressed and sorted to try and get it down to the magic number of 1GB or less.

yeah, i guess when you look at it like that it's pretty big. but then i suppose if they felt they'd make some more money out of it then they might release it anyway just to see if there's any interest. sort of a "test case" of larger size apps if you will ..

[41m33]

I agree Jason, it's pretty mad to have this whole game in the palm of my hand..wherever i am!

But yeah, I've noticed Max Payne out there too ...I havn't bought it yet, the only thing that would put me off would be the controls. It was a pretty complicated control layout if I remember correctly (what with the bullet time etc) but if they've mastered that, it would be sweet!

Looks pretty awesome judging from the screen shots. PS2 quality.

[pi r squared]

Originally Posted by 41m33

I've noticed Max Payne out there too ...I havn't bought it yet, the only thing that would put me off would be the controls. It was a pretty complicated control layout if I remember correctly (what with the bullet time etc) but if they've mastered that, it would be sweet!

It's pretty simple, to be honest - there are three on-screen buttons: fire, bullet time and jump. They descend in size. Then when near something that can be interacted with, a fourth "i" button appears. Very easy to master, and the auto aim mode works very well too - possibly too well as it makes the game a tad easy, but you can always turn it off.

Great game. I never completed it on PC but finished it earlier on today - brilliant story too. Wonder if they'll bring MP2?!