As we covered in our Retro Replay feature a few weeks back, Grand Theft Auto III – the father of all third-person smash ‘n’ grab driving simulators – is set to take a joyride again early next year on our iPhones and Android smartphones in celebration of the games tenth anniversary which was on October 22nd 2011. Rockstar promised a wide distribution on some of the finest handsets available to compliment the pace and graphic requirements to successfully translate the game from its PS2 roots. But this exciting news skids to a halt today for Samsung Galaxy S II gamers, as Rockstar now claims there are no plans to bring GTA III onto the incredibly popular gadget.
Over 10-million smartphone owners can’t possibly be wrong, right? That’s the number of recorded Samsung Galaxy S II owners from two months ago, but Rockstar Games, the developers of the driving/crime franchise since the ‘3D’ days began with GTA III a whole decade ago, is turning its back on the ‘World’s Most Powerful Smartphone’ due to restrictions with the dual-core processing of the SGII’s CPU. The processor in question is a 1.2GHz Exynos system, which came along with Samsung’s flagship back in May this year and still makes most newcomers to the smartphone market blush. The CPU is not widely used, so its limited distribution appears to be reason enough for Rockstar to foolishly pay it no time.
In a bizarre reversal of logic, Rockstar will be supporting more widely used Nvidia Tegra 2 chip which features in smartphones such as the the Motorola Atrix and LG Optimus 2X. Samsung’s lesser-model the Galaxy R which is backed by the Tegra 2 chip will also be welcoming Grand Theft Auto III from next Friday, but the game will (for now) be criminally absent from big bro Galaxy S II.
Grand Theft Auto III comes to the Apple App Store and Android Market on December 16th costing around £2.99.
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