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on Gopher (inofficial)
HTML Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML You can now play Grand Theft Auto Vice City in the browser
mandown2308 wrote 5 min ago:
Amazing amazing!
blazingbanana wrote 15 min ago:
Really cool, amazed that the old cheats work as well!
ahmadforoughi wrote 24 min ago:
it's really cool to play with. i really like the performance as well -
better than what i expected
cluckindan wrote 47 min ago:
Site connects to yandex.ru
coldcode wrote 48 min ago:
Amazing it runs in a browser.
dom96 wrote 51 min ago:
The soundtrack is the best part of this game and I'm surprised this
site is just allowing anyone to play this, with the soundtrack as-is.
onion2k wrote 1 hour 35 min ago:
It's at least 20 years since I last played Vice City, and I can still
remember my way around the map. That's weird.
kaycebasques wrote 1 hour 36 min ago:
Is something similar available for GTA3?
sho_hn wrote 1 hour 42 min ago:
I did this with Tomb Raider once: [1] (Here with a fan level to avoid
copyright concerns.)
HTML [1]: https://eikehein.com/stuff/sabatu/
wmoxam wrote 2 hours 3 min ago:
Ah shit, here we go again
dailen wrote 2 hours 11 min ago:
And it consumes less RAM than msn.com
Exuma wrote 2 hours 16 min ago:
Which was the GTA where you rode around on a dirtbike out in the
california mountains, and there was like bootleggers and stuff.... man
i have serious memories of that game
eftychis wrote 2 hours 4 min ago:
San Andreas
sehugg wrote 2 hours 19 min ago:
GTA Vice City was released for iOS devices in 2012, and IIRC it ran
pretty well. Not surprising that it runs well with WASM/WebGPU, given
the massive increase in GPU performance. I'd imagine that the CPU-bound
paths are well-optimized for 2002 Pentiums.
al_borland wrote 1 hour 36 min ago:
I just re-downloaded Vice City on my iPhone yesterday. It runs well,
but the on-screen controls are, well, on-screen controls. That limits
how much I actually want to play it.
hoten wrote 39 min ago:
Does a USB/bluetooth gamepad work on that version? Or are people
really out there playing GTA on a tiny touch screen?
al_borland wrote 29 min ago:
I just tried an 8bitdo controller I had lying around. It does
work, but the controls seem all wrong and need to be remapped. I
may do that.
I never carry a controller with me. I'd love to just be able to
pick up and play in a waiting room or something without needing
to plan for it or having an awkward setup. The MCON looked
promising, but still probably bigger than what I'd want to carry
around.
doganugurlu wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
Sensible Soccer is so true to the original. It's even impossible to
quit it!
pinus-cembra wrote 2 hours 22 min ago:
Web browsers really have come a long way. Will be interesting to see
where we'll be in 10 to 20 years.
Stevvo wrote 2 hours 22 min ago:
Saw some funny bugs I don't remember from the original, but it looks a
lot better.
RobRivera wrote 2 hours 25 min ago:
I kneel
admtal wrote 2 hours 25 min ago:
I wish all ps2 games were playable and available on such a site
ekjhgkejhgk wrote 2 hours 28 min ago:
I'm so old that GTA in 3D still feels new.
sergiotapia wrote 2 hours 34 min ago:
It runs insanely well what the hell!
_fat_santa wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
Havenât tried this yet but I literally just loaded the OG PC version
on my steam deck.
The originals are amazing but I have to say for all their faults, the
Definitive Editions figured out the camera. For anyone that played the
OG versions you were stuck with the âfollow camâ unless you had a
PC + Mouse
nix0n wrote 59 min ago:
There are QOL mods[0] available for that version to get the camera
(and controller in general, and other stuff) working better.
Can't speak to the Deck HW or Steam OS specifically, but the
SilentPatch and GInput mods have been working great for me on Proton
under Linux Mint.
[0]
HTML [1]: https://cookieplmonster.github.io/mods/gta-vc/
agentifysh wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
this is one of the most impressive thing i've see on HN
how is this done ?? what engine is used ? it feels exactly like the
original
also the whole website dos zone seems to have all these browser
versions of half life etc ???
how are people making these things and how are they legal ?
so many questions
sho_hn wrote 1 hour 39 min ago:
> how is this done ?? what engine is used ? it feels exactly like the
original
It's most likely using reVC, a reverse-engineering of the original
binaries by decompilation, and then built for the web using
emscripten, which does a fairly good job making OpenGL code work on
WebGL.
My Tomb Raider web build I linked here elsewhere was done the same
way (reversing by the amazing people in the TR1X project).
alternatetwo wrote 1 hour 32 min ago:
Pro tip: press R for free roam script in menu. This was a debugging
feature in re3 and reVC.
basch wrote 2 hours 6 min ago:
If you boot the game, it only loads the demo, and it tells you to
supply your own game file to play the rest.
Hamuko wrote 1 hour 40 min ago:
The demo includes a lot of the game assets though. Looks like it
has the full map, probably a lot if not all of the vehicles, peds
too.
bossyTeacher wrote 2 hours 25 min ago:
> how are they legal ?
they are not, but then again so are many things. We choose what laws
to enforce (see 18-20 year olds drinking, unmarried cohabitation,
etc). just because it is not legal does not mean that law enforcement
will care.
stevezsa8 wrote 2 hours 9 min ago:
In which country is unmarried cohabitation not legal?
kube-system wrote 1 hour 59 min ago:
Today, Iran. And even parts of Europe as late as the 90s
sva_ wrote 2 hours 32 min ago:
If I had to guess, by being hosted in Russia they probably ignore the
legality.
kg wrote 2 hours 33 min ago:
For the "how" see [1] - the game has been reverse engineered. There
are reverse engineering and reimplementation projects like this for a
lot of older games, i.e. Mario 64, Diablo and at least one of the
Sonic games
Is it legal? Well, the reverse engineering typically is as long as
you follow the rules, but hosting all the game assets on a public web
server so you can play it probably isn't.
HTML [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46330258
charcircuit wrote 2 hours 27 min ago:
reVC is clear copyright infringement distributing a derivative work
based off the code of the game.
lawlessone wrote 2 hours 41 min ago:
Feels pretty smooth on my phone for something that's running in the
browser.
rohan_ wrote 2 hours 41 min ago:
is this some WASM magic?
tigranbs wrote 2 hours 48 min ago:
Links times out, seems the host wasn't ready for the HN traffic!
superasn wrote 2 hours 49 min ago:
This works amazing well. I started playing and just 5 minutes in, I was
completely hooked and ended up playing for almost half hour.
It could be that I'm a bit old-school, but this really seemed to
confirm that ready to play fun gameplay trumps realistic graphics any
day!
systemtest wrote 53 min ago:
Vice City was originally planned as an add-on to GTA III. Development
time was 18 months. Incredible that they put out such a great game in
so little time.
emilbratt wrote 2 hours 40 min ago:
Pushing the nostalgic effect aside, I agree. The gameplay is the
important part and is why I can still play snes games to this day.
amarant wrote 2 hours 52 min ago:
This got me thinking that one of my childhood favourites ought to be
playable in the browser too, and sure enough, here's GTA 2 if anyone
else is as old as I am:
HTML [1]: https://dos.zone/grand-theft-auto2/
djeastm wrote 2 hours 33 min ago:
GTA 1 was the first computer game I ever remember buying with my own
money: [1] I can't get the radio music playing, unfortunately.
HTML [1]: https://dos.zone/grand-theft-auto-1997/
jtokoph wrote 2 hours 40 min ago:
This is great. I also played the heck out of GTA2. I had a lot of fun
attempting to mod the textures to get my favorite cars in the game.
Respect is everything.
dashzebra wrote 2 hours 43 min ago:
wsdfqfcf
If you know, you know.
doublerabbit wrote 2 hours 45 min ago:
Carmageddon is another old classic of mine, [1] I used to watch my
older brother play this when I was younger and he always hid the CD.
HTML [1]: https://dos.zone/carmageddon
amarant wrote 1 hour 41 min ago:
Oh damn, my cousin had carmageddon! We'd stay up all night long
playing it when I visited him!
Now I gotta find that other game he had, but I don't remember what
it was called. It was kinda like reverse GTA: you played as a
female cop and you had to stop the criminals. Iirc there were
corrupt cops later on in the game.
desdenova wrote 8 min ago:
Would that be Urban Chaos?
MinimalAction wrote 2 hours 54 min ago:
Crazy! Brought back the summers of my childhood where I mindlessly
roamed around the Vice City with my custom MP3 list of songs. For so
long, I was stuck on flying the RC helicopter in an abandoned
skyscraper level. It has been years, and now I have the itch to try
that again!
Thanks to whoever made this possible. There goes my weekend.
tsukurimashou wrote 2 hours 56 min ago:
better than the original rockstar PC port...
pipes wrote 2 hours 59 min ago:
I came here hoping to see some technical explanation of what this is.
E.g.JavaScript emulation of PS2 version? Recompilation + wasm?
Something else entirely?
Hamuko wrote 2 hours 53 min ago:
Says reVC in the description, so it's been decompiled from the
original Vice City binary and then reimplemented in
JavaScript/WebAssembly.
Ram10- wrote 2 hours 59 min ago:
Wine in the browser would be so interesting for retro software.
wiseowise wrote 2 hours 59 min ago:
Still remember how my PC was freezing on VC 20 years ago, and now I can
play it in a browser in 120 fps. Wild.
Big kudos to [1] on which this is based on. Wholeheartedly agree with
authors, every game older than 10 years, and that is not in active
development, should be made open source so that community can keep
games alive instead of letting them rot.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/SugaryHull/re3/tree/miami
systemtest wrote 47 min ago:
2003 is 22 years ago. The events in the game take place 16 years in
the past.
I feel nostalgic for Vice City the same way people felt nostalgic for
the 80s when the game was released.
medstrom wrote 32 min ago:
Damn, the 80s felt that recent?
tobyjsullivan wrote 2 hours 20 min ago:
> agree with authors, every game older than 10 years, and that is not
in active development, should be made open source so that community
Note that GTA V is now 12 years old and still sells ~20M copies per
year. So thatâs going to be a tough sell in some cases.
You could argue itâs still actively developed, particularly due to
online, so fair enough.
But thatâs also sort of true for Vice City. Theyâve released
mobile version (playable on Netflix) over the past few years at
least.
Nevertheless, Iâd be thrilled if that was a standard practice.
hiccuphippo wrote 1 hour 2 min ago:
I'd extend it to all copyright but instead of "active development"
make it a nominal fee every 10 years, so anyone that doesn't mind
their work becoming public domain 10, 20, 30, etc years later can
easily let it go.
integralid wrote 1 hour 11 min ago:
>Nevertheless, Iâd be thrilled if that was a standard practice.
Or we could shorten copyright to something reasonable, like 15
years after release.
ASalazarMX wrote 1 hour 38 min ago:
Fallout 4 is ten years old and just recently was sold again as a
remake, basically a small update with pre-included mods. Skyrim is
14 years old and I'm sure it will be resold at least one more time
before TES VI is released.
Moddable games are like prescription pills that add one ingredient
to a patent-expired recipe, to repatent it as new.
mmaunder wrote 3 hours 5 min ago:
Wow!!
christkv wrote 3 hours 11 min ago:
So awesome
bgirard wrote 3 hours 12 min ago:
Wow, crazy to see this childhood classic load and run seamlessly in my
browser. Better than on my old hot wheels pc.
HardwareLust wrote 3 hours 19 min ago:
Wow that worked shockingly well on my cheap Moto phone!
striking wrote 3 hours 9 min ago:
[1] has been available since 2012! The only difference here is some
web browser overhead, which isn't much anymore...
HTML [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rockstarga...
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