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Retro an incredibly early build of the unreleased Game Boy Advance port of Grand Theft Auto III has been released online

Krvavi Abadas

Mr. Archivist
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(good thing there isn't anything else going on to overshadow this. 🤔)
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"but wait," you're probably asking. "wasn't there already a spin-off GTA game released on the Game Boy Advance?"

there was, but before this Rockstar actually enlisted Crawfish Interactive (notable for their high technical skill on Nintendo's handhelds, such as a nearly 1;1 port of Street Fighter Alpha on Game Boy Color. and an early GBA FPS based off the poorly received film "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever") to do a more standard port of the third game.
per an investigative article written by Brian Provinciano (yes, the same one that would go on to make Retro City Rampage and Shakedown Hawaii) it was publicly leaked that Crawfish was working on the port a week before the studio shut down due to financial issues. with former developers posting various details and screenshots from it in the years since.
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Rockstar would then enlist Digital Eclipse to finish where Crawfish started, with the project being finally self-published by them (it was originally being distributed by Destination Software, as this was before III even launched on PS2) in 2004.


unfortunately, the build that just got leaked (which previously had footage posted online back in 2016) is much earlier than the leaked screenshots. being a basic engine test featuring a controllable car driving around an empty city.
pushing start opens a settings menu which lets you finetune the car's physics, while pressing a + b displays debug info.
 
Huh, interesting. Was this formally announced? I vaguely recall hearing about a GBA version of GTA3, and then I always figured that it morphed into GTA Advance.
 
I also remember the old rumors that GTA3 and Vice City were planned for Gamecube the same time as Xbox versions.

Never knew if this was true or not lol.
 


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