Rockstar Gamesis best known for itsGrand Theft Autoseries, although the Take-Two subsidiary has plenty of other great titles to its name. Sadly, most of these werenever released on Nintendo consolesdue to how underpowered some of the more recent ones have been, but there are one or two big exceptions.
The best Rockstar games on Nintendo consoles tend to be Switch ports of classic games that were released decades on from the originals. However, there are also a handful of less demandingRockstartitles that were available on earlier Nintendo platforms, including the Wii, the DS, and even the Nintendo 64.
Most considerGrand Theft Auto: Chinatown Warsto bethe best handheldGTAgame of all time, at least when it comes to titles that were developed with portable devices in mind. It was released for the Nintendo DS in early 2009 and sees players take control of Huang Lee: a Triad member who’s attempting to recover his father’s stolen sword. The gameplay is solid throughout and the story’s fantastic, although the visuals don’t hold up quite as well as the ones found in some of the other great Rockstar games that made it to Nintendo consoles.
Strictly speaking,Space Station Silicon Valleywas developed by DMA Design, which was the studio responsible for the very firstGTAgame. However, as DMA Design was eventually folded into Rockstar (which was formed after Take-Two Interactive acquiredGTA’s publisher, BMG Interactive), it seems fair to call it a Rockstar game. Released for the N64 in 1998, this futuristic platformer saw players controlling a sentient microchip and using it to hijack a series of robotic animals to solve puzzles and prevent the titular space station from colliding with the Earth. It’s ahugely underrated Rockstar gameand one that’s still worth checking out today; if only for how unusual it is.
The motion capture technology used during the development ofL.A. Noirewas groundbreaking for its era, leading to some of the most realistic video game facial expressions on the market. Sadly, by the time the game came to the Nintendo Switch more than half a decade later, the graphics looked a little dated, and the gameplay didn’t fare too much better either. Thankfully, the story and writing at least hold up well, as too do the many cases and investigations that players are expected to solve.
Quite a few eyebrows were raised when it was revealed that Rockstar San Diego would be developing a table tennis game. However, what on paper should have been a fairly dull affair ended up being one of the best sports simulation games of its era, with the title’s advanced physics and fast-paced gameplay proving to be a hit with many players. Like a lot ofRockstar’s other games, it boasts an excellent soundtrack too, which is perfect for long rallies against fierce rivals.
Bullywas the very first release from Rockstar Vancouver, which was formed after Take-Two Interactive acquired Barking Dog in 2002. The game was built using theGrand Theft Auto: San Andreasengine and allows players to cause chaos in an open-world sandbox, although that’s mostly wherethe similarities between it and Rockstar’s flagship franchiseend. Players take on the role of Jimmy Hopkins: a delinquent high school student struggling to adapt to the prestigious Bullworth Academy. It features some innovative ideas and a pretty enjoyable narrative, even if some of the mini-games that players are forced to partake in fall a little short.
Some players were a little disappointed withthe amount of effort that Rockstar put into the PS4 port ofRed Dead Redemption. However, for hardcore Nintendo fans who missed out on the original release, the Switch port wasn’t too bad, despite its high price tag and low frame rate. The game itself remains one of the best open-world games of all time, taking players back to the year 1911 and the decline of the American frontier. It’s aged pretty well all things considered and can still be a lot of fun to this day. That said, those coming straight from the game’s 2018 prequel may need a little bit of time to adjust, as there’s a very noticeable gulf in quality between the two titles.
Given thatGrand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Editionis basically just three games in one, it already has a pretty big advantage over all of the other Rockstar games that can be played on Nintendo consoles. The fact that those games just happen to be three ofthe most influential open-world games ever madecertainly helps as well. Whether or not these truly are the “definitive” editions of the 3D trilogy is certainly debatable, but it would be almost impossible to argue that these fan-favorite titles aren’t still a lot of fun to play today.
