A new HD edition of the highly-acclaimed San Andreas instalment in the GTA franchise has recently been released for the Xbox 360. Words are, however, that this version is merely a port of the mobile edition.

The mobile edition of GTA: San Andreas was released back in December last year. The graphics were improved over the original game, a commendable effort considering that it was a console to mobile port.

In Digital Foundry’s comparison test, they found that the Xbox 360 HD edition is identical to the mobile edition; save for a better draw distance and 720p resolution. Other than these minor improvements, the HD edition doesn’t have anti-aliasing (much like the mobile edition) and a rather annoying bug where the audio would cut out during certain cut-scenes.

Perhaps one of the most disappointing aspects of the remastered edition is the frame-rate. Instead of delivering a constant 30fps, this 10-year-old game’s frame-rate is inconsistent, resulting in a less-than-satisfying gameplay with the occasional stuttering.

This rerelease of one of the most popular GTA entry does not do it much justice. Just upping the resolution to 720p will not cut it, which is somewhat of a trend among game developers today. What could have been a great opportunity to make a definitive edition of GTA: San Andreas is wasted on a mobile port. Below are more comparison images courtesy of Eurogamer.net for easy comparison.

(Source: Eurogamer.net)