Will the remastered Grand Theft Autos’ American satire hold up?

The world's bestselling video game series combined reverence of US cinema with satire of nihilistic capitalism. But in a post-Trump world, what does GTA have left to say?

In 2013, then-poet, now Booker prize finalist Patricia Lockwood tweeted at the Paris Review: So is Paris any good or not" The tweet, which went viral, was funny on a number of levels, but particularly its suggestion that anyone might venture to assess the qualities of an entire city. The magazine responded in a blogpost titled The Paris Review reviews Paris (the verdict? It's pretty good!"), but the absurdity of the premise was acknowledged in the brisk, tongue-in-cheek appraisal. To review a shimmering city, across all its multitudinous material and social vectors - its traffic systems and sewerage networks, its job prospects and police attitudes, its air pollution and book clubs, its art galleries and vermin infestations - is obviously preposterous.

Still, this has never stopped critics from attempting to review the Grand Theft Auto video games holistically, despite the fact each one contains similar multitudes to the American metropolises from which they borrow their settings. These are simplified and flattened recreations of human cities, of course, but each is sufficiently complex to invite a range of critical lenses. Take your pick: architectural or topographical? Sociological or literary? Cinematic or satirical? Do you evaluate the handling of the cars, or the music played by the game's various radio stations? The quality of the light in a digital sunrise, or the strength of the jokes in Ricky Gervais' virtual stand-up sets? Each approach presents a different vista, a new text, an alternate proposition. The idea of a full and rounded appraisal of games these enormous and multifaceted is not only laughable, but frankly exhausting.