By Sam Coles:
Downloadable content gets a lot of flak these days
because it has replaced the more superior expansion pack. In 2009 Rockstar
games released their first expansion to Grand Theft Auto IV which was at the
time exclusive to the Xbox 360, which was titled The Lost and the Damned. This was
eventually released as a standalone product in the form of Episodes from
Liberty City with The Ballad of Gay Tony.
The Lost and the Damned is a tale about a biker gang
called The Lost; you play as Johnny the vice president of the club who is
leading the chapter for the time being as the president Billy Grey in prison. Billy
is finally on parole and chaos begins as he is a drug riddled psychopath and
begins killing people who he doesn’t like or people who look at him in a funny
way. The story of this game is very familiar if you’ve watched any episode of
Sons of Anarchy as it has the same conflicts within the motorcycle club coupled
with shady deals with third parties.
Gameplay is left mostly unchanged from GTA IV with
the same driving action except you’re on a motorcycle most of the time generally
when you’re in missions. They have added stats for your fellow gang members,
but honestly I didn’t notice any difference in their abilities and performance so
it just seems to be there for aesthetic. They’ve added new weapons to the
roster like the double barrelled shotgun which can be used for drive by
shooting on bikes which causes huge damage to cars, the Striker shotgun which
is a fast automatic shotgun which can destroy vehicles in seconds, the auto
pistol which isn’t very good in my opinion and the grenade launcher which is self-explanatory.
When you’re riding in a convoy with your fellow
biker mates on the way to missions a Lost MC logo will pop on the road, if you
ride on that logo for a bit it will give you a bit of armour or health if you’re
below 100%. I like this feature because it keeps the game flowing and you don’t
have to stop and faff about at a hotdog stand or in the local Burger Shot. They added in a new race type as well which is
super fun where it is in the style of Road Rash where you race on bikes and you’re
equipped with baseball bats and you can smash your opponents off their bikes
and leave them in the gutter, this mode is a lot of fun which I could play over
and over again.
Graphically the game looks far better than the base
GTA IV game because they’ve cleared up the visuals and gave an extra bit of
polish so the character models don’t look as weird as they did in the original
game. The visuals are no longer murky or blurry with the strange depth of field
effect removed. The frame rate is much better in this expansion as well as it
runs smoother when you’re riding at high speeds, but it does drop when there
are a lot of explosions and police cars on screen, but that is a limitation of
the technology more than anything. Overall presentation is a big step up from
the original base game.
GTA IV Lost and the Damned is a great expansion and
shows how to add longevity to a game and players are willing to support a game
post release if you give them an incentive to. You can find this in the stand
alone pack for cheap or if you don’t own GTA IV get the game of the year
edition which comes with everything.
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