Steam Deck Verification

The Walking Dead: Episode 2 – Starved for Help

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/05/2012
Posted in: Android, iOS, Mac, Microsoft, Microsoft Consoles, Mobile Reviews, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Retro Consoles, Sony, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Release Date: 6/29/2012


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The first episode was just amazing and had some shocking moments. I have been waiting for this episode, but I feel a little letdown this time around. Lee and the gang need to find food because they ran out at the motel they are holding down. You go to try to find food and wind up on a dairy farm, but the food isn’t exactly what you think it might be. There aren’t as many shocking moments, and they don’t come off as surprising as in the first episode. The big moments are more dialog choices than actual gameplay, which is disappointing. One moment does have you chopping off a guy’s leg stuck in a bear trap, but other than that, the other moments are pretty typical, like yanking a gun out of a guy’s hand. In fact, there aren’t even really that many zombies in this episode; they kind of take a back seat to the internal struggle on the farm.

The game plays out exactly the same, but there are fewer exploring segments and even fewer puzzles to solve. In fact, this mainly felt like an interactively animated episode rather than an adventure game. Not to say that is bad, but fans of the first episode may find it disappointing. There are some more important choices you have to make, and that is probably the biggest switch from the first episode. Some changes actually determine the lives of a few characters you probably got attached to. Episode 2 does what this series is doing best, and that’s slowly drawing the characters’s personalities out and constantly making you question how you feel about them.

The game isn’t so much tense gameplay-wise as story-wise. The whole time, I was surprised when something did happen. You are thrown important choices and need to make decisions quickly at times when you least expect them, and they really make you think. I had such a hard time picking almost every choice because sometimes the right thing to do isn’t the best thing to do. A lot of times, I wonder how that will affect me later on in the series.

Overall, Episode 2 doesn’t have as much action or surprising moments, but it expands the character’s personality and gives you some seriously heavy situations that force you to make big decisions. The episode also puts zombies on the back burner for the problems on this farm and the group, so be prepared for that.

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Velvet Assassin

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/23/2012
Posted in: Mac, Microsoft, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unknown, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox 360. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: SouthPeak Games

Developer: Replay Studios

Release Date: 4/30/2009


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I have really given this game some time, and I have tried to forgive it. I rented this on Xbox 360 when it first came out and gave up after the second level. I bought this at a cheap Steam sale about a year ago and have just had it sitting on my HDD since then. I have gone back here and there to try to beat or continue this game. I just can’t do it and have finally given up. After two years of giving this game a chance, I doubt it will become better over time. The paper-thin story, poor stealth mechanics, and technical flaws just bring this promising game down.

You play as a British spy infiltrating Germany during World War II and other occupied territories for…I don’t really know. The story is presented in flashbacks that don’t really explain much other than why Violet is at that current location. You have various goals you have to complete, but there are enemies in between that you have to kill off or avoid. A stealth game has to have great stealth mechanics like sneaking, killing, and gadgets, which Velvet fails in every category. First off, she moves way too slowly when crouching. You can never catch up to enemies who are walking because they just leave her in the dust. This is extremely difficult when you are trying to quickly kill someone before you are spotted. The kill moves are pretty cool, but you have to be in the exact position the game needs you to be before you can trigger them. You also have to be extremely close, which is ridiculous. This isn’t a splinter cell where you can trigger the kill at a reasonable distance.

You get a few items to help you kill these Nazis. You can use morphine shots to become invisible, freeze time, and do an automatic kill. This is useful for a guard that has been spotted, so you can take him down really quick. You get a silenced pistol, but ammo is hard to come by, so use it wisely. Sometimes you can also use a Nazi uniform as a disguise, but if you get too close to enemies, they will recognize you. The game has shadow stealth, which means if you hide in the shadows, you will have a blue aura around you, and enemies won’t see you. This game has some of the dumbest AI enemies I have ever seen. You can whistle to lure a guard into some shadows, but he won’t see you even though you are two feet in front of him. If you are seen and try to hide, the enemies know exactly where you are, and you can’t hide from them. What kind of lame crap is that?

The game looks good and has a nice visual art style, but there are some technical flaws here. Animations are pretty bad, with some terrible sound effects. The footsteps all sound the same, and the animations just seem floaty and canned. I also found some of the guard’s patrols to be very long, and the overall patterns are hard to work around. It’s difficult to figure out how to take out enemies because there are no natural hints or obvious paths most of the time.

Overall, Velvet Assassin was a promising stealth action game set in World War II but has a pointless story, broken stealth mechanics, and some technical flaws. The game looks good, but other than that, there is no reason for you to pick it up. Rent this if you want to play a stealth game with a sexy protagonist; otherwise, look elsewhere.

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DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/23/2012
Posted in: Mac, Microsoft, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox 360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: EA Games

Developer: Hothead Games

Release Date: 11/30/2010


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The first DeathSpank gave us some solid RPG action with really funny dialog and wit. Thongs of Virtue is the direct sequel but feels more like an expansion. The game is exactly the same, but with new content. Unfortunately, the game also carries over the same problems from the first game, so not a single thing was fixed or changed. The story is about DeathSpank trying to retrieve three thongs from three evil bosses, but in between, you can do about 150 side quests.

The game is broken up into several areas, just like the first game. You can warp around the world via outhouses, and you will revive at the nearest one if you die. As you do quests for various people, you pick up more powerful armor and weapons along the way. There are new armor and weapons in this game, but everything else is the same. The same food, potions, and other little tidbits like chests. Some chests can only be opened with special keys that have to be fitted by a locksmith, though. There are more areas to explore in this game, which means it’s a bit longer. You can probably finish most of the game in about 15 hours, or 20 if you are slow.

Running around and whacking enemies is the name of the game, but only certain ones can be beaten when you are at a higher level. The level cap is 20 again, but it takes a bit longer to get there this time around. There are more characters to talk to, which means hours of funny and strange dialog. There’s even an area where you can steer a pirate ship and go to little islands to get quest items as well. I actually found the fortune cookie hints to be more useful this time around and rarely needed to use a walkthrough. The last game had poor hints, and even the quest descriptions were pretty poor. At least now most of them tell you where the quest giver is, so you can go back to them without having to wander around.

The biggest issues I had with the last game still exist. You can only have five health potions at a time, so you have to rely on consuming food items. This takes forever, and sometimes you will fail if enemies have projectile weapons because DeathSpank will stop eating if hit. This made combat drag out and become irritating, which just so happens to be the case here too. Most enemies that are around your level will kill you almost instantly if you get ganged up on, so running around in circles eating food is just annoying. Why this wasn’t addressed is beyond me, but it needs to be in the third game, or I actually won’t play it. The game is also full of repetitive fetch quests that I didn’t really think about in the first game. There needs to be more variety in the gameplay and/or quests, because a third helping of this would just be way too much.

Overall, Thongs of Virtue is a fun action RPG for fans of the first game. People who didn’t like the first game will hate this one too, because nothing really changed or improved. Come for the witty and funny dialog, but don’t expect anything spectacular or extraordinary.

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Xbox 360 Controller for Windows

Max Payne 3

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/19/2012
Posted in: Microsoft, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox 360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Rockstar Games

Developer: Rockstar Studios

Release Date: 06/01/2012


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Max Payne pretty much took the bullet-time effects made popular by The Matrix and made them mainstream for games. Back in the day, Max Payne was a high-tech graphic noir story by Rockstar Games. It was fun, full of action, and had a great story and character. The second game did the same thing but felt too familiar with the first game. The third time around is a decade later, but Rockstar now has the technology to do what they originally wanted. Max Payne 3 is one of the best-looking games out there, but it also features one of the richest and most well-delivered cinematic stories in recent gaming history.

Max Payne has retired and is just mourning the deaths of his wife and kid while getting drunk every day. An old buddy from the police force stops by and recruits him for a bodyguard job in Sao Paulo, protecting a very rich family in a third-world country. Things go wrong as they always do for Max, and he needs to redeem himself and set things straight after so many screw-ups throughout the game. I can’t say much more without spoiling the story, but you’re in for a treat on this one.

The game feels familiar once you start getting into it. You can dual-wield weapons or use a two-handed weapon. Bullet time is back with bullet dodge as well. You can get behind cover and use bullet time to pull off headshots and kill a dozen enemies that would normally kill you without it. Bullet dodge is fun too when you don’t have a cover or just want to knock some guys down quickly while moving to cover. My only issue here is that it isn’t as fast as previous games. Spinning around in bullet dodge is slower and feels too weighty for me. Max’s bullet-time meter only refills if you stick your head out and start killing enemies without it, so there is some balance. If you get hurt, you can pop painkillers, but they aren’t in abundance like in the last two games. I don’t think I ever had over four at one time, and they are hard to come by.

That’s pretty much all there is to the action. There are many different weapons with things added on, like laser sights, night vision sights, scopes, and flashlights. I really wish the gameplay had evolved a little more, but all you do is shoot everything that moves. There are some great cinematic moments that break this up, like bullet-time shooting in different scenarios, which are really fun. I just wish it wasn’t spread so thin because a lot of the time the game gets extremely difficult and repetitive with too many of the same type of shootouts in a row. At least the environments change all the time, so you have a lot of different scenery to look at.

Max Payne 3 has some of the best camera work and cinematography in a game that I have ever seen. At certain points, the camera will snap to the last enemy in the area that is dying, so you can pump more rounds into him as he falls. Then the scene will go right into a cutscene seamlessly and then right into another action sequence. I don’t think I have ever felt like playing an action movie before more than I have with Max Payne 3. The game is also really long, with 14 chapters that will take about 12+ hours to beat. The story is just bursting at the seams with detail and lots of scenarios to make it not seem rushed and incomplete.

There’s a multiplayer mode that can be pretty fun, as well as an arcade mode to keep you coming back. You can play through the main story again to find all the golden gun parts and clues if you want to achieve anything. The game also plays better on the PC due to the pinpoint precision of a mouse and the addition of the latest DirectX 11 graphics, which will require a monster rig to run at a decent frame rate. I didn’t find any major problems with the game, just a few annoying ones that were persistent throughout the whole game, like the difficulty imbalance, some bullet time quirks, and actually a big issue with last-man-standing. If you have a pill bottle left and you die, you get a few seconds to shoot that enemy, and Max will automatically consume the bottle. If Max is flopping around or turned around, you have to wait for the reticle to automatically face the enemy. If you are out of ammo, you’re screwed. Sometimes objects will block your shot, and you get screwed there too.

Overall, Max Payne 3 is a wonderful game with top-notch cinematography, superb voice acting, and high-end visuals. Fans of the first game will be pleased with this lengthy shooter, but the gameplay itself can be repetitive and shallow sometimes. The cinematic bullet-time events are spread too thin, but it can be forgiven due to how wonderful everything else is. Max Payne 3 was well worth the 10-year wait, and here’s to hoping there is another one.

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Keyboard & Mouse

Hector: Badge of Carnage – Episode 1: We Negotiate With Terrorists

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/13/2012
Posted in: iOS, Mac, Mobile Reviews, PC Reviews, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Straandlooper

Release Date: 4/27/2011


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Hector is an adventure game for adults, which there aren’t many of. Most have cutesy, colorful graphics, crappy voice acting, and a cheesy story to keep teenagers and unknowing casual gamers interested. This game may be shallow in gameplay, but it makes up for it with crass British humor that is disgusting and funny at the same time. The game is about a deadbeat police investigator who has to deal with a hostage situation. Instead of storming in and dealing with it the right way, he does everything the terrorist says. This leads to the three main areas of the game where you have to solve puzzles.

You start by just clicking on everything and seeing what you can take, interact with, and talk to. This is a standard adventure game affair, and there’s nothing different at all. This is a by-the-books adventure game and doesn’t try anything fancy or new. The three areas are a park, a clock tower, and a porn shop, which all need to be dealt with as demanded by the terrorist. The porn shop needs to be shut down, the clock tower needs to be up and running again, and the guy at the park needs money to restore it. What makes the game interesting are Hector’s comments and the wisecracks and gross jokes thrown between characters. The game even makes fun of Brits themselves with chavs, overall British terms, and inside jokes.

Most of the puzzles are decent, but the hint system is there to help you and insult you. Instead of just simple hints, you have to read all the insults the game throws at you, which is entertaining. Thankfully, the areas can be completed in any order, so that adventure game quirk is out the door here. Most items are so absurd that you know there’s only one thing you can do with them. The entertainment value also comes in the form of what you need to solve the puzzles, like a garter belt for a fan belt in a beat-up police car. The battery is also dead, so you use the chav in the station as teaser bait on a psycho old woman at a bus stop. Push him down into the hood of the car, and you have a charged battery. This is funny, disgusting, and entertaining. The graphics are nicely drawn in a flash animation cartoon style, but the voice acting is spotty. Overall, Hector Episode 1 is an entertaining adventure game, but not for the lighthearted.

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Keyboard & Mouse

Shank 2

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/03/2012
Posted in: Linux, Mac, Microsoft, Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox 360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: EA Games

Developer: Klei Entertainment

Release Date: 2/7/2012


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Shank had a great idea but was poorly executed with extreme difficulty, sluggish controls, and monotonous combat. The story was interesting, with lots of gore and boobs, but there wasn’t much beyond this. Shank 2 tones down the difficulty a tad, improves controls, and adds a few things to combat, but the story this time is lame, the voice acting stinks, and the game is even shorter. How Klei screwed up the sequel so much is beyond me.

As Shank, you still have your shanks, but there are a few new weapons. You can use Molotov’s and landmines as projectiles this time. The sledgehammer is a new one, but you also get to play as Corina for one level, and she has her own weapons. I would have liked to see more new weapons, but if you count the turret sections, then that could be a new one. The combat is exactly the same as the last game, but the controls seem to respond a bit more, and that annoying knockback effect isn’t in effect as bad here because you can at least jump as soon as you get knocked back. The pickup button is no longer the dodge button, so you can save your tequilas for when you really need them and not accidentally drink them.

My main disappointment is that the boss fights aren’t as interesting and are pretty easy. They all play out the same, and the final boss is a cakewalk compared to Shank’s final boss, which was a serious pain. There are some environmental elements added where you can press buttons, and certain things will damage enemies or open traps. This can help you in a pinch when you’re surrounded. Weapon pickups are a new feature, but most of these are useless except the large ones, and this includes large items that can be thrown.

The levels seem a bit shorter, and the game can be beaten in just a few short hours. Besides the few combat changes, the game is actually worse than the first game due to the stupid story and disappointing bosses. The visuals are still great with lots of gore, but the fundamental problem is that you’re just hacking away at the same enemies through every level. I would have liked to see more platforming sections or some scripted events, but those are very rare in this game.

Overall, Shank 2 is a fun game to go through thanks to the lowered difficulty, but you won’t get the same satisfaction when beating tough and interesting bosses. The combat and controls have been improved a lot, but the newly added elements like weapon pickups feel almost useless. The story is lame with bad voice acting, and the game can be beaten in a few short hours. Fans of the first game (the few that there are) should go ahead and pick this up, but people who held off on the last can skip this one too.

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Alan Wake’s American Nightmare

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/31/2012
Posted in: Microsoft, PC Reviews, Retro Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox 360. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Remedy Entertainment

Developer: Remedy Entertainment

Release Date: 5/22/2012


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Being based on an episode of Night Springs that is written by Alan Wake, this little adventure takes you through a time loop (x3) and Alan Wake’s physically manifested dark side—or is it? You get to know what happened to all the characters from the original game, and the story is delivered very nicely with a decent ending, but there are no plot twists like in the last game, so the story is a little weak in terms of substance.

The game plays exactly the same, and if you are a fan of the last game, you will be right at home. The game plays a little more like an open-world game, minus the world. There are three areas that you visit three times (yawn), and each time is shorter and shorter, but the objectives are exactly the same. I get that there is a time loop, but why do we have to do everything three times? At least there are more guns to play with and new enemies to shoot. You can step up to fully automatic weapons now with an Uzi and assault rifle. You get a carbine, a 9mm semi-auto pistol, and a sawed-off shotgun. You can’t get some weapons until you find enough manuscript pages, which are now shown as question mark blips on your mini-map.

The enemies are the same, except for a few new ones. Flocks of birds now turn into creepy vampire-looking demons, and there are huge, giant guys with table saws that can kill you in one hit. I found the game much easier this time around because there are ammo boxes everywhere that refill you all the way, plus extra ammo lying almost every 20 feet or so. Batteries don’t run down nearly as quickly as they used to, and to be honest, through the whole game, I rarely swapped a single battery out of the flashlight except toward the end. The short length of the game actually helps counter this a little and makes it a bit forgiving.

There is an arcade mode that puts you through waves of enemies with various ammo and weapons scattered everywhere. This is fun to rack up a score and kill time, but other than that, there is really no reason to go back to the game. The visuals look great on the PC with the new engine from the original game that uses DirectX 10 lighting effects. I did find the voice acting a little poor for the new characters this time around, who are also not very interesting.

Overall, this game is really for the fans of the last one, and newcomers won’t really understand the story because of the constant mentions of the last game. Think of this as a side story, because technically it is. The game looks good, plays well, and has an interesting story, but it is way too easy, short, and overall repetitive due to playing the same three areas three times over. For the small price, it is well worth it, thanks to the fun arcade mode.

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BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/31/2012
Posted in: Microsoft, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, PSP, Retro Consoles, Sony, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox 360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Aksys Games

Developer: Arc System Works

Release Date: 2/15/2012


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BlazBlue is a newer fighter from the guys behind Guilty Gear. The game has crazy characters, beautiful art, and an awesome soundtrack, but it has one of the most complicated fighting systems I have ever played. Jump cancels, combo cancels, high jump cancels, canceling mid-combo it continues said combo, this is all just ridiculous and literally gave me a headache. The story is also something to be desired, but the overall characters are fun, and the game is a good button masher.

The game also has a lot of modes, which means you get your money’s worth. Not only do you get arcade, story, and a tutorial mode, but an endless mode, online play, score attack, a full gallery, and a few others. Unlimited Mars is a mode where you fight against advanced AI, and mission mode allows you to fight waves of enemies. There are lots of things to do here, but overall, you won’t spend too much time in either mode because it all feels repetitive after a while. When I went into the tutorial mode, I pretty much gave up 3/4 through because of how complicated the fighting system is. Thankfully, there is a stylish mode that simplifies the whole thing and allows you to do complicated combos with only a few button presses, but all the other elements like shield barriers, different blocking techniques, this meter, that meter—it all just becomes too much.

BlazBlue does become an entertaining button masher once you get the hang of it, but only hardcore fans will attempt to master the fighting system. I even found the arcade mode to be long-winded, and there’s just too much talking in the game. There’s a “Teach Me, Miss Litchi” section in the story mode that is just constant yapping about tips on the game. You get to experience the other two-story modes from past games, but there is more talking than fighting here. Sure, it’s entertaining, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the overly frustrating and complex fight system to enjoy it enough.

Once you spend a few hours in the game, you will put it down at this point, and that’s when you will decide if you like it or not. I highly suggest renting this first for newcomers, because even Street Fighter or other Japanese fighting game vets will balk at this game. The animations and scenes are beautiful, the soundtrack is great, and I can’t help but really dig the characters here despite all the complaints. Sticking to stylish mode eased some of the headache-inducing memorization.

Overall, the game is great for fans of the series, but newcomers may want to seriously consider this a rental first before buying. If you do buy it, there is tons of content to keep you busy in many modes. Online play is the usual blast and the only reason to come back to any fighter these days. The characters are awesome with great personalities, and the visuals are stunning. I just wish the fighting engine itself wasn’t so complicated and complex.

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Blades of Time

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/29/2012
Posted in: Mac, Microsoft, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox 360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Konami

Developer: Gaijin Entertainment

Release Date: 3/6/2012


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X Blades was a pretty bad game when it came out, with combat that wasn’t fun, a lame story, bad graphics, and just all-around bad. The sequel is much better but still isn’t great. Ayumi is back, trying to find some sort of dragon sphere in Dragon Land, but she has to get through the Sky Guards, who are trying to stop her from awakening The Keeper, who is guarding this sphere. The plot is very “meh” and doesn’t have any redeeming value. The combat is decent with some fun shooting mechanics, but everything here is broken to some degree.

Take combat, for starters. There are only light and heavy attacks, and the same combos are used throughout the whole game. You can’t unlock new moves or combos, just spells. These spells consist of fire, ice, and power. As you beat up on enemies, your spell gauge will increase to one and two skulls. One unleashes a weak attack, while two are powerful. If you fill your bar up all the way, you get a health pack. This would be fine if unleashing this magic wasn’t done in a terrible fashion. Holding down the spell button to charge it and then pressing the appropriate spell button slows down combat. Why can’t I just equip the spell and unleash it with one button? It doesn’t help that enemies can interrupt the spell charge, leading to cheap deaths. Speaking of deaths, you can die very easily in this game, causing you to constantly use health packs.

Platforming is just as bad because Ayumi doesn’t jump very far, making you rely on her dash move. If you don’t judge the distance right, she will just drop like a rock after her dash. That’s why you dash jump around floating corrals, but fighting on small platforms is a nightmare because the knockback seems to be glitched because she will fly across the level sometimes if hit by large enemies. You can shoot with guns you find throughout the game, and this is at least decent. Shooting enemies feels good with the different weapons and can actually help you when you’re low on health and need to back off.

The third part of Blades of Time is puzzle-solving. This is in the form of rewinding time and using switches that you stand on. Anyone who has played Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time will know what I’m talking about. This seems to be dull and confusing at first, but you can also use it during combat. Some larger enemies need two Ayumis to take them down via quick-time events, which are poorly implemented here. I really felt this time the rewind feature could have been used in better ways than opening doors and beating only a couple different enemies. You can use your compass to find hidden items that give you various stat effects, but these are really easy to find because the compass points you right to them.

The graphics are average at best. The textures have a pretty low resolution, but the art style is nice with varied environments and different suits that Ayumi wears. Overall, everything is just flawed in some way due to poor mechanics. The combat is repetitive and dull with the same attacks; the puzzle-solving is boring and confusing; and the few platforming sections are hard due to bad jumping mechanics. The story is bland with boring characters, and even Ayumi isn’t all that interesting (she tries to be a new-age Lara Croft). The game is playable, but after you play it, you will quickly forget about it.

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Xbox 360 Controller for Windows

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/23/2012
Posted in: Microsoft, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox 360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Rockstar Games

Developer: Rockstar North

Release Date: 2/17/2009


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The Lost and Damned is the first of two expansions for GTA 4, but we should feel lucky just to have more. The expansion is short, doesn’t really do anything new, but is satisfying enough to recommend a purchase. The new characters are great; there’s still that witty GTA dialog, but the game is seriously lacking in new mission types and treads too much on the original game’s content.

You play as The Lost Motorcycle Club’s Johnny Klebitz, who is trying to help re-establish his motorcycle gang and beat out his rivals, The Angels of Death. All the new characters are great to listen to, but there’s just not enough of it. The missions were the typical blow this up, kill these guys, run from cops, deliver these drugs, etc. Nothing new or interesting outside of the GTA norm, which isn’t what I wanted to see. The only “new” mission types are motorcycle races and gang wars, which are as uninteresting as they sound. The missions here are really hard, mainly because of GTA’s overall problems. These range from dying with just a few hits, too many guys thrown at you, crappy vehicle control, and some various glitches that were never fixed.

The expansion tries to tie into some cameos from past missions, so actually, some are retreads that you have already played, just from a different point of view. The only missions that felt different were when you rode on the back of a bike and shot down various foes. There are only two missions like this, but I really have to say there is just too much shooting in this expansion. Almost every mission requires you to take down hordes of thugs. This becomes very frustrating when you are dying dozens of times for permission.

You have maybe less than 10 hours of gameplay here if you just stick to the story missions. Each character has about 3 or 4 for you to do, some only one. The main reason to play this expansion is for the new characters, the protagonist, and the excellent dialog, which will make you laugh. The game is crude, mature, and downright dirty in some instances, but this just pushes the envelope like we come to expect from a GTA game. If you really loved the original and want some more GTA action, this is a decent expansion, but don’t expect the game to try anything different or new.

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