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.
I remember playing GTA III when it first came out. I didn’t have a PS2 yet, and I went over to a friend’s house and played it for hours every single day. While we mostly just messed around, it was something I had never played before and was just so addictive. Thankfully, GTA IV goes back to its roots and brings us to good ol’ Liberty City. You play none other than Niko Bellic, who is a Russian immigrant who came to LC with his cousin Roman to start a new life. The game’s main attractions are its story for once. GTA IV has a superb story that makes you want to keep playing. Gone are the lukewarm stories from previous GTAs where only the main character was the main attraction, with just OK side characters. In previous GTAs, you never really got a good feeling for the employers due to the lack of building up the story. You were just in and out of the short cutscenes, not knowing what to really do. This kind of problem was solved in San Andreas, but even then, only a select few were really fleshed out. In IV, you feel every character in the game, and there are tons of plot twists, which really keeps the game fresh through every single mission.
On another note, the graphics are amazing. While not Assassin’s Creed or BioShock amazing, they’re really good. It’s mainly the subtle details, though, such as people now putting their blinkers on, cars are damaged in real-time now with realistic physics, so half-broken fenders and bumpers sway as you turn the car, the paint can get scraped up, crowd AI is more efficient (yet not by much), better enemy AI (still not by much), further draw distance, everything has high-res textures, bump mapping, and the whole next-gen works. There are a few things that they stripped away, such as the whole working out system, swimming underwater (you can still swim though!), and territories. There are other subtle details, such as the internet, that you can now use. It’s a virtual made-up internet, but it’s still as funny as hell and has a dating system (yes, it’s still here) implemented on the dating website. You can get emails for side missions from employers as well. You can now take taxis around the city and either watch them drive or skip them if you want. This really helps a lot if you are tired of driving everywhere. There is also a new route system where the game will plot the safest and most legal course to your destination. Red is a target, blue is friendly, green is a waypoint you made on your map, and yellow is an objective. This is probably one of the better additions because it keeps you from getting lost during time-sensitive missions.
Another thing is the revamped wanted system. You now have to flash “zones” for every star. The more stars, the bigger the circle will get on your radar that you have to escape. Cops are now shown as flashing blue and red blips, and copters are now flashing Xs. While we’re talking about characters again, the voice acting is amazing. I really felt like I was watching bits of a movie every time there was a cutscene. The characters are really fleshed out here, every single one. You’ll remember every character in the 60+ hour game, and that’s a really hard thing to achieve. Rockstar really went the extra 20 miles with this game, and you can just feel it.
The game is huge as well; while not as huge as San Andreas, it’s about as big as GTA III, yet it’s also big and taller as well. You can fly planes and copters again in here, and while it’s a lot easier than San Andreas, it’s still not very fun. Speaking of controls, they are more refined this time, and the auto-aim is a lot better, yet there’s still that stupid camera! Switching targets is not very easy. You have to press the right stick exactly left or right, or you won’t switch targets. Whenever you lock on, Niko always aims for the wrong people and ends with cheap deaths and what have you. The cars are also a big pain because they just don’t feel right. They all feel really heavy, and they slide way too much, no matter what car you use. You try to put the brakes on, and your car will slide and slide and you’ll miss your turn, and the same goes for the handbrake. You hit it, and your car spins out a few times, no matter how good you are with the handling. I found this very annoying with the driving missions because it would lead to cheap and frustrating failures.
Apart from all this, the game has 16-player Xbox LIVE support. You have tons of game modes, from deathmatch to cops and robbers. In cops and robbers, it’s pretty self-explanatory. You all get in a car and try to kill each other. This is also very fun yet annoying because the game can lag a lot, especially with people who have crappy connections. It also may take a while to start a game due to everyone wanting 16 players, and they just won’t start the game. Aside from the minor issues, GTA IV is probably game of the year-worthy, but it doesn’t do anything as groundbreaking as GTA III did. It just perfects it 100% this time and gives us what we’ve always wanted. The perfect GTA game.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.