Sometimes it's as subtle as the pair simply having a mutual acquaintance, but in one mission the two characters briefly work alongside each other, and if you remember said mission from the original game, it's great to see the events unfold from a second perspective. If you've played through a good portion of GTAIV, it should come as no surprise that Klebitz's and Bellic's paths cross occasionally. Roman and Brucie from GTAIV make an early cameo in The Ballad of Gay Tony.
You get to ride alongside your gang brothers occasionally, and you can call for backup from them during certain missions, but playing as Klebitz feels a lot like playing as Bellic for the most part.
Unlike the more inventive and varied missions in The Ballad of Gay Tony, the missions in The Lost and Damned rarely deviate from the original GTAIV formula. In GTAIV it could be frustrating to fail these missions, because doing so meant restarting them from the beginning, but the checkpoint system addresses that problem by giving you the option to restart from the last checkpoint that you made it through successfully. Some of the missions take a long time to beat, and a good number of them involve riding or driving to locations that might be a good distance away before the action really gets under way. And because Klebitz spends so much time riding motorcycles, you can use some of them while in the saddle-which wasn't possible in GTAIV.Īnother neat feature introduced in The Lost and Damned, which also made it into The Ballad of Gay Tony, is a mission checkpoint system. These weapons are very much in keeping with both the episode's subject matter and its gameplay.
New weapons added to the existing GTAIV arsenal in The Lost and Damned include a grenade launcher, pipe bombs, and shotguns, which come in both sawed-off and assault flavors. Klebitz, who isn't a particularly likable protagonist, sees no need for the gang to go to war with rivals The Angels of Death, but anytime the two gangs clash, you end up doing most of the killing anyway. In that episode, you assume the role of Johnny Klebitz-a high-ranking member of the Lost biker gang who regularly disagrees with its trigger-happy leader, Billy Grey.
The two episodes have been released simultaneously on the PC, but on the Xbox 360, The Lost and Damned was available as a download some eight months earlier. Now Playing: Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City Video Reviewįor the same reason, you'd do well to hold off on playing The Ballad of Gay Tony until after you've beaten or at least spent a good amount of time with The Lost and Damned. Unlike Niko, Johnny can shoot from the saddle.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's You definitely get more from these episodes if you play GTAIV beforehand though, because nods and winks to that game are scattered liberally throughout. Regardless, if you enjoyed GTAIV you're sure to enjoy these additional episodes as well, and even if you passed on original protagonist Niko Bellic's adventure completely, there's no reason you can't have a great time with new boys Johnny Klebitz and Luis Lopez.
Also unchanged on the PC, sadly, are the frame rate issues that-like those in the PC release of GTAIV-are apparent even on rigs that exceed the recommended system specifications. The included episodes- The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony-take place concurrently with the original game's storyline, and while each introduces a handful of new features, the core gameplay remains largely unchanged. If you've already played through 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV, you have a pretty good idea of what to expect in the formerly Xbox-360-exclusive Episodes from Liberty City.