Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by
Take 2 Games

Episodes From Liberty City: GTA 4: Price: £34.99 (with TLAD); 1600 points (separate) Players: 1; Online: 2-16 Widescreen: Yes 60Hz: Yes (optional) HDTV: 720p/1080i/1080p Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes Xbox Live-enabled: Yes Vote and comment on this game: View Comments The second of two Downloadable Content episodes, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony is out now, and all the GTA fans have been clamouring to get their hands on it (virtually, in the main, that is - since it's a paid-for download, although you can now buy both on a disc entitled "Episodes From Liberty City" and play them without owning GTA4 - but who's likely to buy the DLCs but not the original game anyway?). Set in the present day, this title has a very '80s tone to it with the nightclub scene. The aforementioned Gay Tony, aka Tony Prince, runs the most successful gay AND straight clubs in Liberty City but is about to have them taken away from him by baddies. Tere are 25 missions in total and one of the first, in addition to driving Tony about and dancing in a nightclub Dance Dance Revolution-style, is to go to the practice range where a baddie is tied to a golf cart. Your mission is to take a swing at him - literally - meaning the balls hit him square in the... well, balls, and occasionally on the ol' noggin. This takes a little getting used to, but it's great fun. Next up you get involved in cage fighting for Santo and take a dive in the third round, otherwise Santo will harm your mother. What a nice chap(!)

In this episode, you play Luis Lopez, part-time hoodlum and full-time assistant to Tony, and while the loyalties of family and friends may seem straight forward at the beginning, you never know who'll turn nasty as the game progress and sell you out for a price. Note that there's also a nod to the earlier GTA4 outings when the game opens as Luis happens to be presents while a bank robbery is taking place, partly at the hands of Niko Bellic. Once this cut-scene is over and Luis is outside, being questioned about the incident on the way to Gay Tony's nightclub, he is almost run over by both Bellic and Johnny Klebitz. And I love the way Luis can use his rocket launcher one-handed around a corner!

Amongst some new weapons, I particularly liked the "sticky bombs". Throw one at a baddie - or a cop (is there a difference when it comes to playing this?) - and make sure you get clear before pressing 'down' on the D-pad to avoid the almighty explosion that follows. One clip I'll have coming in a future video saw me dropping one on the floor as I couldn't go any further in my car and had to get out, the police then ordering me under arrest, but I waited until the two of them got close to me and... well, I was about to die anyway given my level of energy left :) There's also some additional high-end sports cars, such as the "Bullet" which was featured in previous games, plus new aircraft such as the small attack helicopter - the Buzzard. The parachute found in San Andreas returns, meaning players can participate in BASE jumping and skydiving challenges. Other characters include Mori Kibbutz where the work you do for him includes killing off employees he doesn't like, while the only household name here is Omid Djalili, who is quite amusing voicing billionaire Yusuf Amir, also employing you from time of time - certainly he's more amusing here than on his godawful BBC1 sketch show. Hey - did you know he's Iranian? He never mentions it(!)

All the mechanics of GTA4 are here - the visuals, the sound, the satnav, etc. and whereas The Lost And The Damned seemed to have some issues with the frame rate at times, I came across no such problems here after several hours of gameplay. I also noticed that there now appears to be better police AI when it comes to stealing cars, in that when several of them were chasing after me, when I tried to dodge them it was more difficult to give them the slip. However, when there's not too many of them around and you just bump into a cop car while on a mission, after which you're instructed to "lose the cops" in order to complete it, it wasn't any more tougher than usual to evade them. Oh, and the greatest satisfying mission early on is "Bang Bang", which involves you throwing sticky bombs onto a construction crane (easy enough - it's static), then driving (with a car) along railway tracks to do the same to a moving monorail train and, finally, a private jet at the airport.

Grand Theft Auto 4: Niko & Johnny go all Jackass! Finally, one major feature still included in The Ballad of Gay Tony is the availability of mid-mission checkpoints. This saves you having to make long journeys back to certain locations in order to restart a failed mission - and in some cases there *will* be a lot of travelling. This also featured in The Lost And The Damned. Note that this won't add such a function to GTA4 itself. Overall, if you're a fan of GTA4 and hankering for more, this is a must-buy. Simple as. Normally, at this point in my game reviews, I'd list a few specific games footage pieces I've uploaded, but since Take2Games get funny about people who upload full mission walkthroughs, that's why there's nothing from this episode online in that form on my DVDfeverGames Youtube channel. In due course, I'll upload some silly moments edited together but I'm still working on those so you can see what's online already now from GTA4 and The Lost and the Damned, such as Niko and Johnny messing about to the dance version of The Riddle by Nik Kershaw (right).

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2009.