GTA IV – The Lost and Damned: Impressions
I just finished Grand Theft Auto IV – The Lost and Damned last night and I have to say I was pleased by what the expansion brought to the game. Rockstar has raised the bar on down-loadable content with this release. It include new missions, vehicles and weapons. Not to mention a brand new protagonist with a whole new set of problems.
The new missions were enjoyable since I took a long break from the original game some months ago, but I’m sure if you played them back to back you’d feel pretty sick of it. The first difference you’ll notice is that most of the missions are executed on your bike with a gang of bikers as backup. This adds to the biker gang feel of the whole game.
Since you’ll be riding bikes most of the time Rockstar made an effort to tighten up the bike handling. They also reduced the occurrence of being thrown off your bike as well. You’ll notice a few new choppers and import bikes in TLAD. My new favorite chopper was the “Revenant” and the “Hakuchou Custom” for imports. You can actually call your friend Clay to have him deliver you a “Revanant” whenever you want.
As for weapons you’ll come across them pretty quickly just by going through the missions. The auto-pistol and the sawed-off shotgun will be early additions to your arsenal both being able to be used while riding your bike. The sawed-off shotgun is the only shotgun that can be used while riding a bike, but it can’t be used while driving a car. The other devastating weapons are the Assualt Shotgun which is an automatic shotgun and the Grenade Launcher. Anytime you need weapons just call Terry and he will meet you with his gun van. Here you can buy weapons at discount prices. Take advantage of the cheap body armor.
Overall TLAD was a welcome addition to the series. I did however find the film grain effect to be some what annoying. You’ll also noticed some new tracks on the radio that weren’t there in the original. Rockstar pretty much made TLAD the short version of Vice City for GTA IV.
