We’ve all had a moment in our lives when we wished that we had a “Wayback Machine.” For you it might have been for a bet you lost on the last Superbowl; for me it obviously included a girl. However, for Rockstar Games it was around the time that they released Grand Theft Auto 4 (a.k.a. – GTA4). Sadly though, Wayback Machines haven’t made it past their beta testing yet, so for now Rockstar is stuck (like the rest of us) with hindsight.; and that brings us to Grand Theft Auto 4: The Lost and Damned (a.k.a. – LAD). The game that in hindsight Rockstar should have released in place of GTA4.
Believe it or not there was a time when I thought that GTA4 was the pinnacle of the current generation of gaming. However, half a year later Saints Row 2 was released and I realized that GTA 4 is actually a really depressing game that took itself way to seriously. Sure GTA 4 was visually amazing, had top-notched acting, and a well written story with a lot of depth; but, that story was also unbelievably sad and depressing. The wacky and silliness that we’ve come to expect from the Grand Theft Auto series was replaced by the overly serious Nico Bellic.
That doesn’t mean that GTA4 was not a good game. Heck no! In fact, I would call it 1 of the top 5 games of 2008, but I’ve always played games to have fun, and GTA4 depressed me so much that I wasn’t looking forward to taking another trip down that rabbit hole.
So you can imagine my surprised and delight to find out that the LAD expansion never takes itself too seriously. It took every chance it had to remind us that this is not a game for children, but it pulls back on the heart-wrenching drama and gave us a nice relaxing day of running over innocent bystanders with stolen ambulances (but that’s enough about how I spend my free time).
Let’s get down to business.
To start off I would like to say that I am pleased that the story of the LAD expansion is mercifully simple. In it you play as Johnny Klebitz; the second-in-command of the Liberty City chapter of The Lost biker gang. The game starts off with the release of your gang leader from the slammer. While he was on the inside, the world past him by, but now that he’s back he wants to do things the “old way”. So obviously the two of you can’t seem to see eye to eye on how things should be done, and internal conflicts begins. That’s as deep as I will get into the story at this point. I am afraid that if I go any deeper I may spoil something for you.
On top of the great new story Rockstar took this chance to fix a number of problems people had with GTA4. My personal favourite fix is that your videogame “play-dates” are gone. Nico’s needy cousin Roman will no longer call you over and over again to go play pool or go drinking. This, in my opinion, is the greatest change that Rockstar could have made; but I should balance that opinion against my personal belief that every character in GTA 4 was annoying, depressing, or had co-dependency issues. However, it might just be me who thinks that. If you actually enjoyed these “play-dates” than you will have the best of both worlds. You still have the option of playing pool, darts, et cetera with the brothers of The Lost, but this time around it is YOU and ONLY YOU who can initiate 1 of these “play-dates.” Or if you are like me, you can focus on the LAD’s story, and not have to go on a single one.
Another problem I had with GTA4 was that if you died during a mission you’d have to start it over again from the beginning. This, as with all sandbox games, usually involved a lot of driving across the whole map in an attempt to artificially lengthen the game. In the LAD expansion, Rockstar decided to divide these missions up into different stages. For example, once you complete a stage (like driving to a bar that you are going to blow up) than your progress is saved to that point. If you die trying to blow that bar sky high, then you will just re-start the mission outside that very bar (instead of across the city like in GTA4). This is a great new feature because few things were as frustrating in GTA4 as having to drive around the city for 5 because you died. This new way of breaking missions up into stages will make LAD much more fun for anyone who plays it.
The price is also amazing for what you get. I didn’t complain about the price of GTA4, because 60 + dollars is a fine price for what you got in that game. However, for $20 (1600 Microsoft points) you will get as much new content in the LAD expansion as you would in some stand alone games that go for 60 + dollars. The campaign will be about 8 – 12 hours long depending on how you play the game, and on top of that, this game even comes with a whole new selection of vehicles, guns, and multiplayer modes:
-
Lonewolf Biker – is like a multiplayer mode where you play a game of schoolyard tag in reverse. In this game, one player is the Lonewolf, and everyone else has to chase him/her around the map. If you tag the Lonewolf than you take his place and everyone has to chase you.
-
Club Business – will remind anyone who has played GTA 4 of the Mafia mode where you travel around as a group committing crimes. The real differences between Club Business and the Mafia mode is that now you have 8 players on a single team that goes around completing a wider selection of tasks.
-
Witness Protection - is basically the Cops and Robbers mode from GTA 4, but this time around the Robbers are chasing the Cops.
-
Chopper vs. Chopper – is a 1 on 1 game mode where one player is on a bike racing around the city, and the other is chasing the biker around in a helicopter.
-
Race – Bike racing is not a new mode, but it has been tweaked a bit to be more fun. The biggest change is that every biker is given a baseball bat to club opponents with; this alone has caused countless people to compare this mode with the old Sega game Road Rash.
Actually now that I think about it I only had 1 problem with the LAD expansion, and that is that it comes with some bugs that shouldn’t be found in any game. The strangest 1 that I found was that the game is a little slow to place people and cars along the streets you ride along. Every once and a while, I will come around a street corner and see the game still putting cars and people into position. Other times you will find that your gun has magically developed the capability to fire continuously without reloading. However, I should say that none of these bugs really affected my gameplay (actually they all helped me), but they also took away from that all important entertainment tool: emersion.
In the end, I highly recommend that you play this game provided that you have an Xbox360, and are old enough to play it. Trust me when I say that this game easily earned a Mature (17+) rating from the ESRB for violence, blood, swearing, and cut scenes that will give you Full Monty flashbacks. It also pulled a bit of a Full Monty on the gamers of the world by being an Xbox360 exclusive. I don’t feel that is fair for PS3 owners who barely have anything to play on their systems as it is, but that is a choice made by the people of Rockstar. I may not agree with it, but Rockstar has the right to do whatever they want with their property. If you have an Xbox360 though, then you will realize that this is an amazing amount of content for an extremely reasonable price, and that alone should make buying this expansion worthwhile to you. However, if you need more convincing then just remember that they fixed all the problems that plagued GTA4. You really have no excuse; go on the Xbox Live Marketplace right now and get it. Trust me, you will love it.
Also, just before I end this, let me tell you one last, and very important thing about the LAD expansion. When you first meet Congressman Thomas Stubbs don’t look directly at him. Just close your eyes, or look away. Whatever you do, just avert your eyes from him. Just trust me on this, and if you don’t look away… well don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Click here to subscribe to the Got Game blog