Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City Review




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Developer: Rockstar North Publisher: Rockstar Games
Release Date: October 29, 2009 Available On: Xbox 360

Over two years ago, the folks at Microsoft charmed a friendly crowd with news that the Xbox 360 would receive exclusive downloadable content, which apparently cost the company a pretty penny. The company delayed the release of Grand Theft Auto IV and eventually did the same to the promised DLC for Xbox Live. Now that we’re a year and a half away from the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, the final of these two exclusive downloads is now out. Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City is a retail version that includes The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.

The first thing that I should say is that Episodes from Liberty City does not require a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV to play. These are basically two separate games using the existing Grand Theft Auto IV engine. This frees up a ton of hard drive space, which is especially important for those of us with the 20GB hard drives. It also means that you can obviously play these episodes without having purchased the original game. I’m not sure why you would want to do that, but it’s an option.

The first of the two games that you can play is The Lost and the Damned, which was released in February 2009. It follows the storyline started by Grand Theft Auto IV, except you play from the perspective of a biker gang known as The Lost. The main character is the right hand man of the “president” of this gang and tends to be a little more level headed, questioning the intent of his leader. Mostly, though, you do a lot of killing, stealing and drug deals.

One of the more interesting mini-games in The Lost and the Damned is a racing event on motorcycles. These races are somewhat similar to the classic racing game Road Rash. Hopefully EA gets a hint from this and makes a remake. Anyway, you have a club and can either hit people on your left or right. The goal is to race to the finish along a designated path. There are a number of these types of races throughout the world.



The second game on the disc is The Ballad of Gay Tony. I was not exactly sure what to think of this when I first heard about this episode. As a gay man, I figured it would be full of gay stereotypes with a flamboyant queen as the lead character. This is not the case. While Gay Tony’s boyfriend fits this description better, Tony himself is a wealthy businessman. He owns a night club in Liberty City, but has quite a few money problems. You play as his bodyguard, Luis Lopez, who recently got out of jail. Luis acts as Tony’s muscle (and brain as well when he’s doped up).

Unlike the main character in The Lost and Damned, Luis is a much more likable guy. He has a good personality, sense of humor and seems to want to do what he thinks is right. That doesn’t mean that all of the situations he finds himself in are ones that you would want to be in yourself. Quite the contrary. Luis does a lot of killing and drug deals with friends in his old neighborhood (which are side missions).

In both of these games, all of Liberty City is open to you from the start. The level variety in Gay Tony is impressive. One of the missions has you hit golf balls at a union worker that is tied to a golf cart to get him to talk. Another mission will have you steal diamonds, fly away in a helicopter and shoot down oncoming police choppers. Overall, between these two episodes, you will probably get at least twenty hours of gameplay. Not bad for a game that comes in under $40.

As more or less two mission expansion packs, Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City does its jobs more than adequately. You have the same graphics engine from Grand Theft Auto IV, the same great voice acting and the same gameplay with new missions, characters and storyline. Gay Tony is more satisfying of an experience, but they are both two solid downloads. Better yet you don’t even need Grand Theft Auto IV to experience it.

Graphics: 8.5
Sound: 10
Gameplay: 8.5
Creativity: 8
Replay Value/Game Length: 9
Final: 8.8 out of 10
Written by Kyle Bell Write a User Review

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