Game review: Grand Theft Auto IV Lost and Damned 

Source: GamefreaksGrand Theft Auto

Platform: Xbox 360
Publisher: Rockstar Games

Rockstar take us back to the squalid streets of Liberty City in a downloadable expansion with big ambitions.

While much remains the same there are enough shake-ups, both positive and negative, to make The Lost and the Damned more interesting than average DLC.

Standing as it does on the shoulders of Grand Theft Auto IV, The Lost and the Damned owes most of its successes and failures to the game that came before. Built on solid foundations, any opportunity to revisit Liberty City is a welcome one, pounding the pavement with fresh tyres alone almost makes the new chapter a gimme.

From rascally immigrant to shady biker, The Lost and the Damned switches gears by dumping the player amidst a motorbike gang war. Assuming a certain familiarity with the original title, this new episode dispenses with the kid's table warm up and reels straight into a chase mission. Riding and shooting at the same time is one of the most difficult things to master in GTA, an early signal that this expansion isn't messing around.

The various missions continue in this mostly bike-based style throughout, asking the player to perform the kinds of criminal mischief and wanton destruction that is GTA's bread and butter. There's no real surprises here, we blow up some vans, shoot up some cops, chase some rivals, etc, etc; it's all solidly familiar.

The main narrative revolves around the shifting leadership dynamics within the titular gang. Nihilistic chief Billy is running the crew into the ground with his penchant for mindless violence and stubborn pride. Second-in-charge Johnny Klebitz is torn between allegiance to the gang hierarchy and his own common sense, which wants to see the gang both survive and succeed in their illicit business.

A few tweaks to the general gameplay make motorcycle control mercifully more manageable, but aside from a few new weapons the oft-frustrating shooting mechanism remains unimproved. New characters, new music, and new vehicles all help to bring a relatively fresh quality to the same old streets.

Unfortunately it is these additions that ultimately undo The Lost and the Damned at the same time. When Rockstar began to take their storytelling duties more seriously with GTA IV they created not only an impressive world to inhabit, but in Niko Belik a character that the player would come to sympathise with and enjoy, even when his moral agonising didn't synch up with his psychopathic tendencies.

This expansion doesn't offer anything approaching the kind of narrative craft exhibited in its parent title; lead character Johnny and all his idiot biker buddies are reprehensible, crass, and interchangeable. The game enjoys fallowing in the grit and nastiness of gang culture, but never offers the player much in the way of redemption of hidden virtue. We never come to like and therefore care about a single character in this brief story, and that's a tragic disappointment.

With all of GTA IV's goodwill to ride on, The Lost and the Damned would have to try pretty damn hard to be an out and out failure, but the few moments in which the game could have really distinguished itself are certainly squandered.

The expansion adds a little extra life to a beloved title, but does nothing to further enhance the GTA legacy.

Summary
The Lost and the Damned returns us to Liberty City, and for that one can't help but be grateful. Unfortunately a bunch of truly unlikable characters came along for the ride, ruining our cruise down nostalgia lane.

This review bought to you by Gamefreaks.