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GTA IV: THE LOST & THE DAMNED REVIEW Posted by PlayDevil.com Staff on Feb 23, 2009 22:35 (Feb 23, 2009 22:35) |
Written by: Ian
 Damned if you don’t?
'GTAIV' won so many GOTY awards last year that Rockstar have probably lost count. Therefore, expectations are obviously super-high for the first DLC pack that is exclusively available for the 360.
With a pretty high price tag at 1600 points, and a pretty weighty download at just over 1.6GB, is this a must-have piece of DLC, or is should it just be damned?
Story:
There’s a whole new story arc in LATD, although Rockstar do a fine job of linking it into Nico’s story when and where they can. This helps give you a few reminders of what you played last year, and is a really nice touch.
It’s also nice to see where Johnny crossed paths with Nico in the main story before, but told from his perspective. Having said that, Johnny’s story is still worthwhile playing through, even if you generally feel less empathy for him and his crew, thanks to the fact that most of them are just generally horrific human beings.
 Nevertheless, the story still packs in more humour than in the previous main story, and it’s nice to see GTA getting back to its roots more often. There’s also full frontal dong for anyone that’s interested. Wow!
Gameplay:
The most pleasing thing about LATD is the raft of gameplay improvements that Rockstar have made. Not content with the state they left the game when it shipped, they have been tinkering with several aspects of the game.
They’ve added a load of new weapons, people and vehicles to liven up the city and make it more realistic, not to mention the graphical and music tweaks. The main update though, is the one that was needed most.
When the game was first previewed, I was pretty worried. After all, you play as the leader of a gang of bikers, and one of the worst aspects of GTAIV was the bike handling. I was pretty sure I’d end up doing most of it in a car, which would have been missing the point.
However, the bike handling has been completely revamped. They are now much tighter when it comes to their handling, and it’s much, much harder to be knocked off them by a crash. The one thing with this, however, is a slight decrease to realism as it’s probably too hard to be knocked off now.
You can have some pretty spectacular crashes and end up flipping, turning 180 and the like, whilst still staying firmly attached to your seat.
Having said that, this is evolutionary change, rather than revolutionary. For veterans of the game first time around, there are few major changes. The game is still (in my opinion) just a tiny bit too hard given the number of casual players that pick up the series.
 The cover system still hasn’t changed, which was a little disappointing as it was never quite perfect when it came to aiming from behind cover. However, the most disappointing thing has to be the length of the game. Rockstar promised as much content as 50% of the main game. Maybe if you 100% them both, it would take nearly 50% of the time.
So the main story missions, which lasted 25-35 hours in GTAIV, probably last 7-10 hours here, barely 1/3 of the action.
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