GTA IV - The Lost and Damned

[cutmymilk]

Just had a couple of hours on this, some brilliant crossovers with the main game. Just saw

->Open Spoiler<-

how Ramon got kidnapped, how Ray's Diamonds ended up in a trash truck, and how Ray got screwed out of the diamonds.

My memory was hazy on some of these things as I've only had one playthrough but the missions from the main game came flooding back.

[El Leone]

http://kotaku.com/5156253/lost--damn...v#viewcomments

Can't say I'd noticed any reduction in the amount of blood, but I hadn't really been looking out for it.

A patch has been released which will fix this problem.

Just completed this. Took me 13 hours and 49 mins to complete the story missions, all the bike races and the gang wars. I really enjoyed this. The missions are great and at this moment I can't think of anything bad to say about them. Its also really impressive how Rockstar have managed to tie in Nikos and Johnnys story into the overall plot and its just done really well. In one regard I am quite disappointed though; I didn't want it to end!

Don't skip the credits, by the way.

[cutmymilk]

Just watching the credits. I agree. Superb storytelling. Roll on the next DLC!

[Dogg Thang]

I got into this properly this evening. All seems pretty good. The main character wouldn't be a fave of mine- he reminds me of C.J. from San Andreas in that he does all this stuff and hangs out with these people and spends his time complaining about it. He's a moaner. But Billy is fantastic. He's a really great character. I'd like to just hang out with him and have a beer. And the secondary characters are as well realised as the characters in the main game.

The bike physics is much better. A huge improvement. I do wish they had given more vehicles an overhaul to make them more fun but there actually seems to be little reason in this to switch from the bike other than specific mission tasks. The bike does the job nicely.

And the much talked about grain effect. I don't know. I'm on the fence about it. For me, the grain effect isn't the problem. It's that paint effect thing they put on the 360. That, combined with the already wavey shadows, I find hard on the eyes. The grain effect makes things even more flickery but sort of takes the edge off that paint effect. Why no option to remove that one? Is it hiding something specific, like severe upscaling or something? I'm almost sure at standard CRT def, it's not applied.

So far, more of the same. A nice side story that compliments the main story and it looks like Rockstar put just as much effort in putting this together as they did in the original game.

[Dogg Thang]

Anyone know how to make extra cash in the Lost and the Damned? Any extra side missions? I've forgotten what you could do in the main game.

[cutmymilk]

You can steal bikes for extra cash. It will become available after youve done the first. Like in the original, you stole cars.

The main game had you pretty much set after the bank job. This one isn't so generous with payoffs for missions.

[ezee ryder]

Encountered quite a few glaring bugs in this now that I have played it quite a bit more, it is still really good but damn they missed a few things out at Rockstar's QA office.

I have had two soft locks now, each of them happened when I went to a weapons dealer and looked at the weapon I was going to buy. The first time I had to redo 3 missions that I had already completed and now I am gonna to redo 5 missions that I had already done, really annoying. Now basically I am saving after every mission just incase the game decides to soft lock again.

Also during the toll booth mission I saw the car that I came in parked on the side but floating in the air, only when I shot it did it come down to ground level.

Well back I go to once again play through missions that I have already done. *sighs*

[Orgun]

Just finished this and noticed in the credits that

->Open Spoiler<-

Frankie Boyle

is supposed to be in it somewhere. Time to go sit in front of the TV

Edit: or I would but Brians (

->Open Spoiler<-

God I ****ing enjoyed killing him

) appartment doesnt have a TV >_<

Edit2: Nevermind, turns out he's not on TV but at a club.

[NekoFever]

Am I the only one who thinks that GTA IV would have had a lot less hate from certain quarters if this was the main story all along?

Not only is it different to the usual rags to riches story that makes up every GTA in one way or another, but the biker culture is a nice change and the fact that Johnny isn't necessarily averse to killing someone avoids the Anakin Skywalker syndrome that Niko suffered from - going from complaining about killing people to either unquestioningly taking a job that involves killing or slaughtering the public under player control. And mid-mission checkpoints, of course.

Plus no one banging on about "American tee-tees" all the time

[Dogg Thang]

Not sure I agree with that, Neko. Johnny's whiny bitching early on was way worse than Niko's reluctance. I don't know why they just didn't make Johnny a total badass. His moaning about how Billy was doing things while still doing anything he asked made a poor first impression.

Yeah the biker gang is a nice change but I felt Niko was very different to previous GTA characters and their setup too.

[ezee ryder]

I liked the Niko story to be honest, it was more rags to slightly better rags than rags to riches. I do agree that the story in TLAD is pretty good but I dunno if it would have had the legs to last as long as GTA IV, as DLC it works really well though as you get to see the Niko story from a slightly different point of view.

[ezee ryder]

Me again! Just finished this and well apart from the few bugs I encountered I can safely say this is the best DLC for any game to date and a great addition to GTA IV.

I loved the crossover with the main GTA IV storyline, coming across characters you have "met" before but seeing them from a different perspective was great. It will definitely be interesting to see what Rockstar do with their next DLC for this GTA IV, they have a lot to live up to but if TLAD is anything to go by I'm pretty sure we will get some more quality GTA action

[cutmymilk]

The end credits were brilliant, with them showing what Johnny was upto during important points of Niko's story.

Orgun, Frankie Boyle replaces Jimmy Carr at the comedy club.

[Kaosu]

Not bad this, really didn't expect it to be long so not really fussed on that aspect. The checkpoint system really was something that should have been in the original game imo. So useful.

I've written a bit more about the additional content at my blog (crowd boos) for those who may pick this up.

[Dogg Thang]

I finished this this morning after having trouble with the last mission (

->Open Spoiler<-

Terry kept dying

). I thought overall it was pretty great. A good set of characters, enjoyable missions and certainly a lot of work went into it.

Did the end feel a little rushed to anyone else? I mean

->Open Spoiler<-

it just sort of came to a head out of nowhere, through mostly unconnect plot points. They were connected in Niko's story, as in the Ray Bochinno bit, but not with Johnny's story. Jim died out of nowhere and gets a passing mention in a conversation (from the radio bit after, I take it he was killed in a Niko mission but that left Johnny's story hanging) and then suddenly we're off to storm a prison. The end.

And I was constantly left wondering - who set them up? Did I miss something there? The whole thing kicked off because a deal went bad. Billy thought Johnny set him up. Johnny thought Billy set him up. But that didn't seem to go anywhere. I was waiting for it to turn out Jim was behind it but we never found out if anyone ever set anyone up.

It was more of a small sequel than an expansion pack, as in it doesn't add to the main game. I felt that was a bit of a shame but they did improve some areas. My big problem with GTAIV was that, as great as some areas were, the fun factor was gone. Yeah, people were asking "where's my jetpack?" I didn't need the jetpack itself but it's a good metaphor for what was missing. Driving became a punishment, not a thrill. But the bikes here are simply more fun. They're fast and can weave in and out of traffic without getting chucked off them like in the main game.

And little things like riding with your buddies, getting the healing spot, the races to mission points really helped to actually make those journeys interesting. They were no longer a chore.

But there are few improvements to the sandbox part of the game and many of the criticisms of the original still stand. To address those would have been a different take on what they were trying to achieve with the DLC though. They were going for a sort of story sequel and, as that, this really delivers. It doesn't feel like they put any less effort into this than they did with the main game. It wasn't Vice City Stories to the original Vice City. It was clearly given a lot of love and attention.

A great side-story and great benchmark for game add-ons.