GTA IV – Episodes from Liberty City.

Having recently finished Episodes from Liberty City I’ve decided I’d do a little review on them both.

Now if you haven’t played GTA IV then it’s alright. You don’t need the main game to play Episodes from Liberty City or to understand what’s going on. However, I can’t recommend GTA IV enough. It’s a great game, one of the best I’ve played. 

Episodes from Liberty City consist of two games of which The Lost and Damned is first. This game puts you in the shoes of Johnny Klebitz, vice president of The Lost and Damned Motorcycle Club – Alderney City chapter. He’s also Jewish which has little relevance to the game play but it highlights the superb character development that Rockstar works on.

If you’ve played through GTA IV then you might remember Johnny from a few missions. This is because The Lost and Damned runs concurrently alongside the main GTA IV storyline. For those of you who have played it you’ll get to play several missions from a different perspective which I thought was an excellent move by Rockstar as it both games added depth.

The game as a darker, grittier, New Jersey feel than the main GTA IV which is a nice change of atmosphere. This atmosphere is added to by new music on the radio stations which can be both a good and bad thing. Liberty Rock Radio and Radio Broker have some great music on them now, better than the main GTA IV even but other stations like Radio Vladivostock have lost their unique Eastern European Music to some sort of techno trance garbage.

Another element that adds to the atmosphere is the fact that Rockstar are very good at referencing current events. Liberty City is being gripped by the same recession we’re all suffering from and this is quite noticeable from character interactions and news stories.

The game features new weapons including a sawn off shotgun and automatic pistol, both of which can be fired from your motorcycle by the way. Other weapons include pipe bombs and a nasty automatic shotgun as well. New vehicles are another feature including a range of different motorcycles. By motorcycles I’m talking about “all American” choppers and hogs such as the picture below.

Pretty yes? Anyway as you play the game you’ll find yourself on a motorcycle quite a bit which you may find awkward at first but you will get used to it. You can, of course, jack any vehicle you like but many of the missions seem geared towards a chopper.

There’s not much to say about the game play though. The storyline is engaging and well written, the missions are quite interesting. Side missions include drug wars which are limitless but can be quite fun.

If you liked GTA IV then you’ll definitely like this and if you haven’t played GTA IV then I’d encourage you to do so and play this as well in any order.

The Ballad of Gay Tony (BoTC) is the second game within Episodes of Liberty City. It puts you in the shoes of Luis Lopez, a Dominican working for, or with, socialite and night club owner Tony Prince also known as Gay Tony.

Much like The Lost and Damned this game runs concurrently to both the main GTA IV storyline and Lost and Damned storyline. You might remember meeting Lopez or Prince as you played through as Niko Bellic or Johnny Klebitz. If you don’t then you will as soon as you play through BoTC.

While The Lost and Damned gave off a dark atmosphere BoTC is more glitz and glamour set against the backdrop of the recession. Again the radio stations have been equipped with new music to suit the feel of the game.

The glitzy atmosphere is further boosted by new vehicles including several classy sports cars, several new helicopters and even an armored car. Once again new weapons make an appearance including a P90, a light machine gun, a shotgun firing explosive shells (so much fun) and satchel charges.

The Ballad of Gay Tony is, in my opinion, a lot more fun and engaging than The Lost and Damned. I’m not shooting down The Lost and Damned, it was fun but there is something about BoTC that’s very fun. Play it and you’ll see.

The storyline, once again, is very well written with interesting character interactions. As I mentioned before a few of the missions for BoTC overlap with the main storyline of GTA IV and the storyline of The Lost and Damned so give greater depth to both games. I don’t know if Rockstar had all this planned out during the development stage of GTA IV or thought it up later but they did an excellent job on it.

There’s quite a few side games within BoTC as well. These include fun dancing and drinking games, more intense drug war games and the absolutely brilliant base jumping game. Base jumping is a big feature of BoTC. Equipped with a parachute Luis Lopez can jump from the tallest skyscrapers and from helicopters to perform a freefall – parachute maneuver. Even better, you can do this in multiplayer.

Like The Lost and Damned I’d highly recommend The Ballad of Gay Tony. It’ a great play for fans of the GTA series and for those who haven’t played it yet as well.