GTA: Episodes From Liberty City is standalone, so it doesn’t require the original GTA IV game to run. It features biker gang story “The Lost And Damned” and the brand new adventure “The Ballad Of Gay Tony.” You can read our full review of The Lost And Damned >here<, so I’ll concentrate on Gay Tony and his Ballad.
In “The Ballad Of Gay Tony” you don’t actually play Gay Tony (much to the disappointment of some readers I’m sure – and I’m looking at YOU Tom) but as Luis Lopez, street thug of Spanish descent who was sent to juvie (juvenile prison) when he was seventeen but is now trying to go straight-ish, and works for Tony, who owns the busiest two nightclubs in Liberty City, one gay (Hercules) and one straight (Maisonette 9).
The plot is typically GTA, with Luis entering into several dysfunctional (and highly unlikely) relationships and killing hundreds of both cops and robbers along the way. The noticeable difference between Gay Tony and the other two Liberty city stories is how much fun it is; Rockstar North seem to have loosened the “realistic” shackles a little and there are now several heavy weapons to play with (rocket and grenade launcher and a shotgun that fires explosive shells, and also sticky bombs that can be triggered remotely, all of which can be bought from gun shops or cheaper from your buddy Armando, who will meet you somewhere near with his ‘gun van’). The big new gimmick, and an old favourite that returns from San Andreas is the ability to use a parachute.
The parachute becomes available after a certain story mission and then various Base Jumps open up to test your accuracy in both flying through hoops and pinpoint landing – sometimes you're even expected to land on moving targets. Later a chute can be bought from Armando, so you can carry one at all times, in case of emergency or just for fun. The attraction of getting a chopper and finding the tallest buildings in LC to jump off should not be underestimated, and the base jumps are great fun and a nice diversion from the main story. These may be a natural progression, or as I suspect may also be a response to GTA’s only real genre rival, Saints Row 2 and its heavy reliance on outrageous fun rather than plot or realism.
Other things to keep you playing and extend the lifespan of the solo game include the Golf driving range by the river and a dancing “rhythm action” sub-game in which to participate in various clubs. Should you fancy testing your fists rather than your dance moves Liberty City Cage Fighter is the game’s answer to Fight Club, and winning the whole competition is the biggest challenge in the game, despite not being essential to the plot or even more than a brief part of the story. You can also still go play the pastimes from GTA IV and The Lost And Damned; Darts, Pool, 10-Pin Bowling and Air Hockey as long as you can remember where to find them.
New stuff includes new weapons and vehicles, and Episodes also has three new radio stations that don’t feature in downloadable versions of the two games; New Vice City FM (80s music), RamJam FM (replaces Tuff Gong Radio) and Self-Actualization FM (replaces The Journey) features loads of new music and the usual irreverent and amusing chatter. A new character to the GTA IV storyline, Yusef, is voiced with great enthusiasm by Omid Djalili, and adds plenty of laughs to what could have been a dour story. The Liberty City internet also has a few new pages to read, and they’re well worth searching out at the nearest Tw@ internet café.
Multiplayer features the standard Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, races, GTA races and free mode in which you can even do base jumps from the buildings featured in the story mode. In Free Mode you also always have a parachute so now bailing out of a flaming helicopter is always an option. We’ve played the free mode as much as anything else lately, and it’s easy to wander around just looking for something else dumb to attempt, or get in a scrap with the cops or someone else who’s jumped into “your” game; two or three hours can fly by with you achieving absolutely nothing other than discovering the location of a new vehicle or powerful weapon, yet simultaneously having the time of your life.
So what you get is more mad adventure in Liberty City. Technically the game is still amazing; yes it has a less-than-silky frame rate and there’s pop up here and there, but it's easy to forget just how huge yet detailed and vibrant the Liberty City setting is, how perfect the vehicle handling and physics are, or simply how stunning the damage modelling to the vehicles is. The added difference in the latest instalment is definitely the fun factor. The story - though typically violent, homophobic and misogynistic - is entertaining in the usual irreverant GTA way and will keep you playing till the end. The base jumping is a nice, exhilarating diversion, the cage fighting less so as the combat controls still feel spongy and unresponsive. The RRP of the two games is £34.99 and if you haven’t played The Lost And Damned yet (why haven’t you?) then it’s unbeatable value for 25 hours or more of gameplay, and that’s not including the multiplayer modes, which could occupy you for months.
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