Review by: Brandon "Seagull" Cackowski-Schnell

With both The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony Rockstar completely changed the notion of what downloadable content can deliver. No mere map packs or simple missions, both episodes from Liberty City were full fledged games, filled with as much content, if not more, than many full retail releases. Most importantly, both episodes had the same high watermarks of story telling and characterization you'd expect in a Grand Theft Auto game while still offering the brutal, visceral thrills you'd want to see in games about unrepentant killers. While they may be late in coming to the PS3, their tardiness shouldn't keep Sony fans from experiencing Liberty City in all of its dirty, blood soaked glory for one last time.

Both episodes are tangentially related to Niko Bellic's activities in GTA IV and in each episode you'll cross paths with Niko on occasion, as well as finally find out what happened to those pesky diamonds, but when playing both episodes back to back you can't help but feel Niko's presence in each game. Johnny Klebitz, the protagonist of The Lost and Damned is high ranking member of the Angels of Death, one of Liberty City's main motorcycle clubs. Most comfortable with a beer in one hand and a piece of wood, or length of chain in another, Johnny is a bare knuckles kind of guy who doesn't really give a damn about what people think about him, he only cares about the club.

In him you can see the kind of brutish but strangely likable thug that Niko is so desperately trying not to be when he arrives in Liberty City. On the other side, is Luis Lopez, a high flying contract killer and sometimes drug dealer. Luis has spent his time in the trenches and lives a life of luxury and occasional violence as the partner of Gay Tony, nightclub owner extraordinaire of Liberty City. Luis is the guy Niko wants to be, or at least imagines his cousin Roman to be, and embodies the big city glitz that Niko thought he was signing up for when he decided to come to Liberty City. Both characters are fun to play as, however Luis is the far more likeable one of the pair, but Johnny isn't so bad that you don't want to see his missions to the end.

Missions for Johnny play out a lot like Niko's missions with all of the usual foibles you'd expect in a GTA game. You'll usually drive somewhere, then shoot someone, then chase someone down and shoot them too. Mid-mission checkpoints have been added for both stories, a welcome addition, so you don't have to worry about playing an entire mission all over again when you fail, however the mission structure could have used a little more variety. Luckily Luis's missions are anything but ordinary and consist of various huge, action movie set pieces involving boats, helicopters and a surprising amount of parachuting. The parachute is so prevalent in Luis' life that if you want a break from undertaking missions you can hit up the fifteen base jumping spots and try your hand at some ridiculous parachuting stunts. Gay Tony also introduces the notion of mission scoring with various mission specific tasks to try and complete as well as the ability to go back and replay missions to score 100% on each one.

Without the mission scoring, you're looking at about ten hours to complete each of the two episodes, a number that doesn't include the various side activities. Johnny has gang wars to take part in as well as motorcycle races, complete with rival clubbing as well as seagulls to find and shoot. Luis has drug turf wars to take part in, the aforementioned base jumping and can choose to spend time managing clubs, a much more sedate endeavor that usually involves a lot of walking around and escorting drunks out of the building. Both games also have their own multiplayer modes, although unfortunately there isn't a shared lobby for both of them. Both episodes have deathmatch, team deathmatch and race modes between them while Lost and Damned adds a bike vs chopper mode, a witness protection mode and an eight person co-op mode. Gay Tony doesn't bring any new multiplayer modes to the table however the addition of nitrous oxide tanks to all of the cars in the game's racing mode as well as new weapons and new courses helps to freshen up the existing modes.