While playing Grand Theft Auto 4 you will have had contact with a lot of characters within the criminal underworld – all of whom have their own stories in this big city. The first extra chapter to the game sees you step into the shoes of one of the motorcycle gang "The Lost", who you will have met a few times already as he was involved in the diamond theft and double-crosses with mobster Ray. In Johnny's story he has been doing good business with the gang and now the President Billy has returned from jail, hell-bent on war and destruction – threatening everything that has been built. This plus some other characters sees Johnny sucked into actions and situations that he would otherwise have avoided.
Starting with the story it must be said that it is not as engaging as GTA4, but then it is not as full a game so perhaps that is understandable. The lack of "you decide" options is therefore understandable as well but I would have liked at least the allusion of choice in regards some of the missions. Things move forward in a rather linear way and I didn't feel a sense of building that happened in GTA4, where small crimes led to mobster involvement led to high-level political corruption. Here it is what it is and in particular the conflict with Billy could have been done better to produce more of a sense of drama – it does this well early on but it gets lost in the action and the final mission (a high-risk prison assassination) offers no real emotional punch or reward, indeed you enter a room and Billy stands there till you kill him – no words, no cut-scene, no drama.
This aside though the story does have some good things about it. I liked the way it did dovetail so well into the stories I had already been part of – filling in other perspectives and details while telling its own story. The one female character is used well as a plot device and doesn't try to force emotions onto her. In GTA4 we were expected to feel for a woman that had just shown up and only annoyed me as a player – with Lost I didn't get that, Ashley was used well and fitted the world I was in. Talking of people not bugging you, I liked that in this game people were not constantly asking to go and do "social" (boring) activities with me and that I wasn't punished for just playing the story. I still had the option to do this but it didn't feel as forced on me as it did in GTA4. I have finished the story now but there are still things to do and as usual Rockstar have plenty of side missions or distractions to add time to the game – the gang wars are fun as are some of the other side stories. The races I hate simply because I still don't love the bikes even if they are vastly easier to drive than in GTA4! A few more achievements would have been better though – I know the points are limited by Microsoft but fewer could have been given for completing the story and more spread out over races etc.
The game world is as impressive as GTA4, even if at times it seemed a little emptier in terms of NPC characters and traffic. One horrible decision about it is the way that they tried to make it gritty by making it look gritty. For the first few hours of play it was bugging me regularly, the game seemed blurry and fuzzy like I had a bad connection on my cables. I checked them and then Googled something like "why does L&D look awful" and found endless people asking the same question and getting directed to the menu to switch it off. This aside it does look great and the characters in the cut scenes look convincing and have plenty of expression. As usual the sense of humour and mischief is there too with male nudity and other comic creations amongst the drama.
Overall Lost & Damned is not as good as GTA4 in terms of story-telling but it is still a great fun little game. The different style of play works well as well and it kept me entertained and made Liberty City feel fresh again. Fans of that game will enjoy this and now I look forward to playing through another overlap with The Ballad of Gay Tony.
Starting with the story it must be said that it is not as engaging as GTA4, but then it is not as full a game so perhaps that is understandable. The lack of "you decide" options is therefore understandable as well but I would have liked at least the allusion of choice in regards some of the missions. Things move forward in a rather linear way and I didn't feel a sense of building that happened in GTA4, where small crimes led to mobster involvement led to high-level political corruption. Here it is what it is and in particular the conflict with Billy could have been done better to produce more of a sense of drama – it does this well early on but it gets lost in the action and the final mission (a high-risk prison assassination) offers no real emotional punch or reward, indeed you enter a room and Billy stands there till you kill him – no words, no cut-scene, no drama.
This aside though the story does have some good things about it. I liked the way it did dovetail so well into the stories I had already been part of – filling in other perspectives and details while telling its own story. The one female character is used well as a plot device and doesn't try to force emotions onto her. In GTA4 we were expected to feel for a woman that had just shown up and only annoyed me as a player – with Lost I didn't get that, Ashley was used well and fitted the world I was in. Talking of people not bugging you, I liked that in this game people were not constantly asking to go and do "social" (boring) activities with me and that I wasn't punished for just playing the story. I still had the option to do this but it didn't feel as forced on me as it did in GTA4. I have finished the story now but there are still things to do and as usual Rockstar have plenty of side missions or distractions to add time to the game – the gang wars are fun as are some of the other side stories. The races I hate simply because I still don't love the bikes even if they are vastly easier to drive than in GTA4! A few more achievements would have been better though – I know the points are limited by Microsoft but fewer could have been given for completing the story and more spread out over races etc.
The game world is as impressive as GTA4, even if at times it seemed a little emptier in terms of NPC characters and traffic. One horrible decision about it is the way that they tried to make it gritty by making it look gritty. For the first few hours of play it was bugging me regularly, the game seemed blurry and fuzzy like I had a bad connection on my cables. I checked them and then Googled something like "why does L&D look awful" and found endless people asking the same question and getting directed to the menu to switch it off. This aside it does look great and the characters in the cut scenes look convincing and have plenty of expression. As usual the sense of humour and mischief is there too with male nudity and other comic creations amongst the drama.
Overall Lost & Damned is not as good as GTA4 in terms of story-telling but it is still a great fun little game. The different style of play works well as well and it kept me entertained and made Liberty City feel fresh again. Fans of that game will enjoy this and now I look forward to playing through another overlap with The Ballad of Gay Tony.