Like thousands of other wives and girlfriends, I've been spending a fair chunk of my week watching the new add-on/chapter of Grand Theft Auto IV, The Lost and Damned. Of course, this is hardly the first video game (or even Grand Theft Auto game) that I've had the chance to observe at great length--one might even say I'm something of a specialist in gaming observation. (And I've always been thankful that my husband is not really, really into sports games, as endless hours of watching virtual soccer could probably drive me to insanity. I already know a lot more about defensive football formations than the average casual fan thanks to hours of Madden and NCAA Football.)
Anyway, from the observer's standpoint, I'd have to give Lost & Damned a pretty good review. The dialogue in GTA games is generally light years beyond the avererage video game, and the stories tend to be interesting and occasionally witty. Is there such a thing as a character-driven game? I didn't really like GTA IV's story as much as the story in GTA: San Andreas. San Andreas was a bit lighter and more fun, had the '90s nostalgia thing going for it, and featured an awesome cameo by James Woods as a reactionary rogue CIA agent. GTA IV was a lot grittier and (perhaps due to its New York location) darker too. This is probably just a matter of taste, as Nico of GTA IV is an interesting character, but I missed the lightness of the previous entries more than a bit.
And that's why I'm liking the new Lost and Damned chapter. It follows a biker gang (called The Lost) and the anti-hero, Johnny, has the same dry humor and honorable criminal thing going as most GTA heroes. As far as I can tell, most of the gameplay is the same, though they've evidently made the motorcycle control and stability a bit better. (A good thing too as you spend a good deal of the game on a bike.) And the whole thing seems slightly lighter in feel and tone than GTA IV main story. One neat feature is that Johnny's story actually intertwines with Nico's, and this chapter is happening concurrently with the main GTA IV story. You even see Nico during the drug deal that he and Johnny worked together (this time, from Johnny's side). And various characters from Nico's story come into Johnny's story as well. There's also quite a bit more radio, TV, and internet content--though I still miss the nostalgia of the Vice City '80s rock and the San Andreas '90s stations. Not that they didn't do a fine job with the radio content in the newer game, but it's hard to compete with the sense of place and time that you get from the retro radio stations in the previous games. All in all, however, The Lost and Damned is a fun addition to the series, and I'm not really sure what some of the more negative critics were looking at or expecting. Personally, I'm hoping that these kind of add-on downloads are the wave of the future because I'm very much a fan of skipping all the pre-order/waiting outside the store at midnight nonsense.
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