I just finished playing the, "Lost and Damned," Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable content game add-on, or "episode," for GTA IV. In it, you play as a Jewish biker, Johnny Klebbitz, (I don't fucking care how it's spelt,) who appears in a couple of cut-scenes in the original GTA IV game. When Johnny showed up in the game, it usually meant that Niko was going to have to shoot his way through about hundred or so gangsters or F.B.I. agents just so he could call his employer back and tell them, "I don't have the money." The add-on game ties in with the real game for these cut-scenes, and in fact reuses them. For these overlapping missions, Johnny's basically going the opposite direction as Niko. If Niko's going to the roof, Johnny's going to the street.
Mostly, though, you just get in fights with other biker gangs, or hang out with some rough-rider buddies. Johnny doesn't seem to be able to take as much damage as old Niko does, however, so there's the ever-present spectre of the headshot-kill, only you're on the receiving end. I can't count the number of times I tried making a break from the police only to see my health meter deplete from about half to zero and have Johnny go flying off the back of his bike in black-and-white slow motion because some cop got a lucky shot off. Meanwhile, using any weapon aside from the heaviest shot-gun, or carbine rifle, means having to spend about forty-bullets per kill. Even blowing up a conveniently placed oil drum right next to your target doesn't guarantee you've put them down. I got better kills with stray bullets than using their auto-targeting system.
They did beef up some of the weapons. The combat shotgun in the game is brutal, and they added a grenade launcher, which is handy for blowing up cars. Like I said, though, huge explosions don't tend to kill everyone, so when I went in to finish a kill, I'd be hit by the secondary chain explosion of the car-next-to-the-car blowing up. That was fun.
One of the most annoying missions is one where you're using a heavy shot-gun on the back of a motorcycle while being chased by every police officer in the city. So you have to blow up all these cars, but you have no way to defend yourself in the meantime. So you're watching huge chunks of your health just fade away. I died about ten times doing that one.
The plot to the game is pretty hectic. Basically, your biker gang leader gets out of jail/rehab and starts acting like an asshole, then he gets arrested again and you get blamed. So you end up killing over half of your own gang, There's a memorial on the wall of the biker clubhouse for every member who dies. When the game starts, there's one dude up there. After it's over, the whole wall is full. Then you burn the place down, which is a shame because there were strippers in there.
You have your own special bike, too, but I lost mine after about the seventh mission, and when it's gone, it's gone. I didn't even wreck it. I just had to leave it behind to take another vehicle.
One of the weird things is that it goes into a lot more depth to this one character who appears in one or two cut scenes in the original GTA IV, Ashley, who's this crackhead hanging out with Ray Boccino.
Considering it was jut a game-add-on, it was longer than I expected, but still pretty short. I finished with only 68% of the game complete, so I'm guessing the rest is the Gang War and race missions, which are bull-shit anyway.
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