Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned

"The Lost and Damned" expansion for "Grand Theft Auto IV" offers a unique take on Liberty City's criminal underworld - this time, not through the eyes of a lone immigrant, but from the perspective of a true biker. And if you thought life in a gang was all about beer, rock music, and cruising around the city, you're in for a surprise: there's betrayal, brutal showdowns, and even a hint of drama. Well... almost.

The protagonist is Johnny Klebitz, a member of the biker club "The Lost". Johnny's life is anything but smooth: loyal brothers on one side, internal strife and turf wars on the other, plus the constant feeling that everything's about to spiral out of control. The story unfolds with confidence and keeps you engaged, with events stacking neatly and characters that stick in your mind. At some point, though, it becomes clear that the game tries to be emotional - but never quite hits those truly powerful notes. Still, it's nice how well the story fits into the broader "GTA IV" narrative and even intersects with it at times.

In this game, the bike is more than just a vehicle - it's practically the co-star. Everything revolves around two wheels: missions, side activities, getting around town. If you didn't know how to handle a motorcycle in "GTA IV", you'll learn here - there's no other choice. And for me, those rides were an absolute blast.

Visually, the game seemed slightly different. It felt darker, the colors more subdued. Though maybe that's just how I remember it.

"The Lost and Damned" is a solid biker story that could easily stand on its own. With engaging characters, intense shootouts, and its own gritty vibe, the expansion is well-crafted and genuinely fun to play. I definitely enjoyed it.

7 out of 10.

Whether you do or don't You are Johnny Klebitz, the VP of the bikers The Lost, having improved their business, and being pragmatic, having helped bring about a truce with the rivals, the Angels of Death. The president, Billy Grey, returns from rehab, and is unhappy with the state of affairs. He wants to bring them back to being all about the old values, brotherhood, independence, macho culture. If this plot sounds too weak and clichéd to be the focus, that's because it is. Along with overly straightforward, with few twists. It goes where you think it will. Not a classic tragedy. Don't expect double-crosses or switching sides. This does run parallel to its parent, so we do meet some of those characters again, and hey, the new ones are badasses, and along with offensive stereotypes, we have the suck-up, the family man, etc. Surprising again yet we should expect it by now, you really get into the identity. Convoys, road captains and the like, in spite of how awkward it can be, becomes fun.

The value again lies in the MP. And that is very limited here, since it's essentially dead. The new modes replace(read: copy) the old ones, and today, few are still along for that ride. Witness Protection has one team must try to eliminate a bus carrying witnesses while the other is NOOSE who try to protect it as it delivers them. Checkpoint racing(SP, too) now lets you be on bikes, carrying bats and smashing each other, similar to Road Rash. You can knock other off their wheels! There's a free for all style one where one is the Lone Wolf and all others try to stop and become him. Whoever was it for the longest time, wins. You can try to gain control one section by another, clearly colored by who owns them, based on San Andreas' gang wars, and not only serving to remind us of that. AI defend each of the handful of ones, in addition to anyone who might be along with them, or capturing. There's a version of this offline, as well, stop a van or eliminate a group, and it's as generic as it sounds.

While not MMO, it's chaotic, open and crazy, with the reaction-heavy NPCs, traffic, respray shops, even police. Those can go after one or multiple, and respond proportionally… escape by leaving their sight and/or not attracting attention – that can be too easy. It just has some of the deeper mechanics removed, taking place in the same city, the imitation of New York with three main islands, authentic and realistic as the rest of this. There, you don't move like you're morbidly obese. You will see some lag. We get a server list! With filters! Four people can be in the same car(if that many seats), and all of them can fire, if and when they want to! Hold down Enter Key instead of just pressing to not take over car. The 360 free camera, in this case not requiring constant manual adjustment, allows you to keep the same thing in your sights regardless of how you're moving. You can customize the model, a male, and a female, by body part: head, torso, legs, glasses, hats. You do start out with few options, 4 at the most, and, not the developer's fault, however, since today, well, I rarely found even a handful of others on, so you don't rank up and never get the extra options. Unlike Max Payne 3, there are no groups to skin separately, and less personality to them than that. Ugh… I get chills any time I say something positive about that title. 12 different locations, and they're diverse: docks, prison, etc., and sizable chunks. You may respawn very close to where you died, which means there can be lengthy shootouts.

I completed this in 7 hours. Add 8 and a half for side stuff, and it brought me to 71,25%. Even for a DLC, that's very little. This adds, fixes or changes fairly little. Like IV, a lot of what it improves are the physics, graphics, things that don't alter the gameplay much. We have less features than before, and a number of the ones we have just aren't that compelling. A lot of the content isn't even interactive, it's TV you can watch, Internet you can explore, and radio you can listen to. While we do have proper third person gunplay, it's not as smooth as its unnumbered predecessor. It does have crouch, strafe, a target health indicator(the appearance of which doesn't mean that you won't just hit what you're standing close to…), and, of course, the cover system(so bad that you end up making sure not to use it). You hold down the trigger to fire, which is awkward and screws up timing when others are ducking out to attack, you press at the right time, but there's half a second or so of delay. "You" are too heavy and slow to respond for it. Why doesn't it let you stick your head out when you hold down Focus Aim… same for shooting from a vehicle, and worse, they actually do it right when you're not the driver, so they were able to do it.

Flying is more involved than driving a car in this, unlike Just Case 1 and 2, and I would almost rather play JC1 than this. Yes, steering a helicopter is complicated. But with how streamlined driving a car is in these(no dealing with clutch, gears), air travel should be more simplified, as well. You can't use planes(there are always ones taking off from the airport. You can't blow them up or stop them by blocking them), there are only helis, but some come with gatling guns, with explosive bullets!

There is a lot of bloody violence and a little full frontal male nudity in this(avert your eyes!). I recommend this only to completists, this you can and should skip. 7/10

Forget GTA4 as Lost and Damned is the game that GTA4 should have been. Better Missions, better characters and even better music tracks too. I had more fun and excitement playing as the member of the biker gang than I had playing Niko in the proper game of GTA4. The story is good and the action is actually quite realistic, more realistic than GTA4. The music is to die for as it has grand bands providing the tunes like Deep Purple and Motley Crue for starters. It really helps you get into "the Zone" and then the concentration on the game becomes more clear and then the fun really begins. Also it incorporates some of the original characters of GTA4 into the new storyline which is a great touch, I think they did that just so the original characters are forgotten. If you wanna ride, I guarantee it will bring out the biker in you.

7/10, B tier. Decent dlc that definitely has a weaker story than the main game. It is good for what it is but does feel kind of weak. Jhonny is a decent protagonist but definitely doesn't have much character development.

Thank God they added mission checkpoints. I would however say that some of these missions are worse than GTA 4s. The prison bus one and the one where you take out the mob guys, just so fustrating. The final mission however was incredible. Such a great final mission.

The music is still as great as ever and the new songs are just amazing. Fit the biker theme perfectly and always make the game greater.

I love the new weapons, especially the over powered automatic shotgun but they don't have them in the gun shops to buy ammo so you can't realiably use them.

Loved all the nods to the main game and other dlc but did paint johnny in a less than favourable light.

In all a decent dlc that fixes allot of problems from the main game but ultimately has the same type of awful missions and a less interesting story.

An amazing story, good bike physics, fun,...and so many other things