So the first GTA IV downloadable content comes out today in the form of The Lost And Damned, which you can buy on Xbox Live for 1600 points. I'm currently downloading it - all 1.7GB of it -, and have decided to put up my impressions of it in a LiveBlog. I'll be updating this every few minutes to say whats going on.

Watch out, there might be spoilers.

12:33pm - Currently at 91%, I'm guesstimating another 10 minutes
12:34 - Going to play Geometry Wars while I wait
12:38 - 1.7 million on Dealine mode. Not my best score, but not bad. 96% done
12:40 - 97%. I'm wondering if this will add any new achievements
12:43 - 100%, lets do this
12:44 - A message pops up in game saying "Lost and Damned has been downloaded, do you want to play it?" I wonder if this message will appeat every time from now on
12:51 - Pretty cool opening. Does a good job of introducing the characters, as they cruise along the streets of Liberty City on their bikes. They've gone to pick up Billy, the president of the Lost, who I think has just been let out of Jail, and seems like a cool character. I'm pretty sure I saw Niko walking along the pavement at some point.
13:00 - Damn, these guys are angry. Gameplay info, when riding in a gang you have to stay close to all the others, which is pretty annoying because they're quite slow
13:09 - Gang AI seems knda dumb, one guy keeps crashing into lap posts. And I really dont like driving slow so they can keep up. Missions very easy so far. I was expecting it to get off to an explosive start, because everybody playing this already knows the gameplay mechanics of GTA IV
13:11 - Taking a break to eat a sammich
13:16 - Song on the in-game radio which I'm fairly sure is new. No new radio stations though.
13:18 - Pretty brutal cutscene, involving holding a guys face on a moving tire then smacking him with a mallet. This is the kind of stuff you didn't see with Niko
13:28 - Following a gang seems even dumber. They give you a marker which you have to stick to, which then disapears as soon as you enter it, so its hard to know where you have to be. Got a look at the clubhouse, which has 3 new minigames; arm wrestling, high-low cards, and... mourning? Sure, why not. Theres also a TV and computerm which apparently have new shows and websites. Got a bit of gunplay in too, which is just as you remember from GTA IV. New gun, sawed off shotgun.
13:37 - I like Billy as a character more than Jonny so far. He's got a short temper and is funny. He also isn't afraid to shoot somebody in the back with a shotgun if they gatecrash a party. Like I said before, very different characters to Niko
13:44 - Action picking up quickly, but still quite simple stuff. Can only get better
13:46 - Just heared that one of the new websites is 'Craplist.net'. Oh lol
13:49 - Just accidentally wandered into a bunch of rival gang members, who attack without warning.
              One more mission then I'm quitting the blogging
13:53 - It seems adjustments have been made to bike riding. Its easier to take corners at speed without skidding out of control. Still not as stupidly fluid as GTA Vice City, but still, a noticeable difference. Tried driving a car, no noticeable changes.
13:57 - Found a prostitute, and she said "I love your European looks", which I'm pretty sure is a line intented for Niko
14:11 - Alright, I'm done. In conclusion, I like Billy, dont like driving in a gang, and everything else is more GTA IV, which is awesome

That is all

UPDATE TIME!

• Thats not smoke or weed, its light coming in through the window. I took the picture with a really crappy camera.
• I can't get it replaced because its second hand or something. I dunno, M$ is a dick.
• Its fixed, for now, using the good old towel trick

I never played many RPGs as a kid. I was introduced to games through the lucky-go-happy world of Mario, then spent my teenage years hanging with the cool kids with GTA and Need For Speed. The idea of RPGs just never appealed to me, too much text to read, all that level managing, wizards and knights being "teh gay". But a while ago I decided to give this whole RPG thing a shot, and it didn't go well.

I borrowed Oblivion off a friend, and hated it. Granted, I only gave it about an hour of my time, but if a game can't wow me after that long, I have low hopes for it. Also, the fact that I had an unfinished copy of Gears Of War sitting next to it probably didn't help either. So, my RPG experience got off to a bad start.

I tried Mass Effect, again off the same friend. He's an RPG nut, and said I'd like this one because it incorperates shooter elements. Awesome, I thought. Its just a shame that the story was a bore-fest, the shooting was mediocre, and even the fact that it was set in space (the greatest setting for anything, ever) didn't stop me from getting more disapointed as the hours went on, and I still say that its one of the worst games I played in 2008.

I gave up on RPGs for a bit. Played GTA IV, Gears, Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero, had some laughs, had some fun. Then Fallout came out. I listened to the Giant Bomb GOTY podcast, read some reviews, talked to some dudes, and decided I wanted to try out Fable 2 or Fallout 3, the two most RPG-ish RPGs I could find. As I said to my game-recomending friend, "I want something to remind me I hate this genre". He gave me Fallout, said theres no way in hell I'd like it. How wrong he was.

So I went in it ready to hate it, and for a while I think I did. It started off kinda slow, I had to talk to a load of kids, I hadn't shot anything for 10 minutes, even by the time I reached Megatonne, I was still looking at it through pesemistic eyes; "Man, this town is confusing as hell, wheres this bar I need to find?", "I can't afford anything lady, and I dont want to look around for tin cans to sell to you", "What the hell, why can't I shoot kids?". But I trecked on, and somewhere along the line I had an epiphany.

This game is several kinds of awesome. I've actually found myself looking around towns to talk to people; I've been seeking out as many side quests as possible; I've been looting dudes, finding a new item, looking it up on an online guide, then using it to make stuff. Its everything I thought I hated about RPGs, all the item management and endless conversations, but I'm really into it. The combat system isn't to shoddy either, and even though I thought I'd never use VATS, I use it in nearly every battle.

I don't know what it is about Fallout, but this is the first non-Mario RPG I've really been able to sink my teeth into. It has enough RPG elements to give me a new challenge, but enough FPS elements to amuse my imature brain thats still stuck at the age of 12. Mix that with some genuinley interesting conversations, and not to mention the eerie atmosphere that is found in the dark monster-infected Metro tunnels, and the game that I wanted to hate turns out to be one of my favorite in a long time.