Grand Theft Auto IV

       So I just finished the Lost and the Damned. Yes, simple as that, but I must say it was AWESOME. Which is quite a surprise because I could not stand to finish GTA IV because of the repetitive missions, and your annoying friends, it seemed that every time you were about to do something fun, Roman would call up and would state that you and him don't spend enough time together, and that you guys should go see some American titties. Of course I'd say no because I'm about to jump off a freakin' helicoper only  to get Packie to call me up and ask me the same thing. It soon became a vicious cycle, of course, just recently I realized there was a "turn notifications off" button which I was not aware of. So anyways, I picked up GTA again this weekend and finally finished it. Coincidentially, this left me with nothing to do for the rest of the weekend, so because I know that Rockstar does have an apt for story telling, and I wanted to play something with excellent narrative I downloaded The Lost and the Damned.

       Once it finally finished downloading, I booted it up and I get welcomed to a similar loading screen as in GTA IV fast forward 7 hours (which is the time that it took me to beat the DLC) and I was pretty amazed at how much I enjoyed myself. Yes, the missions were still a tad repetitive but there is a greater variety to the missions or the standard "get away from the cops" mission had been taken up a notch, like in that mission where you ride with your homie Malc and try to get away from the cops via shooting down dozens of police cars, or dropping the occasional pipe bomb on dozens police cars. Also, my other gripes with GTA IV was the punishing checkpoint system and the whole "go play bowling with your friends or else they will hate you" thing. This time, I don't quite recall as much punishment, however I may be wrong, and every time I would die, instead of making me drive all the way back it would place me right back into the combat. The annoying friend system also seemed to be fixed, not once did I get called by a friend asking me to go play pool with them, I didnt even get called by my annoying drug addicted ex which made the experience alot smoother. My last two praises for the DLC are the soundtrack and the story. The main theme just emphasized the point that the Lost are hardcore bad asses and every time you beat a mission you'd hear the excellent guitar riff which, in a sense, rewarded me. The story stands on its own, the tale of Johnny Klebitz (excuse the spelling) is beautiful in a twisted sort of way. You run through gang wars, doing a senator's dirty work, even a civil war erupts between your ranks, and all of this is explained beautifully. The other great part was how this story was interweaved with the GTA IV story, and the missions where you'd know what Niko would be doing just made me giddy with joy. The final mission was the cherry on top, it just touched me how Johnny burned the __________ (I don't want to give anything away).

       So, in conclusion, me being one of those people who truly didn't think GTA IV was supremely orgasmic, after playing The Lost and the Damned and seeing how Rockstar is, at least, trying to fix their mistakes (checkpoint system, repetitive missions, annoying friends) and keeping their talent for telling awesome stories makes this one of the best DLC's I have ever purchased. And all in all, I do believe Johnny is a badder bad baddier badass than Niko.

NOTE: Excuse me if this is slightly opinionated, at first it was a blog.