In the Ballad of Gay Tony, players ride through the journey of dynamic duo Luis Lopez and Tony Prince as they live the high life with a slightly life-threatening burden of debt hovering over their shoulders. From the Russian mobsters that GTA IV players have come to love and hate, to the mysterious diamonds that players felt they wasted their time with, Ballad of Gay Tony shines its brightest with the storyline.
Grand Theft Auto: Ballad of Gay Tony does a much better job of merging with the story of the first game than The Lost and the Damned. Simply beginning with the infamous bank robbery cutscene from the original game, the player will see more of the original plot-line because the main conflict is between influential characters from Niko Belic’s storyline. While Johnny from the Lost and the Damned holds the advantage of actually working with Niko and Roman Belic, those missions were essentially put in place as filler and fan service. In The Ballad of Gay Tony, however, the gamer will learn that the troubles Niko and Luis experienced were indirectly caused by the other character.
Compared to Johnny Klebitz of the Lost and the Damned, Luis Lopez is not quite as decked out with new weapons. That said, Luis earns himself a golden Uzi from his unlikely hero, Yusef Amir, an assault P90, advanced pistol, assault rifle, and shotgun, and the flagship addition: sticky bombs. On top of the special sticky bombs, Luis receives the privilege of skydiving and using parachutes. The only disadvantage is the sticky bombs and parachutes are admittedly overused in the missions. In one instance, the game gives the player a break from the usual driving and grants the role of attacking from the passenger seat…with sticky bombs. While the on-demand detonation is a nifty feature, standard guns would have been preferred.
The graphics of The Ballad of Gay Tony greatly remind us of Rockstar’s own Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, with flashy, brightly colored environments. The game successfully delivers the hazy, nightlife atmosphere by primarily focusing its setting in Algonquin, Liberty City. The Ballad of Gay Tony more closely resembles the original game, only a bit more colorful.
Overall, The Ballad of Gay Tony is worth the Jackson for fans of the series who wants to fill in the gaps in the story. For content, The Lost and the Damned is great for the insanely fun multiplayer modes and more enjoyable side activities. This episode, however, adds some less-exciting activities such as golfing, dancing with awkward mechanics, and drug wars. As players can imagine, replay-value is close to nil, so to compensate, Rockstar put in a mission-replay option for completionist gamers to achieve bonus tasks that may have been missed the first time around.
