In the Tray: Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony

Well, that's a wrap. Rockstar had concluded their Episodic Content for Liberty City with "The Ballad of Gay Tony" (Gay Tony for short). After finishing the game, I must say that Rockstar has scored yet another hit, but with a few problems that potential buyers should be aware of.

"Gay Tony" is the second DLC for Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV. Duh. However, you don't play as Gay Tony. You play as Luis Lopez, best friend and business partner to Gay Tony, the owner of Liberty City's hottest gay and straight nightclubs. Once again, Rockstar delivers a completely unique perspective to the continuing saga. In the original GTA 4, Niko Bellic arrived with dingy clothes and 25 bucks to his name. In The Lost and Damned, Johnny Klebitz was living in shithole apartment. In "Gay Tony" Luis has got it made. He has a nice apartment, a huge wardrobe and lots of cash. Still, Rockstar retains the themes that inhabited the other two GTA 4's, but in a different way. While the original focused on climbing the social ladder, "Gay Tony" focuses on staying on top, keeping the top slot when everything comes crashing down.

Luis himself isn't as big a character as Gay Tony, mind you. He does have a pretty good backstory and a few missions relate to his troubled past, but it doesn't nearly affect him as much as Gay Tony does. Tony has become a messed-up junkie in the past few years and is losing a grip on properly managing things. As such, he makes bad choices and gets into trouble with everyone. I mean everyone: the Russian mob, Chinese Drug Dealers, and anyone else who wants to get a slice of Tony's very profitable pie. As such, it's up to Luis to get him out of it. The missions that you're given are not "Do this and I'll make you rich." They are more like "Do this and I won't kill you." Characters you met in both the original GTA IV and TL&D make appearances, including Ray Bulgarin (the reason Niko came to Liberty City), Gracie Ancelotti (the girl Niko kidnapped), Brucie, Roman, and of course, Niko and Johnny. However, none of them outshine the enigma that is Yusef Amir. A ridiculously overstereo-typed middle-eastern daddy's boy, with an affinity for gold (gold phone, gold car, gold gun) and loose women, as well as the liberal usage of the N-word, Yusef is easily the most controversial character in the entire Grand Theft Auto franchise, not just GTA 4. He stands out a lot and is by far the most lively character you'll see in a video game for quite some time.

If you don't enjoy the story of "Gay Tony," you may enjoy the gameplay. The missions are over-the-top fun that we haven't seen since San Andreas. However, each mission is grounded in at least some realism, so they are more "highly improbable" instead of just "impossible". Still, they are a lot of fun. Most will have you doing really cool things that we didn't see in GTA because it was too unrealistic. On the other hand, you'll also see some really boring missions that you would have expected would be as explosive as the rest. Remember the Museum mission? When Luis interupts Niko and Johnny's meeting? Well that's pretty much all he does. He gets in a chopper and takes off like that. Or when Luis and Gay Tony make a trade for Gracie to Niko and Packie? He just drives off on his boat to safety. It's kind of sad that we had to wait all that time just for lame missions we thought were gonna rock. Still, the game makes up for it with the best weapons in the GTA series to date. The list of guns is awesome: Automatic .44 Magnum, Silenced P90, the SAW, a Golden Uzi, a high-tech sniper rifle, sticky bombs, and, of course, an automatic shotgun with explosive rounds. The new attack helicopter and APC are also fun to mess around with (though I would have liked a lock-on feature). Mini-games include dancing, golf, parachuting (done with wonderful controls), drug wars, and cage-fighting. Each little aspect of new gameplay will have you playing this game for hours.

In conclusion, the "Episodes of Liberty City" is well worth the 40 dollars, and if you already have TL&D, "Gay Tony" is well worth the extra 20. It's a fun experience and a good time. However, if your short on cash and just want to wait for Modern Warfare 2, you may want to hold off on this one. Either way, you can't really go wrong. Thanks for reading!