Grand Theft Auto IV (Warning: Spoilers)

Brucie only likes the *****.

Trailer is officially up.

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'Grand Theft Auto IV' journey will end with a bang
By Mike Snider, USA TODAY

Rockstar Games' grand epic Grand Theft Auto IV writes its final chapter Oct. 29. And the action is as over-the-top as the title: The Ballad of Gay Tony.

Available via download exclusively for owners of the Xbox 360 version of the game ($20, and like all GTA titles, for mature audiences), this second and last add-on episode focuses on Luis Lopez, Dominican-born second-in-command to nightclub magnate Gay Tony. The drug-addled Tony, losing a grip on his empire, puts Luis in dangerous circumstances in an attempt to retain his power.

"Luis has to do some of these favors and see if he can get them out of debt," says Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games and lead writer of the episode. "The situation with Tony's drug problems gets worse and worse, and Tony gets more and more out of control."

The events happen at the same time as those in GTA IV, which has sold more than 14 million copies worldwide since its release in April 2008 (for Xbox and PS3). It focused on the "coming to America-type story" of former Eastern European soldier Niko Bellic in Liberty City.

The first downloadable episode, The Lost and Damned, released in February, focused on Johnny Klebitz, a member of biker gang The Lost. It and Gay Tony remain Xbox 360 exclusives. Both also will be out Oct. 29 on a $40 GTA: Episodes From Liberty City disc that can be played without the original game.

"I know, as a consumer, I'm more comfortable buying songs, which are almost like playing a jukebox, than I am buying movies as purely digital items," Houser says. "We all feel that way, so we can surely get more people to experience it if we put it on a disc."

Packed with action set pieces à la films such as Mission: Impossible and Bad Boys, Gay Tony has Luis at one point parachuting from a helicopter onto a glass-windowed skyscraper. Inside he blasts his way to his prey a few floors below and shoots his target, who then topples out of the bullet-ridden window. Luis dives out after him, wearing a parachute that glides him to safety.

In another scene, Luis drops on to the top of a moving subway train from a bridge and unhooks one of the cars for a maniacal high-rolling collector of one-of-a-kind artifacts. A Skyhook chopper airlifts the freed subway car away.

Luis is "a man of action," torn between friends and family "and this drive for wealth and power," says Rockstar's Bruce Dugan. "The higher you climb in Liberty City, the wealthier your social circle and the crazier they usually are because they have become corrupted."

Gay Tony's cast of out-of-control characters allowed Houser and the game designers to get in touch with their inner Michael Bay. "We definitely wanted it to feel more like the way action films are when they get ridiculous," says Houser.

"Suddenly you're lifting up train cars with helicopters and it looks amazing and ridiculous, and after what you've gone through in the past, you're like, 'wow, this is a really good payoff for completing this journey.' "

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Parachuting? Rocket helicopters? Satchel charges? This is going to be the fun of GTA IV mixed with San Andreas. That should be good in free-mode. Though I hope they keep some of the textural differences in the graphics like they did in the TLAD add-on. Was a big fan of that gritty look.

That said, I'm actually thinking that the parachute might be available only from the one new helicopter. What sucks now, though, is I know that everyone will only be using that helicopter online if it's there. I hope there's some handicap to it, because it's no fun having people just blow everything up in helicopters. If you've ever played The Lost/>/>

"I don't want to touch your balls, Brucie."

So is this available for Download only on XBOX Live or are they releasing the "episodes" pack in stores?

Both -- you can download the add-on off of LIVE, or you can pick up the retail disc containing both DLCs at any store. The big advantage to picking up the disc version is that you'll probably be able to find it at a lower price-point ($30-$35, probably) than buying each episode individually on LIVE (which'll run you $40 straight, unless they have another 25% off "Deal of the Week" for Gold members like they did a couple weeks back for TLaD).

Very cool. I don't have Live right now, so I'll have to pick them up at retail.

Gay Tony: 9.2 at IGN.

Looking forward to doing some Hercules club-managing tomorrow.

Yeah I picked up the Liberty Stories disc yesterday since I traded in my GTAIV months ago. I prefer the shorter, more focused narratives of the episodes, and there's still the huge city to explore.

Is it just me, or do the graphics in the cutscenes look better this time around? After watching the first cutscene, to me the faces and everything look better than the original GTA IV or TLaD. The movements and facial expressions seem more...expressive and natural. The subtle motions they seem to have make the characters come more to life. Since it's been a year and a half since GTA IV, and half a year since TLaD, Rockstar's game engine evidently got some upgrades.

Base-jumping is awesome. Takes me right back to San Andreas.

And Jesus, those new guns are beastly.

Probably the best final mission I've ever played in a GTA game, and I've played 'em all. Also, I want a game just about Yusuf Amir. Make it happen.

And after you finish a particular mission, you can go to your phone and select the "Mission Replay" option and try for a better percentage. This gets posted straight to your Rockstar profile if you have one, where you can rank up against other folks.

Free Mode absolutely rocks with all the new crap that you can get in this game. In the first, like, five missions, I BLEW UP A CRANE, TRAIN, AND PLANE. I then stole a military helicopter, used it to blow up a yacht, and shot up all the gangsters on a boat, "Godfather III"-style. I also flew to a NOOSE tank, shot it out of the air, parachuted down, jacked it, pVVned all the cops, and then flew the bastard all the way to a construction site.

If you're in story mode, when you first get the Explosive Shotgun, it only has regular rounds, but when you do a certain mission for Yusuf, he gives you the explosive rounds, which will even take out choppers in two shots. And the Sticky Bombs = .

Very much looking forward to getting Episodes some time this week. Is there any particular episode I should play first? I'll probably go with TLaD and then BoGT afterward for chronological order's sake, but I don't know if I'll be able to resist the stuff Gay Tony offers.

Ballad of Gay Tony is terrible. The worst part about GTA IV was the helicopter controls, but luckily there were only a few missions where you were forced to fly one. Unfortunately, Gay Tony is way too ambitious and over-the-top for the realistic system that GTA IV employs, making this an effort that I can't bring myself to finish (which is fine, considering the story was fairly stupid and way below the standards of Niko Bellic's epic). And this is coming from a guy who thinks Grand Theft Auto IV is right up there with the best games of this console generation, so you can imagine my disappointment at this expansion.

I'm hoping that The Lost and Damned will be much, much better.

The Lost and Damned is much grittier and more grounded on Planet Earth than Gay Tony, though you probably won't end up liking the main character very much (in fact, you'll probably downright loathe him by the end of the story). That said, the game is much more in step with Niko's arc, in terms of tone, etc.

I know I loathed each and every one of those biker fraks and the "episode" in general. IMO, the only cool things about it were the new weapons...weapons you couldn't import to the core game. Such a brilliant move, really.

Why don't you like the main character in The Lost & Damned? I quite like him myself. He's much better than Nico was.

Speaking of which, there's a mission I'm having great trouble with in TL&D. It's one of Stubbs' missions, where you have to rescue the woman from the Feds. I'm told you don't have to outrun the Feds and cops, just simply get to the destination set by the game. But once I reach the end of the yellow line on my Sat Nav the game doesn't seem to recognise it. If I remember right the yellow destination dot near the tunnel just goes blue and my wanted stars don't disappear.

Anyone visited Brucie's website in the game?

According to Rockstar sources, witness the apparent real-life inspiration.

(...Not counting "FPS Doug," of course.)

But still, to think we actually came thiiiiiiiiss close to Brucie finally (accidentally) outing himself in Gay Tony. Dammit.

I thought Brucie was hilarious, especially when he head butted the wall to look macho but just left a red splat and came away with a headache.

The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony hitting the PS3 and PC on March 30th.

Gay Tony is easily one of my favorite games from last year. As far as The Lost and Damned goes, I love the actual missions and tone of the game, but it feels awfully rushed in places, especially towards the end. Still hugely entertaining, though. What makes Gay Tony work is that it's something of a gigantic tonal shift from "vanilla" GTA, while Lost and Damned has that same sort of refined bleakness to it.

I read somewhere that the sales of the GTAIV expansions were somewhat disappointing, either for Rockstar or Microsoft. I hope this means we'll see the end of any one platform spending $50 million just for some exclusive content, especially since it didn't seem to have the punch that Microsoft was expecting.

Isn't it a little late to be releasing disc-based DLC for a game that's pushing two years of age? I'm gonna go ahead and equate Episodes from Liberty City on the PS3 to hardcore games on the Wii: People complain that they don't have it, and when it hits shelves, they won't buy it. I predict a flop.