Boys are back in town.

It’s not usual for me to make an assumption on DLC for games, as I feel they don’t have an overall stance on the main game itself, whatever genre it is. However, when you get a new retake on the game that breathes into it, or saving something from dying once it’s suffered a long life (items in this case, not people… that’d be going too far), you can’t help but appreciate such things a little longer.

With that, I decided to take a try at Rockstar’s The Lost and Damned campaign to see just how different Liberty City is when you’re in a motorcycle gang, representing yourselves to gain a larger crew, and generally fighting the cops when things get out of hand in a gang war. Niko may no longer be in the spotlight this time around, but Johnny is certainly a welcome replacement.

The main story starts off with ‘The Lost MC’ leader, Jimmy, leaving from rehab after some serious past issues with his attitude. During the time he’s been away however, things have changed for the club, making business opportunites for themselves rather than being a ‘gun slinging’ gang of no-doers. Of course, Jimmy doesn’t see this as a good thing, rather opting to go to the old days, but this in turn causes dispute among the gang, and tensions get high.

Now, while playing through the missions, you’ll be riding in formation with your crew most of the time, and while doing so, a Lost MC emblem will appear on the road. Riding on it for a few seconds will add additional dialouge from your crew, as well as adding health and armour in preparartion for gunfights. In gunfights, your crew will always be up for taking down the opposistion, and each mission finished with them will make them tougher for future jobs. However, they can also be killed in battle, so you need to keep an eye on them if you want them to stick around. Dead teammates are added to a memorial wall at the Lost clubhouse. If you happen to get killed as well, replaying the mission when prompted will put you at the nearest checkpoint, which saves a lot of repeated driving from A to B. This is a very helpful thing to have, as it makes each mission less aggravating when you’re repeating the same pattern.

As most of the time you’ll be riding, you need a good sturdy bike, and the new mechanics keep you from crashing, you’re not completely immune from doing so, but it certainly seems more likely that you’ll stay on your seat as opposed to Niko. The new tracks are a welcome addition also, but oddly enough, if you don’t play for a while, it’s a bit hard to locate which tracks are additional from the previous list.

Of course, in a gunfight, you need good weapons, and with the new DLC you certainly get your fair share. The first one you’ll get your grubby hands on with is the sawed-off shotgun, two bullets to a clip, but also very deadly when up close. For drivebys, the 9mm automatic is a good addition if you don’t have a submachine gun. Not as powerful, but ammo is most certainly easy to come by. There’s also the grenade launcher, which can be useful for getting enemies out of cover, and the range of impact is quite large too, so anyone nearby will end up flying. Pipe bombs are the new addition in terms of grenades. They can be dropped from vehicles, and holding down the launch button for a set time also decreases the fuse, thus resulting in a faster explosion. Last but not least, the almighty combat shotgun, which is an auto shotgun which packs a punch at close or long range. If you’re starting to run out on weapons, you can use your phone to call for a weapons van, which is similar to Little Jacob’s service.

Additional side-missions that your crew get to enjoy are the bike races, which are similar to Brucie’s standard vehicle races, the only exception is that you get a crew member helping you out, and other racers can be knocked off their bikes with a bat. It’s a team sport, violent yet entertaining. The other miscallanious job you can perform are Gang Wars, which may sound similar to turf wars in San Andreas, but they work differently. You don’t really take over any bit of land for your own, your only task is to find the ‘Angels of Death’ and kill them all. It seems that this could have worked somewhat better, as it feels like any standard hit and run mission. Of course, finishing a set number of these gets you rewards.

I’ve run down the path now explaining what you can expect, but really, the real point you need is whether this is worth buying, and it’s all down to if you can really pick it up without having something else swaying you. 1600MS Points is, as I’ve been hearing, quite the steep point. However, to be fair, this is not just a simple paint job, it does seem that the reason to why this first set of content was never released last year wasn’t really due to pressure, but rather trying to add as much as possible, but not too much that it wouldn’t make another DLC chapter pointless.

If you enjoyed Niko’s hardship while he tries to locate one man, while being threatened by mobsters, ending up in some serious problems with his life, and generally trying to put some sense into his cousin. Well, this is a different story, so you’re getting a very different point of view with foul mouthed bikers, who love nothing more than taking down the cops who ruin their fun. Although, both stories intertwine which might make the player think of how clever this story really is. The diamond heist that Ray was putting together for example, there’s actually more to it than what Niko was put through.

A good point to keep in mind before trying this additional chapter, is to keep the game going for as long as possible. With the new miscallanious quests and multiplayer modes, this could be worth the money spent providing you don’t go barging through everything in such short time. The main storyline is meant to be ten hours at least, but sadly this isn’t true if you rush it. In other cases, this may give GTA IV another chance of appreciation, even more so from those who never spent enough time with it in the first place.