An Afternoon with The Lost

Setting aside Niko Bellic's American dream, Rockstar North prop up last year's Grand Theft Auto 4 with 360 exclusive expansion pack The Lost and Damned. This first slice of episodic content focuses on The Lost, a biker gang prone to brief, violent flirtations with GTA4's main storyline. Players take control of occasional Bellic assist character Johnny Klebitz, smarting after gang control is steered away from his entrepreneurial instincts, and back into pointless smash-and-grabs, by rehab vet Billy Grey.

Brief impressions rather than a full review, I'm barely a quarter through.

Thankfuly, Rockstar North has resisted any urge to reset Liberty City to unplundered; all islands are open from the get-go. Klebitz stumbles across demolitions grade military hardware at an alarmingly early juncture too. It continues to be readily available throughout, purchased off the back of a pal's truck, who doesn't require buttering-up either. Vehicles have been added, tracklists extended, and motorcycle handling has been tweaked to something a little more tolerable. A big phew there, since bike convoying is frequent. Klebitz himself handles differently too: stout and plodding, where Niko was rapid and tumbling.



Without wishing to give too much away, storyline highlights thus far have included a hilariously curtailed piece of cat and mousing with the LCPD, and the loss of one chapter member quickly spinning out into a street level Patriot Act. Billy Grey is certainly one for brotherhood posturing and paranoid isolationist rhetoric. Follow orders. Stop asking questions. His vocal goon squad have more than a faint whiff of Saints Row 2's nondescript chump army about them - each eager to risk and die for transparent bro fibs. Klebitz has a little more ambition than that. His dry remarks taking the bore out of endless odes to 'deadbeats' and counter-culture camaraderie. The way I end up playing forms a kind of individualist text too - bikes intermittently dumped for more reliable car motoring, default weapon sets traded up, and heavies going uncalled. Who plays GTA to be in a gang anyway? It's always more fun to accomplish alone.