One of Microsoft’s early victories in the HD generation was nullifying the time exclusive of the Grand Theft Auto franchise enjoyed by Sony in the PlayStation 2 era. That wasn’t enough for Microsoft though; they threw $US50 million at Rockstar Games to gain exclusive rights to two downloadable expansion packs for the game (confirmed by their Chief Financial Officer in an earnings call). Now roughly ten months after release, the first of these packs, The Lost and Damned has hit Xbox Live Marketplace, and it really raises the bar for what console gamers can expect from downloadable content.


The Lost and Damned is set in Liberty City, almost parallel to Niko’s story in Grand Theft Auto IV. You play as Johnny Klebitz, a Jewish biker who acts as Vice President of The Lost Motorcycle Club. The Lost have long been at war with rival Liberty City bike gang The Angels of Death, but Johnny has managed to eke out a truce, and focus on developing the club’s business interests. That all changes when the game begins, however, as the President of the club, Billy, has been released from jail, and is ready to pick up where he left off. That immediately causes Billy and Johnny to clash – Billy thinks Johnny has become too soft, and doubts his loyalty, while Johnny thinks Billy has gone nuts and is going to get everybody killed in a gang war.

Johnny’s story in The Lost and Damned is not quite as heavy handed as Niko’s in Grand Theft Auto IV, though it manages to engross the player through its entire run. Rockstar North’s abilities in presenting a story seem to be growing as well – the cutscenes use better angles, the character models react in a more believable way, and the dialogue and acting is a lot better all around. The characters you meet are all well fleshed out (one in particular gets a little too much flesh out, if you know what I mean), and their interactions with Johnny are a lot less annoying. Don’t expect to have your buddies calling you at 3am to look at “beeeeg American teetees”. The story does seem to skip around a bit, never standing on ceremony or explaining more than you need to know.

While you need the original Grand Theft Auto IV disc to play The Lost and Damned, it is very much its own game. A lot of improvements have been made to the basic Grand Theft Auto IV gameplay and tech. One of the first things players will notice is the increased amount of gore – while the basic Grand Theft Auto IV was edited by Rockstar for its release on Australian consoles, The Lost and Damned is not. Game performance is a lot better overall; it holds its framerate well throughout the story – I only had one instance of noticeable slowdown, which was triggered by a number of simultaneously exploding cars and flying bodies.


Missions now have checkpoints, so if you fail, when you answer the retry message, you’ll resume at the nearest checkpoint. This shows that Rockstar North listened to the complaints about the lack of checkpoints in some of the original game’s lengthy missions. It does make progress a lot easier, though. Johnny can also call some of his fellow Lost bikers in for support in missions, and if they manage to make it through alive, they’ll grow stronger and get better weapons. It’s an attempt to try and make you care a bit more about your “brothers”, but you’ll quickly find that Clay and Terry can’t actually die permanently, so you can send them in to die without much consequence.

The most vital change to the basic gameplay mechanics is the bike control. In Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko would fly off if virtually any object came into contact with the bike. Johnny acts as though he has been superglued to the seat, only launching from his vehicle at high speeds. The handling of the bike is much better, and it needed to be given the game’s focus on bike gangs. It’s much more arcade-like, since you can basically do 90 degree handbrake turns on a dime, but it makes it a lot easier to get around the city and escape from the police.

Most players would be content with getting an extra 8-10 hours of gameplay out of their $AU26.40 spent, especially when other developers are happy to charge for much less than that. Rockstar North really went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to new content for The Lost and Damned, however. Some 56 new tracks have been added to the radio, along with a bunch of extra DJ chatter from new personalities. Many of these track selections have been tailored to suit the game’s biker theme – you’ve got songs from rock bands like AC/DC, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, The Doors and Iron Maiden, and heavier stuff from Cannibal Corpse and Sepultura. There’s also a bit of extra urban music from Busta Rhymes and Kanye West. There’s another comedy gig to take in, too.


New content doesn’t stop at a few extra bits on the radio – you get new side activities, like the gang wars, where you can fight the Angels of Death for the rights to 25 territories across Liberty City, or the bike races, during which you are encouraged to beat your opponents with a club, Road Rash style. You’ll get some repeat side missions from some of the characters you’ll meet, like doing Stubbs’ laundry, along with the usual package hunt (fifty seagulls this time). It’s not quite up to the level of San Andreas or Saints Row 2, but the extra effort is appreciated. Johnny also has access to a number of extra weapons and vehicles. Four new weapons make their debut in The Lost and Damned, and of those, the automatic pistol and shotgun are both insanely powerful - almost to the point of being gamebreakers. The number of bikes in the game has been expanded considerably, obviously to fit in with the theme, but there are also a number of new four-wheeled vehicles too. Of course, the unfortunate side effect of all of these gameplay fixes and content additions is that they are restricted to The Lost and Damned; none of it flows back into Grand Theft Auto IV.

The multiplayer side of things gets a boost too. A number of modes have been carried over from the original game and modified to fit in with the biker theme, while a few new modes have been thrown in for good measure. Lone Biker is a “one versus many” situation, where a player is singled out for the others to kill, with whoever manages to kill the lone biker taking his place. With the size of the map, the lone biker will usually tail it and hide for an age, which doesn’t make for the most exciting match. Chopper vs. Chopper is the other new mode, a one-on-one match with one player on a bike and the other in an armed helicopter. The biker needs to make it through a series of checkpoints without being destroyed by the player in the helicopter, which can get very intense. Online performance is roughly the same as the original game, which ranges from decent to pretty good.

With The Lost and Damned, Rockstar North has really gone beyond what people were expecting from a downloadable expansion. The new story is pretty good, they’ve addressed a number of gameplay and performance issues from the base game, and added far more content than we’d have thought. There are a few downsides though; the checkpoint system and new weapons tone down the difficulty a little too much, there are still not enough side activities, and none of the improvements flow back into the standard Grand Theft Auto IV game. Cast those concerns aside, and you have one of the finest expansion packs ever released.