With the news of GTA V on the horizon lets take a look back at GTA IV – The Ballad of Gay Tony: Review

Game Review:  Grand Theft Auto IV – The Ballad of Gay Tony

Platform: XBOX 360

The Ballad of Gay Tony trailer

Here we take a look at Rockstars latest addition to the GTA series, GTA IV’s add on story The Ballad of Gay Tony.

Grand Theft Auto first came to our screens back in 1997, released on the PS1, PC and later for the Gameboy Colour.  The original game was created with a bird’s eye view over the city over 3 cities, Liberty City, San Andreas and Vice City. These same cities used in the GTA series further down the line.  GTA has been an ever growing game and the fan base has widened and widened.  GTA can be split in 4 Eras, ERA 1 Grand Theft Auto, London 1969 & 1961.  Era 2, Grand Theft Auto 2. Era 3, Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, Advance, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories & Vice City Stories.  Era 4, GTA IV, Lost & The Damned, China Town Wars, The Ballad of Gay Tony & Episodes from Liberty City.

Era 1 selling 1 Million +, Era 2, 2 Million, Era 3 93.1 Million and Era 4 currently at 93.1 Million, giving GTA a total series sale of approx 120 Million +

Since the early days of the first GTA Rockstar have advanced their game from the basic overhead view to a third person shooter with stunning high detailed graphics.  Huge cities that give you the feeling that this place could be real.

The Ballad of Gay Tony kicks off with a cut scene in which your controlling character Luis Fernando Lopez is involved as a victim of a bank robbery run by previous character from the original story of GTA IV, showing this story is running alongside that of Niko Bellic’s. Luis is a personal bodyguard for Gay Tony, who owns the biggest night clubs in Liberty City, who finds himself in deep bother after loaning money from a local Mafia in which he cannot afford to pay back.  I personally find the story more compelling than that of Niko’s and feel the characters much more interesting. TBOGT manages to keep the audience amused with mini games as it always has.  One of the first sequences in the game if you choose to take part is in Tony’s nightclub where you can take part in a champagne drinking competition.  I found this to be highly amusing as for at least 2-3 minutes after the mini game finished Luis was unable to walk straight and feel over most objects in the nightclub, which eventually ended up in Luis falling down a set of stair and smashing his head wide open.

A new mission score has been introduced, which gives you a score percentage at the end of each mission so you can judge how well you have completed each task, at the completion of the game you are able to re-do these mission to try a beat your previous best, adding to the games life span ad its replay ability.

I did find some issues with the cameras during the cover system.  Occasionally the camera would face a corner and you would be unable to move the camera resulting in having to come out of cover and possibly being shot. Some graphics don’t show up until you are a foot or so away from them such as bushes on grassed areas.

The soundtrack again is a brilliant feature and has once again updated its radio stations. And the voice acting adds to the touch of realism to bring you a close to movie like scenes. Other games in its genre such as Saints Row are a far cry from the slickness of GTA. Even the small glitches as mentioned above cannot take away anything from this game and how well it performs given the size of the maps, the graphics and the amount of detail gone into Liberty City. There are again multiplayer options such as ,free mode, deathmatch, team deathmatch, and race adding to the single player mode.

Overall I feel the game has improved from GTA IV mainly down to the storyline and a set of characters you can relate to more easily. As a player I never felt convinced when I was playing as Niko Bellic and never much cared for him.

The game play is relatively smooth and cover system works well in combat although there are times when you are left with no option but to run out into open spaces and take a few bullets as enemies hide behind objects and refuse to come out of cover (How dare they! Show yourself!) But again this does not take away from what is a great game, and just the design of the city itself is enough to have you cruising around it, in your stolen 4×4 admiring the sights and sounds of Liberty City.