Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony -- Initial Impression.

Next up for me is the conclusion to the Grand Theft Auto IV saga with Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony. For those who don't know, Grand Theft Auto IV's second downloadable expansion, The Ballad of Gay Tony, provides the third side to a major Grand Theft Auto IV mission and subplot. It all concerns some stolen diamonds and where they actually ended up. You saw Niko Bellic's perspective in Grand Theft Auto IV and Johnny Klebitz's in Lost and Damned. Now you'll get the final side of things from the perspective of Louis Lopez in The Ballad of Gay Tony. What am I expecting in my second return Grand Theft Auto IV's version of Liberty City? More of the exact same actually. I'm expecting about another twenty hours of sandbox mayhem. All of the chaos, the over the top missions, the man dates and mini-games, as well as a return of the base jumping from San Andreas. But more importantly I'm expecting a great story and some great new characters. I'm hoping the game provides a fitting conclusion to Grand Theft Auto IV. I'm also hoping that The Ballad of Gay Tony provides the same focused experience as Lost and Damned. From the time I've spent with the game so far it seems that they've lightened up a bit and The Ballad of Gay Tony has a bit of the far more over the top Vice City vibe. At least initially, I'm not very far in the actual main story. As with every Grand Theft Auto title I tend to avoid the story missions and work my way through the side activities. I've been going through the gang wars and have begun looking for the seagulls that make up Liberty City's hidden packages. We'll have to see how it all turns out of course. But this one is looking like a sure thing at this point.