Grand Theft Auto IV: Lost & Damned Member Review for the Xbox360

The Good: Great new characters, dialog is as witty and mature as ever

The Bad: Too much shooting, to many GTA4 mission retreads, doesn't try anything new, pretty short, same GTA4 problems exist

The Lost and Damned is the first of two expansions for GTA4, but we should feel lucky just to have more. The expansion is short, doesn't really do anything new, but is satisfying enough to recommend a purchase. The new characters are great, there's still that witty GTA dialog, but the game is seriously lacking in new mission types, and treads too much on the original game's content.

You play as The Lost Motorcycle Club's Johnny Klebitz who is trying to help re-establish his motorcycle gang and beat out his rivals The Angels of Death. All the new characters are great to listen to, but there's just not enough of it. The missions were the typical blow this up, kill these guys, run from cops, deliver these drugs etc. Nothing new or interesting outside of GTA norm which is what I wanted to see. The only "new" mission types are motorcycle races and gang wars which are as uninteresting as they sound. The missions here are really hard mainly because of GTA's overall problems. These range from dying with just a few hits, too many guys thrown at you, crappy vehicle control, and some various glitches that were never fixed.

The expansion tries to tie in to some cameos from past missions, so actually some are retreads that you have already played, just in a different point of view. The only missions that felt different were when you ride on the back of a bike and shoot down various foes. There are only two missions like this, but I really have to say there is just too much shooting in this expansion. Almost every mission requires you to take down hordes of thugs, this becomes very frustrating when you are dying dozens of times per mission.

You have maybe less than 10 hours of gameplay here if you just stick to the story missions. Each character has about 3 or 4 for you to do, some only one. The main reason to play this expansion is for the new characters, protagonist, and excellent dialog which will make you laugh. The game is crude, mature, and down right dirty in some instances, but this just pushes the envelope like we come to expect from a GTA game. If you really loved the original and want some more GTA action, this is a decent expansion, but don't expect the game to try anything different or new.