It's grunge versus disco balls in the tale of two halves; one average, the other superb.
And you know what? It exceeded those expectations.
Not at first, mind. At first I played Lost and the Damned. Johnny Klebitz is a biker for the Lost -- Hell's Angels in videogame form -- who's disquieted by his boss' propensity for violence. Not that he baulks at unloading a shotgun shell into someone's face, but he sure does complain. As a whole, Lost and the Damned is a pretty uninteresting addition to the GTA lore. There's a greater reliance on bikes, as you'd expect, but the missions feel lifted from Niko Bellic's adventure some twelve months before. There's very little to get excited about. Klebitz isn't even a particularly likeable protagonist, and his safe houses are filled with drum-bashing, guitar-riffing, scream-heavy metal music, which fits the game's theme, but wears thin after extended play.
Admittedly Rockstar do a good job of differentiating the seedy biker underworld from GTA IV, if only in appearance. The menus and load-screens have been given a face-lift with a changed font to boot. But the grainy, graphical filter that pervades the game (and comes by default) looks utterly horrid. Yes, I'm aware that Rockstar are going for a grunge look, but for the first hour I thought there was something wrong with my disc, before discovering that the option could be turned off.
By the game's end I wasn't so much worried as indifferent. I'd had fun, I'd killed some people and I'd devoured the story in one or two sittings, good going for a game of six or seven hours. So yes, it was fun. But nothing much more than that.
Think grunge. As dour as your sour-faced grandma.
Then I moved on to Ballad of Gay Tony.
Think pink neon lights! Disco balls! Dancing! Clubs! Wealthy debauchery!
Here we get the best Rockstar game yet. Perhaps I'm more inclined to going out to clubs and having fun than sitting in a dingy bar with my biker mates, leather jacket slung over a puke-tinged bar stool, but the Ballad of Gay Tony is infinitely better than Lost. There's more to do, more fun to be had, more variety on offer and a far more likeable -- yet just as morally dubious -- set of characters. It's as if Rockstar spent years surrounding themselves in kitsch, club-obsessed culture before undertaking the game, for the atmosphere is perfect. And the characters too. Their stories are told with remarkable restraint. Not one character is over-told, over-played and acted. Nothing seems forced in this story, merely entirely natural. The politician who bears all for Luiz Lopez in a calm, deadpan manner, Tony Prince who means well but falls prey to the fallacies of drugs, Luiz Lopez himself; Rockstar does what most literature fails to do: it presents characters that commit crimes, yet ensures you're rooting for them all the way.
It looks good too, though the most noticeable improvement is in the framerate. Surface changes to the font, menu and load-screens are also present, and not once will you feel like you're trekking down well-worn territory, for Ballad eeks out a considerably difference experience.
In fact, it's probably too good. There's no way another Liberty City game can top this. At least, not for a few years still. The Ballad of Gay Tony is the pinnacle. The best. I look forward to seeing what's next, in a new environ. Oh, and the Lost and the Damned… play that first just to delay the brilliance that follows.