Liberty For All

I'm not the sort who'll queue up to buy a video game, finding myself unable to wait to get my hands on it. I much prefer to wait a few months to gauge the long-term verdict and, frankly, see the price drop by £20 or so. Only twice have I bought a game on the day of release, those being Metal Gear Solid 4 and Grand Theft Auto 4.

Having been a fan of the series since the start, I couldn't wait to see what Rock Star could do on the PS3, especially after Grand Theft Auto: Vice City had endeared itself to my heart so deeply. I wasn't disappointed: the tale of Niko Bellic's escape from a troubled life to what he hoped would be a prosperous one in Liberty City, USA, and his subsequent descent into an existence of murder, chaos and crime was compelling.

What made GTAIV so brilliant was how Liberty City seemed so immersive. Walking down the street, you'd pass people talking on phones, drinking coffee or catching the train. See a guy get hit by a car and in a few minutes, an ambulance would turn up and cart him off. It was fantastic. Which made a return when I finally got hold of Episodes From Liberty City all the more exciting. Initially released as downloads, they've been released together on one disc or even as a complete package with GTAIV, useful to any newcomers to the games scene.

There are two episodes, each following two different characters as they try to survive in the city, occasionally crossing paths with Niko. First, The Lost and Damned circles around Johnny Klebitz, Vice-President of the LC chapter of the Lost Motorcycle Club, a leather-clad bunch of lunatics whom Johnny has managed to whip into some kind of shape in the absence of their leader, Billy, a drug-crazed lunatic. The game throws you in as the gang ride out to meet Billy on his release from court-ordered rehab and continues on the Lost's inevitable slide into madness and Johnny's struggle to stay alive, not helped by his strung-out former girlfriend, meddling politicians and turf wars with a rival gang.

The Lost and Damned feels gritty, to suit the character's circumstances: he sleeps on a grotty mattress in a back room, has done several stretches in prison and screams during combat that he doesn't care if he dies. He lives only for the brotherhood of the gang, and even that begins to crumble around him over the storyline.

In contrast, The Ballad of Gay Tony is full of colour and decadence. We play Luis Lopez, bodyguard, quasi-business partner and friend to Gay Tony, a nightclub owner up to his designer shades to various unpleasant characters. Cleaning up this mess and stopping Tony from going over the edge in a pill-popping frenzy takes up a lot of Luis' time, but he's also got to help out his old neighbourhood friends in their efforts to become successful drug dealers and help out insanely rich Arab businessman Yusuf (in which the voicing of whom Omid Djalili makes me laugh for the first time in his career) with his plans to build the most imposing structure in the city as well as pacifying his disapproving father.

Amusingly, Luis feels no resentment about his lot in life, freely confessing that he's a "murdering maniac" and that "I like killing people for money". He also shows commendable loyalty to Tony, despite his frequent bouts of self-pity, sticks by his old friends despite their catcalls that he's "sold out" and looks after his mother financially. Of the three 'heroes' of the GTAIV saga, he seems to be the only one who gets a happy ending. Perhaps it's because he's such a great dancer, which you can see for yourself in an engaging minigame with ends with either the seduction of your dancing partner or in an extended sequence with sees you get the whole room shaking to a routine. I'm not usually a fan of such mini-games, but trying to get the moves right to Do The Bus Stop by the Fatback Band gets my thumbs up.

Both episodes also feature whole new radio station line-ups, including the excellent Vice City FM, playing 80s classics so that you can enjoy being chased by the Five O with Scritti Politti and Terence Trent D'arby soundtracking it. Mercifully, Rock Star have dispensed with the ultra-annoying friends side-games that were my one real irritation with GTAIV. You can still call up friends to go play air hockey, bowling, darts and so on, but it's no longer a must and they never call you up to insist so. Thanks for that.

All of which brings me to the conclusion of what we can expect from GTAV. Rock Star have been on top of their game with this series since the mid 1990s - will they finally drop the ball or will we be surprised once again by them stepping things up another level? Doubtless I'll be handing over the cash on release day once again.