Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned is the first of two episodic expansion packs developed for the Xbox 360 version of the video game Grand Theft Auto IV, developed by Rockstar North. It was released on 17 February, 2009.[2] It is the third expansion pack game in the Grand Theft Auto series (the first since Grand Theft Auto: London, 1961, released in 1999), and the twelfth release overall.
The Lost and Damned features a new protagonist, Johnny Klebitz, who is a member of Liberty City's biker gang The Lost, a gang which is featured in missions throughout the course of Grand Theft Auto IV. Dan Houser, vice president of creative development at Rockstar Games, claims the episode will show "a different side of Liberty City".[3] Jeronimo Barrera, Vice President of Product Development for Rockstar Games, has said that the episodes are experiments because they are not sure that there are enough users with access to online content on the Xbox 360.[4] Take-Two Interactive's Chief Financial Officer, Lainie Goldstein revealed that Microsoft was paying a total of $50 million for the first two episodes.[5]
A combined standalone disc-based package titled Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City, which does not require the original Grand Theft Auto IV game to be played, was released and contains both The Lost and Damned and Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony.[6]
The story begins with Johnny Klebitz and all the members of the infamous biker gang, The Lost Motorcycle Club, driving through the night streets of Alderney. In a brief cameo, Niko Bellic, the main character of Grand Theft Auto IV, swears at a passer-by on the street as the gang drives past.
Johnny is the vice president of the gang, but has been the acting president for a year because the club's president, Billy Grey, has been in court-ordered rehab after being arrested for narcotics possession. As leader, Johnny has established The Lost throughout Liberty City by making truces and deals after suffering several financial troubles, mainly caused by Billy's poor leadership. The most notable truce is with The Lost's rivals, The Angels of Death, which has allowed The Lost to operate their drug deals and gun running operations more freely.
On being released from rehab, Billy immediately reverts to a life of crime and thus tensions quickly grow between Billy and Johnny, who believe the gang should go different ways. Johnny wants to keep the gang running smoothly, deeming war with other gangs as immature and bad for business, whereas Billy prefers acts of random violence and mayhem. As such, Billy quickly breaks the truce established by Johnny and a gang war erupts between The Lost and The Angels of Death, which serves as the main basis for the game. Along the way, Johnny becomes involved with Ray Boccino and the infamous diamond deal seen in Grand Theft Auto IV. Johnny also has to deal with his ex-girlfriend, Ashley, a drug addict who constantly gets herself into trouble.
Eventually, Billy is arrested after a failed drug deal with the Triads and Johnny takes over as President of The Lost. This immediately sparks a civil war in the gang, one side with Johnny, the other with Brian Jeremy, who is still loyal to Billy and believes Johnny to be responsible for Billy's arrest. Brian stages a coup against Johnny in which most of the Lost are killed, but Brian escapes. Johnny later arrives at Brian's safehouse and kills him along with the last of his goons, ending Brian's own chapter of the Lost. Shortly after, it is revealed that Billy is going to testify against the Lost in exchange for entering the Witness Protection Program. Johnny leads a raid on the state prison in Alderney, where Billy is being held, and personally executes him. Immediately afterwards Johnny discovers that Jim, a married man with a child and a trusted veteran of The Lost, has been killed in retribution for the botched diamond deal earlier in the game. The end reveals that the only surviving members of The Lost are Johnny, Clay, Terry and Angus. Their club and brotherhood destroyed, they decide to burn their clubhouse to the ground. The last shot is of them watching it burn, contemplating what comes next. Ashley promises Johnny that she will go to rehab, with Johnny wishing her luck.
At several points throughout the course of the game, the plot intertwines with events from Grand Theft Auto IV and is seen and played out from Johnny's perspective. These include Elizabeta's drug deal going wrong, and Ray Boccino's diamond operation (both of which were played from Niko's perspective in the main game). It is revealed that it was Johnny who kidnapped Roman Bellic and took him to the warehouse in Bohan where Niko eventually rescued him in the main game. It is also revealed that a seemingly random biker that Niko killed for Ray Boccino in the main game was actually Johnny's best friend, Jim Fitzgerald. Also, Niko's killing of The Lost member Jason Michaels under orders from Mikhail Faustin is mistaken for an assassination by The Angels of Death, re-igniting the gang war between them. The ending movie shows key points in the original story line, such as Niko and Roman finding their home and cab business destroyed, and Niko executing Vlad, with The Lost riding in the background. One of the missions also involves Tony Prince from The Ballad of Gay Tony and provides Johnny's perspective to the first piece of plot to the expansion's storyline.
Played this game on XBOX 360 Elite.Have you played it?Did you like it or not?Please post here!