Tuesday, February 17, 2009

GTA IV: TLAD IGN Video Review

Nice review by Hil, basically its more GTA IV. I was pretty skeptical about this DLC, between the high $20 price and the odd pairing of NYC with motorcycle gangs. When I saw the characters and setting I had to laugh.. Niko's story was believable, as there actually is a huge Russian mafia presence in Brooklyn. But fat white guys on Harleys? Thats clearly a storyline from GTA San Andreas (or somewhere else) that got left on the cutting room floor and was retrofitted into Niko's Liberty City simply due to $50M being thrown at Rockstar by Microsoft and a short timetable.

Let me tell you what little I know about the real motorcycle gangs here in NYC. We certainly dont have gangs of big fat white guys in their 40s riding around on hogs in Manhattan, let alone New Jersey (Alderney), where the GTA TLAD story mostly takes place. Maybe there are like 5 of those guys, and they all hang out at Hogs N Heifers, and they probably work as accountants during the day. No, the real motorcycle gangs of NYC are in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, and they are made up of ethnically diverse men and women in their late teens and 20s. These ricers ride imported Japanese performance bikes, often modified and painted for maximum wow factor. For the most part, they are nice kids who dont drink, do drugs or get into trouble. But they love bikes, modding, and speed, and they often race around over the speed limit, so sometimes they'll get cops chasing them, almost always to no avail. They go home, lock up their bikes and study for their History exam or Microsoft certification test. Probably wouldnt make for a very interesting videogame.

1 comment:

Chronic said...

My first impressions of the DLC havent been too great. The updates to the multiplayer and the new modes are the main draw here. The new story and characters just dont resonate with Liberty City - at all. Honestly at this point I wish I had put my $20 towards the Sonic Sega Genesis Mega collection - its 40 classic Genesis and Arcade games for a paltry $30.