Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony

Preview from Yug - Thursday, 17 September 2009 @ 5:18pm

You know how I know you’re gay?

Because you searched for ‘GAY TONY’ on google and you’re disappointed that you clicked on a link to a video game preview.

...

You have to admit, Rockstar simply aren’t subtle anymore about their controversial game design choices, whether it be full frontal male nudity or naming their next GTA episode to potentially alienating all the football watching, beer guzzling, ball scratching heterosexual males that refuse to play some ‘poofter’ game.

Which is a shame really, as the latest and LAST episode to be released with the Grand Theft Auto IV by line looks like it’s shaping up to be the biggest and most over the top balls to the wall action game yet.

Yo, watchu lookin at Willis

First things first though – you don’t play the games namesake, Gay Tony. The main protagonist through which you’ll control the game is a Puerto Rican by the name of Luis Lopez, personal bodyguard and business partner of the aforementioned Gay Tony.

It’s a nice change actually, and shows that Rockstar have significantly planned ahead with the narrative and characters in the GTA IV universe. Niko Bellic was a loner immigrant, having to work his way from the bottom of the food chain in a solitary quest for revenge. Johnny Klebbitz in Lost and Damned was an established character, always having his ‘brothers’ around him, and set in a vastly different underground environment – that of biker culture.

The Ballad of Gay Tony has its sights on the high life, the filthy rich and powerful, of which you are a part of. You’ll find the focus is on the nightlife in Liberty City, especially considering the business Luis and Tony are engaged in is running the cities most popular gay and straight nightclubs.

It’s also the catalyst to the games story (it’s not all hookers and blow kids), as Tony has sold stakes in his ventures to all manner of nasty criminal characters looking to use them as leverage. Unfortunately, these investments turn out to be more than the clubs themselves are worth – cue Luis having to help keep the creditors at bay while looking out for his friend.

So that’s the general gist of the games story, but what else is new?

I got to play and see a few different missions that highlight the new additions, perhaps the most exciting one being the parachute. Not seen since San Andreas, it makes a welcome return as alot of missions will have you involved in activities using aerial vehicles, or set towards the top of various buildings.

Parachutes are back ... I still miss the rocketpack though

The first mission I saw in fact required stealing a helicopter only to fly high enough to jump out and parachute down to stealthily land on the top of a building you had to breach. Upon making your way through the level and taking out the target, your best option for escape is simply to jump out a window and base jump to the streets below.

One of the cool things with this mission was timing it just right and landing on in the back of your accomplices truck after you’ve parachuted out of the building. Sure, if you miss it, you can just quickly steal a car for a quick getaway, but landing on the truck is actually an optional objective that adds to the final score of your mission – similar to the Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown system. Completionists will find themselves replaying missions over and over again to top their own (and their friends) scores.

Some of the other missions were ... well ... appropriately over the top for a game who’s characters are too rich, high and depraved for their own good. Continuing Rockstar’s history of ridiculously over the top ‘gangster wannabe’ characters, one mission has you helping Yusef Amir (the property developer Niko and Playboy discuss in the ‘Deconstruction for Beginners’ mission in GTA IV – the more you know) to steal a subway train car. Why? Because he wants one. This guy is genuinely hilarious. Perhaps my favourite line in the whole playthrough is at the end of the cutscene in his apartment where the plan is discussed, as Yusef continually makes references to the multiple ladies waiting for him in his room upstairs. As you walk out at the end, Yusef turns and heads to the bedroom he says ‘Now, I have some other business to attend to... LADIES! Prepare to SUFFER!’.

Needless to say you find yourself jumping onto a moving train, lying flat as bridges pass you buy, and fending off police and swat helicopters to reach the forward carriage, only for Yusef to arrive with a helicopter to pick up and carry the entire carriage away. It’s something so ridiculously ‘Michael Bay’ over the top, but it works because the Grand Theft Auto series has always known when to take itself seriously, and when to be stupid and fun.

ACTIONACTIONACTIONACTIONACTIONACTION!!!

Some of the other missions I played had Luis stealing an attack chopper off a luxury yacht, only to then turn around and destroy the yacht and it’s fleeing occupants while under a barrage of missiles and bullets. Another mission has you throwing sticky bombs against vehicles in a car park and detonating them all when the police turn up for maximum carnage.

It’s like the developers watched every action movie they could get their hands on and went ‘right, we need to have THIS in Ballad of Gay Tony'. Endorsements don’t get much more heterosexual than that :)

Other additions are the new weapons such as the Belgian-designed P90 (counter strike fans rejoice), an AA-12 shotgun (this thing PUNCHES through cars, it’s overpowered awesomeness), and a golden Uzi. Plus we’ll finally see the return of the tank!!

"It’s like the developers watched every action movie they could get their hands on and went 'right, we need to have THIS in Ballad of Gay Tony'"


As well as base jumping side missions, you’ll also be able to do some Club Management, running Tony’s clubs (the Maisonette 9 and Hercules), dealing with unruly patrons, starting dance parties, and taking care of VIP’s. Good practice for when we open the Mana Bar perhaps?

As a final note, it’s interesting to see how serious Rockstar are about pushing the fact that these Episodes aren’t the same as other ‘expansions’ or ‘downloadable content’. In fact, Ballad of Gay Tony is being paired up to be released along with Lost and Damned as a standalone disc you can purchase at the store. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that you won’t need the original GTA IV or Xbox Live in order to play them.