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Rockstar's second downloadable add-on for Grand Theft Auto IV may be known as The Ballad of Gay Tony, but anyone who goes in expecting a radical social message from the world's most controversial developer will be disappointed. If anything, the homosexuality angle is superfluous to Rockstar's agenda: the GTA games have always demonstrated that acting outside the law is the great equaliser, and The Ballad is yet another story of how crime begets crime no matter your class, creed or sexual preference.
While the first episode, The Lost and Damned, focused on Liberty City's biker gangs, The Ballad of Gay Tony is rooted in the glitzy party districts of Algonquin, where nightclub impresario Tony Prince and his business partner and player character Luis Lopez preside over a pair of night spots. Lopez is a typical GTA hero - surrounded by addicts and criminals whom he looks down upon despite being, on the evidence of your actions and his justifications, the worst of all of them.
His adventures crisscross the stories of Niko Bellic and Johnny Klebitz, and it's entertaining to watch Rockstar coax more depth out of its existing matrix of conflicting plot-lines, but the smartest trick here is to shift the focus away from you and onto the supporting cast. Prince is a whiny coke-and-pills addict, and Lopez is a philandering murderer, which turns out to be as much his fault as yours. Neither is particularly sympathetic, and - perhaps deliberately - neither is particularly funny.
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Rockstar's second downloadable add-on for Grand Theft Auto IV may be known as The Ballad of Gay Tony, but anyone who goes in expecting a radical social message from the world's most controversial developer will be disappointed. If anything, the homosexuality angle is superfluous to Rockstar's agenda: the GTA games have always demonstrated that acting outside the law is the great equaliser, and The Ballad is yet another story of how crime begets crime no matter your class, creed or sexual preference.
While the first episode, The Lost and Damned, focused on Liberty City's biker gangs, The Ballad of Gay Tony is rooted in the glitzy party districts of Algonquin, where nightclub impresario Tony Prince and his business partner and player character Luis Lopez preside over a pair of night spots. Lopez is a typical GTA hero - surrounded by addicts and criminals whom he looks down upon despite being, on the evidence of your actions and his justifications, the worst of all of them.
His adventures crisscross the stories of Niko Bellic and Johnny Klebitz, and it's entertaining to watch Rockstar coax more depth out of its existing matrix of conflicting plot-lines, but the smartest trick here is to shift the focus away from you and onto the supporting cast. Prince is a whiny coke-and-pills addict, and Lopez is a philandering murderer, which turns out to be as much his fault as yours. Neither is particularly sympathetic, and - perhaps deliberately - neither is particularly funny.
Read more...
More...