Words By S. Cadet

Rockstar Games recently announced the newest GTA IV episode called “The Ballad of Gay Tony.” It lets people play as Luis Lopez, an assistant to Tony Price, aka “Gay Tony,” one of Liberty City’s most popular night club owners. There isn’t much info about new gameplay mechanics or missions at the moment. Still, I bet it’ll involve criminal activity as seen in previous GTA‘s. The downloadable content will drop this fall and cost 1600 MS points ($20 bucks in normal words) just like the previous GTA episode.

This is the second entry in Rockstar’s GTA IV series exclusive to the Xbox 360. The first episode, The Lost and Damned, dropped in February and was well received for the most part. It chronicled the story of Johnny Klebitz, member of “The Lost” Biker Gang. It reportedly featured about 12-20 hours of new single player missions that revolved around the gang. It also introduced new weapons, abilities and online multiplayer modes. I haven’t checked it out but it’s been on my to do list for awhile now.

Speaking of The Lost And Damned, Rockstar will drop both episodes on one disc. This release will be called Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City and it’ll go for $39.99. This may be a better look for some consumers for two reasons. It’s actually on a physical medium as well as playable as a standalone copy. The catch for the downloadable versions of The Lost And Damned and Gay Tony is they require an original copy of GTA IV to work. So basically you could opt to play the disc version of these episodes without owning GTA IV. GTA: Episodes From Liberty City should drop sometime this fall. At this point I’ll just wait for the DVD rather than drop two Jacksons on games that’ll eat up my hard drive.

Rockstar is known to push the envelope and I’m sure people will get offended by the subject matter. Still, something tells me the single player to Gay Tony will be pretty funny considering the GTA series excels at gay jokes and potty humor. It’s one of the few games that makes me laugh so I’m looking forward to it. Plus the retail version will get me up to speed on The Lost And Damned and all the extras.

I predict they’ll at least show a trailer at E3 next week so I’ll try to get more info on the game at the event.

GTA: The Ballad Of Gay Tony Coming This Fall [CNet]

Rockstar Announces GTA: The Ballad Of Gay Tony, Coming To Xbox Live And Retail Compilation [Joystiq]

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