Episodes from Liberty City highlights two new episodes that have vastly different tones than the story of GTA 4.
In The Lost and Damned, you control veteran gang member of The Lost, Johnny Klebitz. The gang's president, Bill Grey, has just been released from rehab after a vaguely-described bike accident (described with quotes something along the line of "You took that girl's leg off" - Yeesh). Billy is a bit of a loose cannon and is hellbent on bloodshed and destruction. The gameplay is largely unchanged from GTA 4 as you go around Liberty City doing missions for various people that contain driving and shooting sequences. Since The Lost is a biker gang, there is a heavy influence on motorcyles. There are several motorcycles new in this episode. The major optional missions are bike races, which are great fun as they allow you to hit your opponents with melee weapons, just like in the good old days of Road Rash! There are a few cool new weapons as well, including a sawed-off shotgun, a pipe bomb, and a grenade launcher. This episode stands out because of its very dark tone as it focuses on characters in a gritty urban underground setting. The protagonist Johnny Klebitz himself didn't seem like he was paid much attention to by the writers - he isn't very well-developed and actually isn't particularly likable. And a congratulations is due to The Lost and Damned for being the first game I've played to contain a fully exposed penis.*Appluase*
The Ballad of Gay Tony has a drastically different tone. It's much crazier and more light-hearted and abandons gritty realism and goes for explosive action. I need to get this clear, first - The Ballad of Gay Tony is way better than The Lost and Damned. In Gay Tony, you control Luis Lopez, a kid from the suburbs who did the unexpected and joined the club scene and now works full-time for nightclub owner "Gay" Tony Prince. When you're playing all of the content in The Ballad of Gay Tony, you will be thinking "I get all this?" because the amount of content you get is really stunning. The missions are more explosive and fun than in GTA 4 or The Lost and Damned, the story is longer, and there's more optional stuff to do. The best thing is the inclusion of parachutes, as well as numerous weapons (sticky bombs, sniper with exploding rounds, shotguns with exploding rounds, etc.) and vehicles.
The multiplayer in Gay Tony can be great fun, that is, if you can find people to play. Back when it came out there were plenty of people playing but now there isn't so many. The use of parachutes in Free Mode can make for some great collaborative fun. I had plenty of ideas for games to play in Free Mode, but since people didn't really play this online, it kind of didn't happen.
So, yeah, in a nutshell, what I'm trying to say, is go ahead and pick this one up if you enjoyed GTA 4, because it gives a great reason to jump back into the world of Liberty City, this time exploring two different sides of it.