The Ballad of Gay Tony is the game Grand Theft Auto IV should have been.
Even though this is the ballad of "Gay" Tony Prince, you actually play as his not-so-equal partner and enforcer, Luis Lopez. He's certainly a fresh direction for a playable character, if only because you can pretty much count the number of Latino playable characters with one hand, but ultimately his rather cliched demeanor makes him feel less fully fleshed as Niko and Johnny. The story itself stumbles due to this as well. There aren't that many characters worth caring about, the plot seems to go in too many directions at once and even the supposed ballad of Mr. Prince doesn't feel all that spectacular. Nevertheless, just like TLaD, the story is masterfully weaved into the existing fabric of GTA IV's grand tale, shedding light on new details and offering new, interesting perspectives on some of the more important events in that game. For example, I always wondered what happened to Ray Bulgarin, the angry psycho Russian who blamed Niko for the loss of his diamonds. He didn't pop up that many times in GTA IV, but every time he did, the story took on an even more dire trajectory. It seemed as though he was slowly and carefully being built up as an important antagonist and obstacle for Niko, yet he disappeared just as quickly as he appeared, without any kind of closure. TBoGT finally resolves this lingering question with an explosive and satisfying way.
So while the story and characters may not hold up in comparison with GTA IV and TLaD, the gameplay outdoes both handily. The core setup itself hasn't changed a bit; you'll still do missions for different people, most of which involve shootups and high speed chases. But the most dramatic improvement is in the missions themselves. There's a lot more variety this time around, instead of GTA IV's endless barrage of monotonous "go to spot A and kill everyone" missions. You'll take part in a daring subway train heist, a dizzying firefight inside the cubicles of a skyscraper, with a parachute jump out the window to cap it all off. So not only is there more variety, the missions are grander and, dare I say it, more ludicrous. And that's exactly what was missing from the original game; that over the top grandeur and goofyness. There's also a new scoring system for each mission in which you're given a completion percentage in accordance with how many specific goals (such as time of completion, player damage and headshots) you managed to achieve. After completing the main story, you're free to replay any mission in an effort to improve your completion percentage. It's nothing revolutionary and likely won't appeal to everyone, but for all you completionists and competitive types, it's a fun distraction.
Speaking of distractions, one of the lousiest part of GTA IV and TLaD were the activities. In a game with a life-like open world with limitless opportunities, a game of pool, darts or bowling sounds downright insulting. In TBoGT, all of these have been replaced with more interesting offerings. There's an underground fight arena, a club management minigame (with interesting incentives), dancing and drinking minigames, BASE jumping/skydiving events and triathlons, in which you'll need to race in the air, on the water and on land in one go. The skydiving events are my personal favorite and it's an awesome rush jumping out a helicopter and taking in the full view of Liberty City while freefalling a hundred miles a minute.
Graphically the game hasn't seen any improvements, apart from a new color scheme. After TLaD's gritty filter grain, TBoGT looks brimming with color and glitz. The RAGE engine still shows it has claws with terrific particle effects and the sheer size of LC, though you can definately see its age. It's also a bit disappointing that no new graphical whistles have been added, though the lack of such additions in no way dampens the experience of cruising around Liberty City.
As is customary in any GTA game, the voice work is simply stellar, from major players down to the individual citizens of Liberty. There's also a ton of new tracks in the game, which all fit the glitzy night club theme. There are also new episodes of The Republican Space Rangers and an entirely new anime spoof called Princess Robot Bubblegum, both of which are terrific examples of Rockstar's unique sense of humor, effortlessly mixing biting satire and social commentary with low brow bathroom jokes and sexual innuendo.
The Ballad of Gay Tony would be a great purchase even if it were a fully priced game, there's just so much content and fun packed in. New weapons, new cars and helicopters create entirely new ways of wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting denizens of Liberty City. The missions on offer are by far some of the best offered in the GTA series so far. There's just no two ways about it; had GTA IV been created following this formula, it had been an immensely better and more enjoyable experience. It's rare for an expansion pack to outshine its parent, but that's just what The Ballad of Gay Tony does.