18 Sep 09
Every gamer has something they love about the Grand Theft Auto series. It was the motorbike that first highlighted this effect. Rockstar ditched them when the series moved into 3D, only for all the players to smile politely and say 'where the hell did all the bikes go?'
We finally got motorcycles out of our system in the previous downloadable episode in the GTA IV series, The Lost and The Damned, but we're now getting excited about another fan favourite: the parachute. They were last seen in GTA 3: San Andreas, and here they're all over the place, in both main missions and basejumping side-missions. And they're great.
But let's start at the beginning. This episode is the final instalment in the GTA IV 'trilogy', tying up loose ends in the story and generally going out with a bang. You play Luis Lopez, friend and business partner to the eponymous Gay Tony and a once-successful nightclub owner who's drowning in trouble. The missions revolve around your frantic attempts to keep Gay Tony away from his shark-like investors.
It contrasts heavily with the first two instalments - the grimy, filtered look of The Lost and The Damned is replaced with a glitzy neon sheen and an over-the-top attitude. It's one big disco club night out, one in which everyone has a gun tucked in their afros.
