A series of games about the famous hijacker is one of the most famous in the world. The unrivaled Grand Theft Auto is played by everyone: children, adults, men, women and even the elderly. This is a cult and tribute to culture. The game gave rise to a lot of scandals, it is still blamed for causing cruelty among the masses of the public. Despite the desire of many activists to wind down the project, the series continues to live, develops and does not cease to please its fans.
One of the most noteworthy and rather extensive parts of the game was the fourth Grand Theft Auto, which brought graphics and a lot of new features to the Next Generation series. Also for the game, two full-scale additions with a unique storyline and a rich set of additional content were released. One of these will be discussed in this material. Episode number two - GTA 4: The Ballad of Gay Tony ("Ballad of the Blue Tony").
What is the plot?
Each game from the GTA series is not only “pokatushki” and shooting, but a solid and eventful story. GTA 4: The Ballad of Tony was no exception. The main character in the game was a certain Luis Lopez, a former drug dealer-loser, leading a dissolute criminal lifestyle, reproached by relatives and rather lonely. Now Lopez is the right hand and personal guard of a homosexual Anthony Prince nicknamed Tony Gay. Tony is a rather eccentric person, respected in certain circles, owns a large club business. Under his wing there are two clubs: Hercules (for homosexuals) and Mayzonet-9 (for heterosexuals). Unfortunately for Anthony and his friend (the main character), he makes some gross mistakes, as a result of which he comes into the view of the Russian mafia, who wants to take both clubs away and get rid of the “blue”. Tony, being discouraged, turns to Louis for help, whom he helped more than once, whom he “pulled out of the mud”, gave work, and so on.
From this moment, Tony begins to repay debts. Together with Louis, partners take on any work, help influential people and try to get the “blue” out of trouble with the mafia clans.
In GTA 4: The Ballad of Tony, players will be able to take a fresh look at Liberty City, overflowing with filth, cruelty, and covered with tinsel in the form of a glamorous article.
What's new?
Naturally, not a single patch can do without innovations in the gameplay. For example, the assortment of all kinds of mini-games has expanded significantly, so that you can kill time in a video game (yes, it came to that). These games included:
- Air hockey (the same, table).
- Underground fights in the spirit of the “Fight Club”.
- Who is faster and more "rushes" champagne.
- Banal dances in a night club and even more racing.
Not without its new side quests (third-party tasks). Two types of additional missions appeared, both related to the club. At the player’s choice, you can either be a servant and grovel in front of VIP visitors, play-makers, or get into a club as a security guard and put things in order there, leading out restless drunkards.
The tasks have changed radically, or rather, the principles of their assessment. A special scale from 0 to 100 percent was introduced into the game, where 100 percent is a task completed taking into account all the requirements. Requirements are different, they vary from task to task. Due to the fact that now each task can be completed completely and not completely, it became possible to go through them several times (if it was not possible to achieve all the criteria on the first attempt).
The fleet expanded significantly, the Rockstar North studio did not stint and introduced more than twenty new vehicles into the game. Among them are a dozen cars, several new boats, helicopters and four amazing bikes. Some vehicles are available only on specific missions.
There are other ways to expand existing content in GTA 4: The Ballad of Tony. Fashion, for example, is quite an interesting and popular destination. Unfortunately, amateurs are engaged in mods, and they will never succeed in achieving such a high quality of execution as the developers of the game.
Online game changes
Firstly, it is worth noting the territorial expansion in the network game. Now fierce Internet fights can be held on the territory of the museum, in the hospital, in storage rooms and in other, newly opened locations.
In the “All against all” mode, rewards appeared for committing a series of murders: up to $ 125 and additional ammunition.
In free play mode, new activities have appeared, players are entitled to have fun with new types of equipment as they please. One example of new activities is the online base jumping tournaments.
The system for categorizing cars in race mode has been greatly modified. Cars are now divided into: sports cars, luxury cars, classic American cars, sports motorcycles. Several new tracks for online speed competitions have also appeared.
How to achieve 100% completion
Even if the player manages to go through the entire storyline, the progress bar will only move up to 60%. Yes, the complete history of the game, consisting of 26 missions, will allow you to get a little more than half the game (approximately 2 or 2.5 percent for each mission).
Another 10% can be earned if the player performs tasks in the club. There are 8 such tasks, and they are quite simple, so it will not be difficult to complete them.
Another 10% can be obtained if the main character wins in all kinds of competitions: air hockey, underground fights, golf, billiards, darts and the like. It is also necessary to dance in clubs owned by Tony.
An additional 5% can be earned by spending time with your partners, you can call them and invite them to drink. Any kind of activity, whether it is a game of billiards or just lunch, will allow you to slightly shift the scale.
2.5% each is given for small tasks, such as killing gulls (only 50 pieces), jumping from rooftops, triathlon victories and battles for drugs.
Additional tasks in GTA 4: The Ballad of Tony can be taken on the street, from random passers-by, their names are Margot, Arnie and Daisy. All tasks in total will give 5%.
GTA 4: The Ballad of Tony: codes
Well, what can be GTA without cheat codes and tons of entertainment in a helicopter that suddenly appeared in the city center. In GTA 4: Ballad Gay Tony codes are present, and both all those that were in the original, and familiar from other games in the series.
Among the most prominent codes it is worth noting (all codes are entered on the phone):
227-555-9666 - the ability to call an analogue of "Lamborghini";
938-555-0150 - the ability to call a small motor boat;
482-555-0100 - replenishment of stocks of health and ammunition;
486-555-0100 - a code that allows you to equip yourself with an impressive set of weapons introduced in this supplement;
359-555-0100 - code to call a combat helicopter.
Secrets of the game world and additional codes
This is not all the features of in-game electronics in GTA 4: The Ballad of Tony. Cheats are only a small part of them. There are many secret locations in the game, access to them can be obtained by going to an Internet cafe and entering whattheydonotwantyoutoknow in the browser address bar (the main thing is not to forget the .com domain as well).
Game system requirements
In order to run GTA 4: The Ballad of Tony, you need a pretty powerful “car”. The minimum system requirements indicate: a dual-core chip from Intel, only 1 gigabyte of RAM and 256 megabytes of video memory. In fact, due to lousy optimization for a PC, you need a computer at least twice as powerful as described, or even three times.
At the same time, the game works great on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles.
Player and Critic Reviews
Addition to the game has been awarded many positive reviews. Even the major American edition of the New York Times shared an opinion about the game. Most websites and gaming publications rated the game as top rated. For example, Eurogamer gave GTA 4: The Ballad of Tony 80 points out of 100 possible, and IGN gave a score of 9.2. The team of the X-Play edition put the game a solid five.