Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City is an open world shooter/adventure, I mean we all know what GTA games are like right? Episodes from Liberty City is basically two different Standalone DLC's for GTA IV and was originally released in 2009.
And it took me over a decade to get to them. In my defense I wanted to play GTA IV first before getting to the expansions and I had to start over so many times because of losing my saves, thanks to changing PC's and windows live getting removed and whatnot. But in the end, I finally managed to play both of them. (You can find my review of the main game on this blog as well that I posted a few years back.) And thank god I did. The main game was good, a bit dated but good and this was just more of that good, if not even a bit better as it ties in beautifully to the main game.
Episodes from Liberty City is basically two different stories that run simultaneously to the main game in the same city with a few interactions and that is the beauty of it. If you are afraid of spoilers to over a decade old game, they are coming now. A large portion of GTA IV is about dealing with stolen diamonds and the different factions that want to either own, buy or sell them. In these new episodes we learn even more about them, where they originated from and about the different factions wanting to get a piece of the pie and the best part, play as members of them. Of course the episodes aren't completely about the diamonds as these people that you get play as do have lives too but the diamonds are a big focus. The crescendo of the diamonds saga and the tie-ins between the games is the mission Museum Piece where Niko Bellic want's to sell the diamonds. He does so with a Biker friends of his and is ambushed by a person from a window who wants to steal them. The biker and the person in the window are both the playable characters in these new episodes, all three 'games' meeting in one mission where you get to play as almost all the parties involved just in different playthroughs. End of spoilers.
This is something that is not really made these days anymore and I wish more studios did. Now I'm not really a proponent of DLC's but when they are done like this I just can't stop screaming for more. Of course making DLC that is actually good is not always easy, but actually putting some effort into them goes a long way. These days it feels like there isn't even any proper DLC being made and it's just all just micro transactions, skins and expensive fluff instead. Of course stand-alone DLC has never been a big name in the video game industry and it is absolutely understandable but it is also a shame that DLC disguised as a full game is no longer a thing. DLC's were also not very popular when they were first being introduced to games but after enough good ones, they are something that have been normalized. So in a way you could say that Episodes from Liberty City was a product of its time and one we will probably never see again, unfortunately.
The game itself plays very well. It had slightly more noticeable bugs than the main game. It is of course possible that these bugs were in the main game as well and has been patched, they just forgot to apply those patches to this one, hard to say. If you did enjoy the main game, you will enjoy these episodes as well, the core gameplay is basically the same as the main game, the only thing that really changes is the thing that Rockstar does best, the stories.
TL;DR It's basically the same game as GTA IV. The originaly story is expanded with the help of 2 new playable characters. These new stories or Episodes tie in so nicely to the original game and just because I want to see more DLC like this I'm going to give this one a whopping 9/10
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