Never realized both TLAD and RDR2 share the same story about the downfall of a criminal gang. The more you know.

If you win the last cage fight in that mission, Santo will try to kill you for going against his plan and you'll have to kill him, and then Luis' mother will berate him for killing the guy, there's no winning with that woman

I feel like Ballad of Gay Tony was when the writers of GTA went. "Hey, remember when we made games that were fun?" And that is why is was more like San Andreas and Vice City.

The gang wars in TLAD are easily, by far the best part of the entire DLC and single handedly keeps me coming back in 2025

39:10 - That attempted kiss is the "smoking gun" that reveals Brucie is a closeted homosexual. However, the base game actually contains subtle hints at this throughout Brucie's missions and interactions that most players never picked up on.

For example, the real reason why he has Niko take out French Tom, with Niko's dating profile in that mission being clearly crafted by Brucie himself with heavy projection.

Ballad of Gay Tony adding checkpoints is huge for quality of life as well! And I appreciate the extra color it adds to the world, turning up the opacity just a little bit made playing multiplayer in it particularly fun. Combining the swingset with stickybombs for a little boost in the air was a great time!

Both dlcs felt like puzzle pieces that fit well with the main game, the reason why TLAD was kinda forgotten was because the story was short and felt like a rough draft for rdr2, it's not bad but i wish it had 25 missions like TBOGT so that we get to interact with some characters, on the other hand i kinda love its dark gritty biker theme to it and the side missions were pretty fun, i remember playing it's multiplayer it was fun.

29:26 Fun fact: You don't actually have to take the dive to finish this mission. In fact, if you manage to win the match, an alternate conversation will trigger in which Luis's mom berates him for not taking the dive.

Lost and The Damned is defintely not as enertaining or fun as The Ballad of Gay Tony, but I think it gets a lot of flak that isn't always deserved. Imo they should have leaned even more into the gritty realism/Sons of Anarchy kind of stuff and let TBOGT be the more goofy counterpart

What I don’t think people realise is that these two games are just meant to be alternate perspectives for the story of Niko. All the missions have direct links whether it be news radio, mention of something happening or about to happen at the same time as the current cutscene or literally alternate perspective of an event.

This was a marvellous story idea, and offsetting it with dlc quality of alternate graphic overlays (grunge/neon), new cars and weapons.

TBOGT was probably one of my most replayed games as a teen. The amount of side content and absurd missons really had me entertained. The club aspect especially for some reason 😅 But the colours! The removal of the gritty filter of GTA IV gave way to a brighter and more beautiful Liberty City. The rainbow UI is pretty too. The theme song was so bubbly. The amount of times I woke up in the middle of the night to the pause screen and the music accompanying it is too many to count. Luis himself is just so loveable. Me and my siblings would play it all the time and have a bond over Luis and his story. The random events/strangers, Margo in particular, were unforgettable. I could go on about how much I loved playing TBOGT honestly

My main issue with TLAD is the story, particularly it's ending and how thrown together it felt. What I mean by this is that the DLC was clearly building up Ray Boccino as the main villain and really felt like killing him was our end goal. However, as we know, we kill Ray in the base game as Niko so this left a gap in the story for a villain and what does Rockstar decide to do? They make us go after someone who is already in jail and was absent for most of the DLC. It just felt rushed and pointless going after Billy and I understand that the story justifies it with Billy going to rat on Johnny, but the story takes such a swerve from Ray to Billy that it feels thrown together. It's so bad to the point that they literally had Thomas Stubbs as a plot device to tell Johnny not to worry about Ray and give him the true end goal because Rockstar wasn't sure how to wrap up the story.

The Lost & Damned was probably the most depressing story in Gta-4 and it's dlcs, even the color-scheme is gloomy as heck.

16:28 from the very first time I played GTA V I thought to myself “damn Rockstar really just said Johnny? Fuck that guy.” Lmao

Fun fact, just like with Roman in gta 4 you can call Angus in tlad after some missions and you will have extra dialogues between him and Johnny where they talk about what is happening in that moment in the game, just like Niko and Roman can do.

As a biker in real life and former VP of a club. At the end when he has to kill his former president and hesitates.  And the crappy girlfriend hooked on drugs.. I lived this in real life. I was so loyal to her I didn’t care about myself. Just shows how much his loyalty and love ran deep even when though he was done dirty so many ways… the biker heart is huge and often misunderstood… I think the story was decently good from a biker’s perspective

I love how Tony and Luis genuinely care for eachother, in a "were stuck with eachother so let's make the most of it" way. their friendship is one of my favorite things in the whole GTA franchise, reminds me a lot of Woozie and Cj's friendship and even partnership.

Your comparison of Johnny and Arthur, in that Johnny just goes along with whatever his leader orders then just complains afterwards also perfectly describes Arthur as well. Arthur’s literal last day alive is him going on a train heist that he clearly thinks will fail. Arguably Johnny pushes back against Billy harder than Arthur does to Dutch be honest, hard to say that Johnny, a guy who insults, argues and almost gets into a fight with his boss is more passive than Arthur who mostly walks on eggshells around Dutch.

Angus, the wheelchair dude, has a string of side missions. But, there is a semi-common glitch that can happen, where the phone call never occurs...which, will lock you out of them.
Yeah, forgettable characters and story, but I always enjoy this expansion.
Queer Anthony's Love Song is much better, though

During the museum escape mission you can see Nico at the bottom fighting everyone when you are Johnny which I thought was pretty cool