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Just as in The Lost & Damned DLC, the Ballad Of Gay Tony sees players taking on the role of an individual who is already plugged into a sub-community of Liberty City's heaving metropolis. It falls to Luiz to help Tony come up with the money by doing slightly illicit jobs for various 'businessmen' around town, while talking his business partner out of having a nervous breakdown. Like the Lost & Damned, Luiz's story intersects occasionally with Niko's and several characters from GTA IV will make the odd appearance. The titular character is renowned throughout the city for starting the most celebrated and successful hot-spots on the Liberty City nightclubbing scene. There are also a host of new tracks that will feature on Liberty City's disco radio station.

These similarities aside, however, The Ballad Of Gay Tony looks set to offer a far different experience to The Lost & Damned. The new characters we were introduced to, which included the motor-mouthed gangster wannabe Yusuf, also seemed impossibly larger than life when compared to the seedy, yet completely believable lowlives encountered in The Lost & Damned

The style of the missions also feels far more over the top than those contained in either the storyline of Johnny or Niko Bellic. Other mini-games involve hanging out in Tony's nightclubs completing tasks such as bouncing drunks, delivering packages and occasionally dancing with the patrons. Not only does this highly enjoyable activity play a key role in a couple of missions, but it's also available one of the story's side games. Once unlocked, Luiz can ascend to the rooftops several of Liberty City's skyscrapers and base jump down onto the backs of trucks or into stationary landing zones for a bit of extra cash. He then shoots the target out of a window on one of the skyscraper's top floors and makes his escape by parachuting down onto the back of a passing flatbed truck. Aside from sticky bombs (which act as remote charges) and a light P90 assault rifle, the real draw in Luiz's arsenal is the aforementioned auto-shotgun; fire this weapon at a moving vehicle and it leaves the target looking very much like an elephant stepped on it.

The game also sees the welcome return (from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) of parachuting. Luiz's approach is unconventional to say the least; he parachutes from a helicopter onto the roof of the hockey team owner's headquarters and works his way down, blasting through quite a large number of security personnel. Another saw Luiz steal an attack helicopter right from under the noses of some arms-dealers on a luxury yacht, flying away for a brief period, and then return on his employer's orders to sink the yacht and its occupants. The only problem with this, of course, is that Gay Tony doesn't have the money, and the people he borrowed it from are likely to take a lethally dim view to non-payment of debts. One involved stealing a subway car off the tracks with an articulated chopper, after blasting away at police helicopters with an automatic shotgun filled with explosive rounds. The dour browns and greys which dominated the colour palette of The Lost & Damned are gone, and the pause menu has taken on a Day-Glo hue. This was made clear right from the first mission we were shown which involved Luiz having to strong-arm the owner of a professional ice hockey team at the behest of a Russian gangster. Hilarity inevitably ensues.

The first and most noticeable difference between the new DLC and the Lost & Damned is the overall tone; unlike the adventures of Johnny Klebitz, The Ballad Of Gay Tony feels more light-hearted and optimistic. Even the mission that seemed to be low-key at the outset – which involved taking out a couple of carloads of corrupt cops – ended up involving exploding vehicles, volleys of gunfire and enough C4 to send Rambo into orbit.

The missions also showcased some of the new weapons in this DLC, all of which seem far more exotic than anything Niko or Johnny got their hands on, and all of which are tremendous fun to use. featuring upbeat humour, over-the-top missions and an altogether more bling aesthetic. It's both laugh-out-loud hilarious and fantastic fun to play.

The other missions we previewed also shared this zany, cartoonlike quality which feels highly reminiscent of earlier Grand Theft Auto games. So say goodbye to the grime and grit of Alderney (or New Jersey to you) and get ready to say hello to the glitz and glamour of Algonquin (Manhattan).

The story centres around Luiz Lopez, the business partner and muscle man for the self-styled 'Queen Of Algonquin', Gay Tony Prince. This time, however, Rockstar has traded biker leathers, heavy metal and bourbon for sharp suits, disco and champagne on ice in the members area. However, as the story begins, several shady characters who bankrolled Gay Tony's business ventures decide they'd like to cash in on their investments and move on. That that's not to run-down its predecessor, that's just to say there's a world of difference between the biker bars of Alderney and the nightclub scene of Algonquin.