While the tale is simple enough, the telling is brilliant and often devilishly subtle. It's old versus new, then, and within the space of one mission, dangerous tensions are simmering away between Johnny and Billy, with the stage set for a conflict that could tear the gang apart.

Billy's out now, and somewhat perturbed to see his rowdy fightin' and fumin' street gang turned into a (relatively) smooth-running corporation, a truce in place with long-time rivals The Angels of Death, and a new strategy based on lying low and allowing the flourishing narcotics business to bring in the money. Johnny Klebitz has been in charge of The Lost Motorcycle Club while the President, Billy Grey, has been in rehab. This time it's the bikers who hog the spotlight.

The Lost and Damned's narrative sees the developer on top form, creating an unnerving pressure-cooker tale that draws on the familiar GTA themes of hierarchy, revenge, and going for a drive with a passenger who doesn't mind it when you flip the car at an intersection and plant it upside down in a bakery. Although Rockstar may not be adding much to the footprint of Liberty City with The Lost and Damned - conjuring a fresh island out of the muddy rivers, or laying down a fine spray of new skyscrapers, flyovers, and dockyards - the company has been hard at work building stories sculpting new characters, fabricating dense relationship networks of cause and effect, and plumbing in a buried system of deadly motives and smouldering resentment.

Gta iv lost and damned