What makes this downloadable ‘Grand Theft Auto’ a big step forward for the series, and what they can learn from an unlikely source: ‘The Simpsons’.

Don’t get me wrong, Grand Theft Auto IV was easily one of last year’s best games. The team at Rockstar deserve full credit for attempting a more sophisticated story than their previous entries, and mostly succeeding. Especially by forcing players to make tough choices — by murdering one of two people they’d recently befriended (surely the spoiler clock has run out, right?) — the series grew in new directions. But let’s also be honest. There wasn’t much evolution in terms of mechanics. The well-intentioned ’socializing’ system was tedious. And to put it bluntly, bigger is not always better. Under pressure to create something ‘epic’ in scale, the team lost sight of the all-important art of editing, and the game lost some momentum by its end.

Less than six months later, we were gifted with a return to Liberty City in The Lost and Damned, and my, how sweet it was. The moral choice moments were the only noteworthy omission, and the boring man-dates were turned optional. Otherwise, it’s exactly what ‘more GTA’ should be: a new and compact experience that even improves upon some of the prior issues. It features a tight story about dying American dreams, dense enough with action so that it never drags, and short enough so that it doesn’t need a giant new gameplay twist to keep you hooked. Even so, it introduces a team dynamic that’s handy in a fight and forges a deeper connection between you and the supporting characters. All in all, The Lost and Damned is the best ‘real’ downloadable game I’ve played yet in terms of full-fledged graphics and a complete, satisfying story.

[No knock to Braid, Penny Arcade Adventures, Flower, Eden, etc, which I'm not implying are not 'real' games -- I love all of them; some more than TLAD. But those are different beasts who don't really fall in the same category, a tangent which I will save for another time.]

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What makes The Lost and Damned truly stand out though is the way it explores the city and residents we’ve come to know from a totally different perspective. The crossover missions with Nico from the prior game go a long way to making players feel a part of something bigger, not just a biker gang member in a biker gang universe. At one point you, as Johnny, find out your friend is dead — not a spoiler if you played through GTA IV proper — in between missions where you unknowingly team up with his killer. In another, you’re dropping off diamonds in trash bins you’ll remember picking up in a stolen garbage truck as Nico.

But it wasn’t until the credits rolled that the potential really dawned on me. A scene you don’t even play in TLAD (or don’t realize you’re playing), in which your gang innocently drives past the docks, pans over to reveal that you’ve just crossed behind Nico executing Vlad in cold blood. Two sociopaths passing in the night — or broad daylight, as it were. Next, helicopter shots of car chases show not only the small crimes and getaways you were in the thick of during the game, but the neighborhood that it’s affecting, causing havoc in the streets and destruction everywhere you turn. Who’s to say in the next chapter you won’t be one of those people fleeing in terror?

This is the major accomplishment in choosing to set another GTA game not before or after the events of the previous chapter, but concurrent with them. Adding the element of cause-and-effect deepens the impact of the entire story to anyone who stops to consider it. Seeing the chaos you cause in Liberty City from only one point of view makes it easy to simply delight in the mayhem. Players view the world as they did in the PS2 days: a giant violent sandbox to play in, where the only effect was having to run from the cops. However, seeing it through another person’s eyes — one who’s affected by the decisions other characters make — brings the uncomfortable idea of consequences into the mix, and forces you to face them head on. It’s no longer a world without repercussions. It’s a harsh grown-up world where one man’s success means another man’s failure, and one man’s defeated enemy is another’s lost friend. This is a step towards a more mature, meaningful Grand Theft Auto — dick jokes notwithstanding.

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The easy comparison to make is HBO’s The Wire, where the city of Baltimore is explored through the lens of a new cast of citizens each season, and character’s lives overlap in new ways as the world is expanded. (Also, a lot of people die.) It’s a valid connection to make, and certainly something for Rockstar to aspire to, but it might be too soon to suggest GTA’s portrayal of urban decay will be as powerful as The Wire’s any time in the near future.

Perhaps a more interesting analogy would be The Simpsons, another show with a massive cast of characters built up and interconnected over time. The more stories they tell, the more you get to know each member of its town. By this point, any one of them can appear in a story and you understand their place in it immediately. Not only that, but the wide variety of characters allows them to satirize every aspect of society, from show biz (Krusty) to politics (Mayor Quimby) to the wealthy (Mr Burns) to the poor (Cletus). They can take a minor, seemingly one-sided person like Smithers and show a new side of him as he’s rollerblading through ‘West Springfield’, which recontextualizes all the things you remember him doing before. It’s a genius construction that’s allowed them to keep going for as long as they have.

That’s why The Lost and Damned is exciting beyond the fact that we get to play more GTA for only $20, less than a year after the full game release. It’s the fact that totally new and different stories can be told in this wonderfully crafted city, from any perspective imaginable, and further extensions are nearly limitless. The no-brainer option and possibly most immediately compelling would be a crooked cop’s descent from protector to criminal, an interesting reversal on the previous games. But it could go so much farther.  Imagine a white-collar criminal, getting in deeper and deeper for money he owes to his coke dealer, as a commentary on the excess of today’s financial system. Picture a paparazzo who stalks celebrities for money, hoping to pay off hitmen to get rid of his sister’s abusive husband, as a reflection on the depths of shamelessness we’ll go to for greed or family. We could become a prosecutor who has to scour the city for evidence trying to put mob bosses away, or choosing to let them escape and facing the bloody aftermath. And dare we hope for a dark coming-of-age story that crosses Bully with Goodfellas? I could keep going, but I’d rather stop guessing on the off chance that I’ll spoil the surprise of what could come next.

A strong foundation to start telling these kinds of stories was laid by GTA IV, and The Lost and Damned shows their ability to build upon it in compelling ways. If they continue in this direction, they could fill a whole virtual city of simultaneous and intertwining stories — not unlike the often cited best Simpsons episode, ‘22 Short Films About Springfield’ –  each with its own skewed take on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If the next chapter takes an even bolder step than this one, we’ll be witnessing ground-breaking developments in game storytelling. If it’s just another gang shooting at other gangs, well, at least it’ll be short and sweet and badass like this one, and even that ain’t so bad.