3. Grand Theft Auto: The Lost And The Damned 2009 (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3)
Grand Theft Auto has always featured motorcycles, even during its 2D incarnations where minimal keyboard or PlayStation controller inputs had you literally rocketing through four-way junctions in no time. Stay on those yellow road markings and you could shift yourself from Estoria to Guernsey City in just minutes or better yet, seconds flat, because youd slip between cars better than Trinity from that only decent scene in The Matrix Reloaded on the Ducati 996. (Beware of the red motorbike though; youll nearly leave the screen with your blazing speed.) Where The Lost and the Damned (TLAD) comes into all this was in its reduction of the fragile motorcycle mechanics GTA IV first had. The Houser brothers initially gave us a Liberty City where a glancing blow from a cab driver or swift lane change would mess you up whether travelling at 50 m.p.h. or just 10. With TLAD you could now have a decent speed side-on collision with another four-wheeled vehicle and not flail into the heavens. Instead, Niko or Johnny would grip the handlebars and plant their buttocks with such resolve that you could spin one-eighty or even two hundred and seventy degrees without falling off. Oh and two closing words: stunt jumps.
Bryan Langley’s first console was the Super Nintendo and he hasn’t stopped using his opposable thumbs since. He is based in Bristol, UK and is still searchin' for them glory days he never had.