Once Roman was satisfied that the sharks were off his back, we started the next mission, Jamaican Heat. This one began with Niko and Roman having a conversation in Roman's office, which basically amounted to Roman wanting to know about some trouble in Niko's past, and Niko not wanting to tell him about it. Cutting to the chase, Roman asked Niko to take a cab and pick up one of his friends, Little Jacob, a Rastafarian who speaks in a patois so impenetrable that even subtitles aren't much help.

Jacob turns out to be a pretty valuable contact down the road, and he showed it right off the bat by giving us our first real weapon, a pistol. Turns out that what Jacob really needed was someone to watch his back while he tried to make a shady deal in an alley, and so once we'd dropped him off, he ordered us to take up a watchful position on a nearby ledge. Sure enough, the guy he was waiting for brought a few friends along, and as soon as they had Jacob cornered, they opened fire.

With the high ground and surprise on our side, the ensuing firefight was pretty easy. While the thugs concentrated on Jacob, we crouched on the ledge and drew careful aim. Pulling in the left trigger in halfway lets you freely aim with the right analog stick, but we skipped that and pulled it all the way in for auto-targeting. Once we had an enemy fixed in our sights, we were free to just blast away - which took a little while, as gangsters can soak up a lot of damage - or aim for specific body parts by moving the right stick. However, just flicking the stick upward would frequently shoot over their heads. Actual headshots, meanwhile, took careful positioning and an ability to keep up with moving, ducking targets.

Once the thugs were dealt with, it was time for another mission with Little Jacob, Concrete Jungle. This one was a little more involved and a lot more violent than the last one, as it seems Jacob can't stop making drug deals with guys who want to rip him off and kill him. It began with us picking Jacob up at his apartment, and as we drove to a sketchy storefront in Dukes (Liberty City's version of Queens), Jacob went of on a half-intelligible rant about how he didn't trust the people you were taking him to meet. He also lit up some weed and demanded we keep the car's windows closed so that he could hotbox it. After waiting for a few seconds, we ignored his request and bashed out the driver's side window by hitting L1 (which also lets you shoot while driving), releasing a billowing stream of marijuana smoke into the night air. If Jacob was annoyed, he didn't say anything about it.

After dropping Jacob in front of the meeting place, he ordered us to park in an alley around the back, in case the guys he was meeting tried to rip him off. Sure enough, we didn't have to wait long before a trio of goons tore out the building's back door and made a break for it. Slapping on the car's high beams, we jammed on the accelerator and roared into two of the punks, crushing them between Jacob's car and a wall.

One was still breathing, so we got out and tried to take him down with our fists, which didn't work so well because he had a pistol and was shooting it into Niko's chest between punches. Thinking fast, we pulled our own piece and traded shots with the guy until he stopped moving. We then spun around and, taking careful aim, shot the fleeing third punk in the leg. He went down howling, and we closed fast to finish him off with a few more bullets to the torso.