Fallout New Vegas Dead Money DLC Review

The DLCs: -

Recently I purchased the three Fallout: New Vegas DLCs, and I recently finished the last one (technically the first, but i played them in a weird order of Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, and Dead Money), and it was obviously the most difficult out of the three. The DLCs are very much worth the purchase but due to the difficulty, it almost ruined the experience for me, but the end sort of makes it worth it.

Summary: -

The DLC sends out a radio broadcast inviting the Courier to the grand opening of the Sierra Madre Casino, and the way-point directs the player to the abandoned BoS bunker on the far eastern side of the Mojave. When the player steps into the bunker after seeing a lone radio in the next room, if the player steps too close, they are knocked out by a knocked out by a few gas sprayers. Next, the player is introduced to the story of the Sierra Madre and how it didn't make it through the war, but still stood and was mostly functioning. After the story, the player is awoken by Father Elijah, a former Brotherhood, that is spoken of by the player companion, Veronica. He tells the player that they need to pull off a heist in the vault of the Sierra Madre with the three other living people in the Villa, Dean Domino (a ghoul who was a pre-war singer and entertainer who was to perform at the Sierra Madre before the war), Dog or God (A super mutant nightkin, both the same person, but God is Dog's subconscious), and Christine (a scarred mute who has been hunting Father Elijah through the Mojave, and the Big Empty, and was trapped in a broken Auto-Doc. later revealed to be Veronica's ex-lover before they were separated). The three of you have to cooperate or have the explosive collars on your necks (or in Dog's case, in his stomach) detonate. Also, scattered around the Sierra Madre, are speakers and radios which will emit a signal that will cause the Courier's collar to beep faster and faster causing the collar to detonate after a short amount of time (slowed down and delayed with Christine's companion perk). The Sierra Madre is also littered with a gaseous substance called the cloud that will poison the player, while they are in it, lowering their HP steadily and by a moderate amount (delayed by the Dean's companion perk). Most of the enemies are Ghost creatures that must be dismembered to be killed permanently (with Dog's companion perk, he devours the foe's limbs when knocked unconscious). The environment is realistic although not very pretty, It fits the bill. The DLC is sort of difficult, but only because it isn't really clear where it is safe to stay without your head being blown off of your shoulders, but once you get the hang of the map, it gets a little easier to navigate and survive. The quests can be confusing at times, particularly the one where you get to Dean Domino's Gala event position and when I had to guide Dog to his, he glitched through the floor and got stuck. The  combat is rewarding and by the end, I had 168 pounds of knife spears and throwing spears and plenty of police pistols. The first gun you get, the holorifle, is useful as it does recurring damage for 8 seconds and has gotten me through many a prickly situation. After a bit, if you spent your SM chips on less useful items, the stimpaks become increasingly rare, making you want to add points to sneak. Once you get to the Sierra Madre, There is a grueling security system of indestructible holograms that shoot punishing lasers, so you are best to just avoid them. The path leading up to the vault is pretty difficult, littered with holograms and speakers, some destructible, some shielded, so look out for the blue light to make your journey a little easier. Once you get past all that and get the vault, you must either have a bunch of high stats for the speech checks that the final dialogue brings, or 100 science and an affinity for hacking terminals, or else you will be locked in the vault and get a premature game over, and your save will be reloaded. Also, I may have forgot to mention that you will find 35 or so gold bars worth ~10,000 fucking caps, but at the expense of them being 35 pounds each, making it hard to escape with a lot, along with plenty of pre war money and Sierra Madre chips. Getting out of the Casino is fairly easy, although on your way out, you have at least 1 minute to get out of the place, or your collar will explode. Upon exiting the Casino, your collar will disengage, and you will then have a fuller exploring experience for the lack of danger of exploding around every corner, making it a billion times easier to find the Dean's secret stashes. You are then at your leisure to leave the Sierra Madre, but are forever unable to return, so make up your mind before you leave.

Overall: -

 Dead Money is the least fun of the 3 DLCs I played, for the very reason that is was difficult in the sense of that is was excruciatingly confusing, and that the combat got to be too much if fighting in a cloud or if you didn't watch for traps (but if you have the God companion he gives you essentially the light step perk). The atmosphere is right, but the delivery falls a little bit short, but it is sort of worth it in the end, when you receive the treasure. This DLC gets 2 gold bars out of 5

I will be reviewing other games as well, such as the main game, Brink, the Assassin's Creed trilogy provided I finish them in time, and whatever I can get my hands on. Thanks for reading if anyone out there is even reading this. I took a break from it for the sole reason that I thought nobody would read them, but when I was describing the  DLCs to my friend, he told me to get it in writing, and came to the deduction that I was too lazy to handwrite them, so I then decided to type them for your reading pleasure. Thanks and I hope you enjoyed the reviews.

Fucking cheers, Jake

Fallout: New Vegas Old World Blues Review

:

The DLCs: -

Recently after selling some games I completed, I had 30 bucks just lying around, and decided to purchase the 3 DLCs for Fallout: New Vegas. The 3 DLCs are Dead Money (no. 1), Honest Hearts (no. 2), and Old World Blues (no. 3). I have finished HH & OWB, and will be reviewing DM soon (within the next few days, and if not, will probably doing the review by next weekend.

Summary: -

In this DLC, the Courier receives a radio signal on their Pip-Boy 3000 to go see a space-age sci-fi movie at the drive-in. When they arrive, the player will notice a crashed space shuttle in the ground, and will have to wait for the midnight showing of the picture show. At midnight, the player will see a projection of an eye on the screen (similar to the one on the cover of the DLC, shown above) coming from the shuttle. The player is given the option to interact with the shuttle and once selected, the option will instigate Old World Blues. A bright blue light envelops the player, and the screen goes dark. A cut-scene will give the prologue of the events that took place at Big MT (MT = mountain, or if read as "em-tee" is known as "the Big Empty" in some circles in the wastes). The DLC starts out with the player waking up on a balcony wearing a patient's gown. The player is guided with the way-point to the think tank, comprised of 5 old-world doctor's brains implanted into levitating monitors with images of two different sized eyes and a mouth. The player is demeaned with a lengthy dialogue sequence with plenty of speech checks of speech, energy weapons, intelligence, perception, medicine, science, and guns. The doctors reveal to you that they removed your spine, heart, and brain, giving you 3 perks that are highly beneficial to the player adding DT and other critical avoidance bonuses. The 5 doctors are Dr. Klein, Dr. 0 (everyone says O the letter but a brief dialogue reveals that it is in fact a zero), Dr. 8, Dr. Dala, and Dr. Borous. Dr. 0 is played by James Urbaniak, the actor who played Rusty Venture in the Adult Swim series, The Venture Brothers, and despises RobCo. Dr. Dala is a female doctor who is obsessed with the human system and it's functions and watches "formography" (what seems to be porn for these robots). Dr. Borous is a no-nonsense doctor similar to Dr. Klein. Dr. 8 is a doctor that speaks gibberish "@@[#-!!!!-#]@@!" and is revealed later to be speaking in the language the RobCo terminal's text is written in when hacking them. After the dialogue, the opposing doctor, Dr. Mobius, is situated in "the Forbidden Zone" across the way in a separate dome. Dr. Mobius created a line of robot scorpions that shoot lasers through their tails. Dr. Mobius has stolen your brain and you must retrieve it. After leaving the Think Tank, there is the Sink, where there is many machines that you can interact with after retrieving their holotapes containing data on what they do. There is an Auto-Doc, a world domination aspiring Toaster, 2 bitchy light switches, an old blues singer sounding jukebox, a mini securitron named muggy obsessed with cleaning mugs, a machine that converts plants into "salient green", (an obvious reference to the movie "Soylent Green" with Charlton Heston), and a book chute that can convert a burned book or any miscellaneous book into a blank book which can be turned into a stat raising skill book with the proper recipe and ingredients at any workbench. The world around it is littered with lobotomites, robobrains, and robot dogs (similar to Rex from the Mojave Wasteland), and fairly good weapons. Many of the weapons are energy weapons, unarmed, and melee, and a lot have EMP damage, which is useful, seeing as a lot of the enemies are robotic or cyborgs. There is a sneaking suit called the X-13 Sneak Suit that, when upgraded fully (through testing in the X-13 testing facility) grants +25 Sneak, +20% sneak running speed, and it fucking TALKS. You read right, it talks. the suit will alert you when your Pip-Boy light is on, and will administer stimpaks and Med-X as necessary. Also, it will occasionally say that you will be friends forever, and if your character is female, it wall ask what doctor you think is most attractive. After many brief fetch quests, the player goes into Dr. Mobius' forbidden zone, where they confront a giant robo-scorpion. After the fight, the player goes into Mobius' lab, where they see that he is very busted up and isn't as malicious as he appears in recordings past. Once you go up a staircase, you see a machine, and in the machine, is your brain. Your brain is very dickish as your character points out, and is very hellbent on staying in the machine. After the dialogue with your brain, your character then returns to the think tank to confront the doctors. After another dialogue sequence or a fight sequence, the player's journey into the Big Empty, the ending sequence plays, the player is given a gun that doesn't shoot projectiles, but instead will transport the player back to Big MT, so long as the player would normally be able to fast travel.

Overall: -

The loot in OWB is sub-par as compared to the other DLCs but the Sneak Suit is incredibly helpful, and many of the weapons are helpful in the wasteland. Otherwise, the DLC is fun, but sort of difficult in places, seeing as there are very few healing items, and tough combat, so it isn't something for levels below 15. The combat, however is rewarding, seeing as when I started, I was level 21, and ended at 28. The dialogue is funny, however it is necessary to have high skills to be fully rewarding, and the Sink's auto-doc allows you to change traits, such as switching to Wild Wasteland, as well as many other new DLC-downloaded traits. The DLC overall earns 3 severed spinal cords out of 5

Honest Hearts: A Fallout New Vegas DLC review

The DLCs :
Recently, I sold some games and purchased Fallout: New Vegas for the second time, wishing to return to the mojave for some more diabolical post-apocolyptic fun. After the first two weeks of working for the notorious slave runner group clad in gladiator-style armor, Caesar's Legion, I decided to purchase the most recent two DLC's (out of 3, soon to be 4, the first being Dead Money in which I will soon be purchasing), Honest Hearts, where you go to Utah's Zion National Park with a trading caravan, and Old World Blues, where you go to "Big Mountain", A.K.A "Big MT" or "The Big Empty". Anyway back to Honest Hearts.


Summary:
In this fantastic DLC, the Courier gets a radio signal on their Pip-Boy 3000, telling them that a job is waiting at the northern pass north of New Vegas, and east of where the player finds the unique gauss rifle, or the Alien Blaster (Wild Wasteland trait only). The player meets with Jed Masterson, a Trader and his caravan, on a journey to Utah's Zion National Park for trading purposes. Allowed only 75 pounds of equipment (100 with a 70 Survival skill speech check), the caravan sets off for Utah. The player is introduced with the legend of the "Burned Man" or, Joshua Graham, The Caesar's Legate previous to Lanius. After the intro, the caravan and their crew is ambushed by a native tribe known as the "White Legs". After the fight, the Courier is joined by a native of a different tribe "the Dead Horses" named Follows Chalk. Follows guides you to Joshua Graham, now one of the leading influences in the war of the tribes. He directs you (after a brief quest) to an associate named Daniel. He pairs you up (after dismissing Follows) with another member of the tribe,  Walking Cloud. She accompanies you on your journey in killing some Yao Guai (giant mutated grizzly bears) and disarming traps. The DLC's map is littered with Survivor's Duffel Bags telling a story of a survivor of the Great War emerging only days after the bombs fell. There is a challenge associated with finding all eight of his spots, reminiscent of the Rat Man's dens in Portals 1&2, but sadly no achievement. Honest Hearts comes with 5 achievements, all of which are story-acquired. 4 can be done naturally but the 5th can only be earned by reloading a previous save before the main quest  is initiated, where you either evacuate Zion, to escape the White Legs, going it Daniel's preferred way, or confronting the tribe head on, Joshua's way. The enemy tribe's leader, Salt-in-Wounds, is captured and through either a brief dialogue sequence, or a series of speech checks, the player can either choose to kill him (the former) or spare him (the latter, after a speech check of 50, and 90). After this, the DLC is wrapped up in the style of the ending after the battle of the Hoover Dam, and the player is presented with a footlocker containing the clothes of Daniel, the outfit of Joshua Graham, the headdresses of both Follows Chalk and Salt-in-Wounds, Salt-in-Wound's power fist, and Joshua's .45 auto Pistol known as A Light Shining in Darkness. After this, the player is at their freedom to either explore Zion, or return to the Mojave Wasteland, and continue on their business as normal.

Overall:
The loot in Honest Hearts is up to snuff with previous DLC's (excluding Fallout 3's Operation: Anchorage DLC, seeing as you get indestructible T51B armor, Chinese sneak suit, Jing-Wei's Shock Sword, etc. when, paired with 100 sneak, 10 Luck, and 10 Agility, made the game impossible to die, so long as you sneak at all times), with good unique weapons, and nice looking armor.

With me, this game wins 4 dead Yao Guai cubs out of 5