With this being the final DLC in the New Vegas saga, this one is about you. You finally get to meet Courier Six, and this journey is a true test of your skills leading up to this release. This lonesome road doesn’t allow you to take companions (you do find an old friend inside, however); you also get new weapons, enemies, and probably the most destroyed-looking area in any Fallout game so far. The game is very linear, but not like Dead Money, where you just run around in circles completing stupid tasks. You go from point A to point B, but it’s a long road (about 5 hours, actually), and there are some surprises along the way.
First off, you get a detonator gun along the way that allows you to blow up nuclear warheads along the way (30 in total) to kill enemies from afar or make new paths. This is exactly what I have been waiting for since Fallout 3, and we finally get to do it. Hell, you get to launch two different huge nukes in this DLC. The ending also makes a huge impact on the story (even if you did finish the main story). You do get new weapons that are mostly energy-based, but there are some awesome melee weapons, so there is something here for every type of player.
The new enemies are Marked Men, which are NCR troops that got stuck out here in this nuclear site and turned into ghouls. These guys have many different weapons (the new Glare gun is my favorite since it acts like a semi-automatic rocket launcher). The tunnelers are pretty tough little guys that are fast-moving, but you only run into them when you are underground. Deathclaws make an appearance and will cut you down fast if you don’t have some good armor. Overall, the game will provide a great challenge, especially the final boss fight (which required several restarts and quick saves for me).
Overall, Lonesome Road provides a great challenge, new weapons, and environments, but there are no real quests since you are only going in one direction. There are also only two characters in the whole DLC, so overall, the DLC may feel empty to some people and too straightforward. I liked it since it really made you feel alone, and everything was up to you: survival, as the ending turns out, and saving the Mojave from mass destruction (once again). The DLC feels like the exact opposite of Old World Blues (tons of brilliant characters and quests), but not nearly as linear and hard as Dead Money.
New Vegas has been struggling to have solid DLC that stands up to the Fallout 3 releases. Old World Blues is the best of the three so far, even for the excellent dialog, great characters, and huge new world. Old World Blues has you going to a drive-in that teleports you to Big MT. Once inside, you meet some strange doctors who lobotomized you, and you are on a quest to stop the evil Dr. Mobius and find your brain. Old World Blues takes a whole new approach to Fallout DLC by removing your spine and heart and giving you perks at the start. There are new weapons, enemies, and a whole new world to explore.
There are also a lot of great dungeons to explore, such as the X facilities, which have things such as new armor and testing facilities that run you through a series of courses, as well as other hidden items like new recipes. My favorite part of the whole DLC is the excellent new characters that are inside The Sink, which is your little safe hub inside the dome. All the appliances have hilarious personalities, such as the evil toaster, the crazy miniature robot, the perverted fertilizer, and the seductive light switches. Sound strange? That’s what makes this DLC brilliant. Even the doctors have great personalities, and the whole story has some twists at the end, so you really get a punchy, fulfilling story and ending.
The new weapons are some of the best yet, such as the K9000 Cyberdog Gun, which actually barks when you shoot it thanks to the dog brain attached. The Sonic Emitter pistol is probably the best, thanks to the upgrades you can find for it to enhance its power. Unfortunately, this DLC is really best for people who specialize in energy weapons and melee because guns are hard to come by. Old World Blues also raises the level cap, so you will have a chance to maybe dump some XP into energy if you are weak in that area.
The new environments are great, such as the canyons that have giant red crystals, which are a huge change from the brown wasteland. The new enemies are challenging, such as the robo-scorpions, lobotomites, and other weird creatures lurking around. I highly doubt you will be bored with this DLC due to so many things being different from the other ones. All I have to say is that the dialog and characters are probably better than the main game and are just top-notch.
There are a few problems, such as the fact that the initial dialog with the doctors will take you a good hour to get into its entirety. While the characters are very interesting, you’ll start getting antsy to start exploring. Most of the quests are fetch quests, and this really kept the score from getting a solid 9 because I wanted some pre-scripted stuff or just more unique quests. Most of the quests consist of getting technology for The Sink and Dr. Klein. This kind of gets old after a while, but the quests drag you through most of Big MT, so it’ll help you encourage exploration. The usual New Vegas glitches and bugs are still ever-present, but the dated Gamebryo engine can’t really be saved at this point. Old World Blues is a must-buy even if you skip the past two because the good 12 to 15-hour storyline is just brilliant.
It seems the New Vegas DLC just can’t balance itself, right? First Dead Money was full of cramped environments and brutal difficulty with game designs that worked against the game. Honest Hearts has a very open area to explore, but the characters are pretty underwhelming, as is the overall story. You meet some travelers who are part of a caravan trying to get across Zion National Park, and they hire you to protect them. Of course, there’s more than that, so when you enter, you see three rival tribes fighting against each other. You have the dead horses, white legs, and sorrows. The White Legs want to prove themselves so they can work for Caesar’s Legion, but the Sorrows want to stay, and the Dead Horses are a rogue “extra” tribe. Of course, in Fallout, there’s some sort of third-party hand in the pot, and that’s where Daniel and Joshua Graham come in.
Joshua wants to fight the white legs, and Daniel wants to run. Without getting into their backstory too much, you help each other out on various missions, but most of them are fetch missions and aren’t very inventive. I was really disappointed with this and kept expecting some more exciting missions. Even Dead Money had some exciting missions, despite its major flaws. The characters seem interesting at first, but after the initial dialog stuff, when you meet them, you never do much more with them. This is due to the DLC’s short length, running at about 10–12 hours. There are hardly any side missions, and it feels like the huge area gets wasted since you don’t really get to explore it much.
The area is full of huge canyons and cliffs that surround a lake and a couple of rivers. The area is a pain to navigate because it’s hard to find how to get to high-up areas due to all these layered cliffs. Some of the areas are great to see, and they really captured the national park feeling with abandoned camps and cars on the road right when the bombs fell. So there is a nice charm about the area, and seeing some trees and rivers is a nice change from the dried-up Mojave. Other than that, the environment is full of vicious animals instead of just people, so that’s also a bit different than the Mojave and Dead Money.
Other than that, the DLC is worth a purchase, but don’t expect 15+ hours and tons of new weapons or extra stuff. It’s the best New Vegas DLC so far, but it’s also not the best it could be. I hope the third and fourth DLCs are a lot better and are finally on par with the excellent Fallout 3 DLC add-ons.
I have a feeling the Fallout series has a curse that the first DLC release isn’t very good. Dead Money tries to do things with the game that it can’t do, and it makes the DLC very hard and sometimes boring, but the story, characters, and underlying reason why you’re in the Sierra Madre are great. You start off by following a signal to the Sierra Madre Casino, but then you’re knocked out and a collar is put on you. You’re told to find three people to help you open the casino and bypass its defenses.
The three characters are great to talk to and learn about. Dog/God is a super mutant with schizophrenia; Dean Domino is a British stage actor turned ghoul; and Christine is a mute who was tortured. After you find each character, you must take them to their designated spots in the villa. This is the second part of the DLC, but by the time you get here, you’ll have cried up a storm. The game features heavy stealth and hand-to-hand combat, so people who put points into the classes will breeze through it. There are guns, but the ammo is scarce, and people who invested in energy weapons have no shot here.
The ghost people are extremely hard to kill, even if you are at level 30. You’re mainly forced to use melee with bear trap fists, spears, and knives. If you invested in guns, you’re going to have a real hard time here. It doesn’t help that all your equipment was taken away and you stuck with the few armor pieces in this whole 8–12 hour DLC. It’s light armor, and it sucks, but it’s better than nothing. There are no vendors here, just vending machines. Oh, but wait, you can’t use caps. You have to use Sierra Madre Casino chips that are scattered everywhere to buy stim packs, ammo, and everything else. Yes, why would they work against the system that’s already made and working? It’s very odd and makes playing the game so frustrating because you’re scrounging and looking for exploits in the game design to not die.
It doesn’t help that the DLC is very maze-like, and this is bad for this type of game. Where are the open areas? Nowhere. It’s just corridor after corridor, and it’s dark, bleak, and boring to look at. Everything looks the same, and it’s not very nice to be in either. Not in a good way either; I felt cramped throughout the whole ordeal, and it gets worse when you get in the casino to figure out how to get into the vault. I hope Obsidian doesn’t force us to do things the engine can’t really do next time. Part of the frustration comes with the beeping collar. Let it beep too long, and you blow up and die. There are speakers everywhere that emit a signal, and you have to run around until it stops, but this is trial and error. Run down the wrong path, and the signal won’t stop there, so you die. Yes, save constantly, or you will tear your hair out.
This mechanic is probably the most flawed since Fallout isn’t meant for this kind of stuff. I started hearing the beeping in my sleep; it goes off so many times. Some speakers you can shoot and others you can’t, but good luck that you do not get tired of this. Overall, the story is excellent, and I really felt attached to the characters. The ending is probably one of the most interesting I’ve seen in a game, and I’ll say this part because it won’t spoil anything. There are gold bars, and you can carry as much as you can, and they are worth over 7,000 caps each!! I saw these and tried to stuff my pack with them, but they weigh you down quickly. I decided to drop everything except one weapon and my armor to carry about seven of them. People who have the Rat Pack perk will take advantage here.
With two different endings and choices being a big part of the three characters, you should enjoy this part of the game. You can only get this if you are a hardcore Fallout fan; otherwise, you should just pass. It’s way too hard, and the mechanics work against what’s already established.
Fallout 3 was a phenomenon like no other. With such care and time spent on a license that completely reimagines it, it is daunting, but Bethesda pulled it off. With its haunting and eerie atmosphere, huge selection of lore-friendly weapons, excellent story, dialog, and character design, Fallout 3 became an instant classic of the last decade. New Vegas continues this tradition, but Obsidian (the original developers of Fallout 1 and 2) is on one board and has changed the game slightly, which will either piss fans off or please them.
New Vegas starts out with you being buried alive after being shot. You are a courier, but a robot named Victor digs you out, and Doc Mitchell patches you together. As you come to him, he talks to you as you select your character design and special, just like in Fallout 3. While it’s not as memorable as Fallout 3’s baby scene during this setup, it works just fine. As you step out into the Mojave Wasteland, your eyes adjust to the light, and you’re set loose in Goodsprings, which is New Vegas’s equivalent of Megaton. You meet Sunny Smiles, and she shows you the ropes of the shooting part of the game, and from there you’re on your own.
The first thing you will notice is that the engine has had a slight upgrade, but not by much. The game still uses the Oblivion engine from Fallout 3, so it’s obvious Obsidian is playing it kind of safe. The game is also full of desert wasteland, and Obsidian did the impossible by making a desert feel fun to play in and not deserted, empty, and boring to look at. Of course, like in Fallout 3, you headed toward the DC Metro area. In New Vegas, you’re heading to the Vegas Strip to meet Mr. House, who can help you figure out what exactly happened to you.
In the meantime, there are rival factions battling it out, mainly the New California Republic and the Caesar’s Legion. The NCR wants to order in the Mojave and wants to take over the Strip, but Caesar’s Legion wants to enslave everyone. There are other smaller factions that you must decide what to do with, and each one has tons of missions that will ultimately determine how easy the end of the game is. Speaking of missions, that’s one thing you will notice. There are tons and tons of them, but the game is missing the epic set pieces that Fallout 3 had. Instead, it’s just quest after quest, but they are all designed brilliantly, and no one is ever the same.
New Vegas still has the VATS (Vault-Tec Automated Targeting System) system, but nothing about it has been changing. There is a new first-person iron sights view, so with this, you will rarely use VATS now. This helps make the action faster and speeds things along. Everything else from Fallout 3 is here, but a major addition is modding your weapons. You can find or buy things like clip extenders, silencers, and scopes to add to your weapons. Additionally, you can also break down ammo and create new ones, as well as make aid items from items found throughout the wasteland and cook them. These new additions are minimal, and some people may not even use them, but that’s ok. There are a ton of new weapons and enemies, and everything you expected from Fallout 3 is here.
New Vegas also has amazing dialog, characters, and quests, and there is a ton of it. There are quite a few companions to have to tag along with, and there seems to be an infinite amount of spoken dialog. Player choices still play a huge role in the game, so don’t think those are gone. The biggest feat for New Vegas is that it, yet again, portrays a believable, enrapturing world and feels every part as amazing as the Capital Wasteland. There are a lot of Easter eggs and tidbits for fans of the classic 90’s Fallout games too. New Vegas is just an amazing and engrossing game that you can’t get yourself sucked out of. The addition of gambling is a good example of something that can be done at any casino and can be a lot of fun.
The game does have a few flaws, such as the copious amount of bugs, the characters looking ugly still, and the fact that it feels kind of dated. While the engine is solid and works for this game, it just needs a huge overhaul for Fallout 4, but die-hard fans will appreciate the familiarity. On a side note (that doesn’t affect the score), the game has a huge moderator community. Within the first week of being out, there were over 1,000 mods. While most of them are junk, there are some amazing mods that you must have that will make you not want to play the game without them. Character mods to make them look better, sexier, clothing add-ons, quests, weapons, you name it. I can’t play the game without these amazing mods, but for people who don’t care, New Vegas is a great game.
On an end note, New Vegas really sticks true to the RPG genre with tons of perks, a level 30 cap, and somehow makes item sorting fun. Pulling up your Pip-Boy to check your map, fast-traveling to discovered locations, or finding little-hidden gems and secrets in the nooks and crannies of the world is satisfying. Before you know it, 8+ hours will pass, and you’ll go to bed with a smile on your face, knowing that the Mojave Wasteland is safe with you around. Or is it?
Collector’s Edition: If you want to pony up another $30, you can get a beautiful and well-put-together special edition. The biggest attraction is the real poker chips from each faction of the game, plus the 200 platinum chips. The playing cards are beautifully drawn, and each card features a character on the back with a bio. The quality is amazing. You also get the comic book and making-of DVD. Is it worth it? Hell yes.
Game of the Year is one of the hardest decisions because so many games are created every year. But to come out on top the game must be excellent in its genre (usually re-define it) and have great production values, and not feel repetitive, and usually, it changes the way we think about games.
What sets Red Dead apart from all of these other excellent games is how authentic its world is. It feels so real and feels just like the wild west. With excellent voice acting, a huge open world to explore, lots of missions, and it’s just the subtle details that make it a winner. Hunting, gambling, horseback riding, even down to the drinks, attitudes of the people, clothing, accents, it just all adds up to something spectacular and really shows what a game can do. It’s Red Dead’s subtle details that truly make this game shine over the others.
RPG’s most important element is the story. This is what sets RPGs apart from other genres. The games also must have excellent lovable characters and good combat whether it’s turned based or real-time. RPGs also tend to be very long, but they are getting a bad rap in Japan due to never changing their formula.
While New Vegas isn’t as good as Fallout 3 just the sheer vastness of the wasteland, the memorable characters, and the deep amount of content the game provides. There are a seemingly endless amount of quests, and the game has excellent dungeons, great shooting mechanics, and the mod community for the PC version is enormous, and New Vegas wins because the game lasts beyond the box, and it stays true to RPG standards: Leveling up by killing, completing quests, and tons of loot.
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Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.