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Thoughts on New Vegas DLC?

Joined
May 31, 2019
Messages
13
I actually enjoy them more than the vanilla game, its probably because the devs had more freedom for the expansions which led to more unconventional gameplay scenarios and unique storylines (for a Fallout game)
 

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,650
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Dead Money is the best DLC ever created for any game, ever. ^Ignore this guy, he doesn't even know what a bad country is.

OWB - Good but the SCIENCE!!!! stuff is a little too in your face. Beyond Fallout 2 levels.

Lonesome Road - meh, OK but much too linear.

Honest Hearts - SHIT. Waaaaaaaay too short and light on content. I think it took half an hour to complete. Avoid.
 

Andyman Messiah

Mr. Ed-ucated
Joined
Jan 27, 2004
Messages
9,933
Location
Narnia
Yeah they're cool. Dead Money and Old World Blues is great. Cool stuff. Honest Hearts sucks but it's a cool area to hang out in for a while and kill dumb savages together with Mr SWAT-vest McBurnface. Lonesome Road is just a slog to get through. It's not bad but I didn't care about Ulysses and his dumb shit. He was cool to listen to in those audio logs you find in the other dlcs but in person he's just a dumb shit wearing a stupid dumb shit mask. He should have had a jamaican accent and his mask should have been a inhaler or something that he puts weed in to smoke so he's always constantly smoking weed that would've been cool.
 

Nano

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2016
Messages
4,648
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
Honest Hearts - don't remember much about this one other than the fact it nearly made me fall asleep.
Old World Blues - bullet sponge enemies and never-ending high school levels. No idea why some people love this DLC.
Lonesome Road - the guy who looked like The Nameless One pissed me off. ED-E was great, though.

On the other hand, Dead Money is possibly the absolute best Obsidian game.
 

Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,829
Location
Sweden
I thought Honest Hearts was the worst one when I first played them but nowadays it's my favorite. I think it's the most fun one to replay and the characters are pretty nice.
Dead Money had the most impact for me but it's sort of an annoying commitment to play. I like the idea of a "hardcore" DLC but I never felt like it came together in a really satisfying gameplay experience. The radios were just dumb, the ghost people are lame and the shitty engine obviously doesn't help. Best story of the bunch by far. Great set of characters. It's the one that feels the most complete and that stands on its own the best.
I actually really dislike Old World Blues. It does manage to be genuinely funny at times which is a pretty damn rare thing for a game but the gameplay just fucking sucks. Most annoying spawns in the whole game.
Lonesome Road is great for the atmosphere and areas I think. Ulysses is an interesting idea that never comes together in satisfactory way. The gameplay of this one is actually kinda fun despite the linearity of it.
 

Sentinel

Arcane
Joined
Nov 18, 2015
Messages
6,633
Location
Ommadawn
I actually enjoy them more than the vanilla game, its probably because the devs had more freedom for the expansions which led to more unconventional gameplay scenarios and unique storylines (for a Fallout game)
Play Dead Money, ignore everything else --> be sad that was probably the last piece of content MCA directed and wrote himself.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,759
Three of the four DLCs made the same mistake of disconnecting the player from the main New Vegas game world, so that once the DLC is initiated the player cannot return to the Mojave until the main quest of the DLC is completed. Old World Blues at least allowed the player to then travel freely between the DLC world and the main game world, but for Dead Money and Honest Hearts those DLC worlds become entirely off-limits once you return.

Lonesome Road, despite allowing the player to travel freely between its DLC world and the main New Vegas game world, is easily the worst of the four DLCs. It has terrible, linear level design that forces to the player to wade through bland areas full of the same type of enemies. The plot is virtually nonexistent aside from a nonsensical backstory in which the Courier (i.e. the player-character) delivered something to the area that somehow triggered nuclear explosions, which are never mentioned in the base game. Moreover, in what must be Avellone's worst character writing ever, Lonesome Road had just one NPC, Ulysses, who babbled incoherently via radio transmission leading to an anticlimactic confrontation in which Ulysses' plan for nuclear devastation can be averted with two or three sentences from the Courier.

Dead Money was an attempt to turn an Open World FPS/RPG hybrid into a survival horror game, with predictable results. Would have made a good short story, though.

Honest Hearts at least had an open environment, but there wasn't enough content, and both the main quest and the NPCs (with the exception of Joshua Graham the Burned Man) were boring --- not a surprise, coming from Josh Sawyer.

Old World Blues is easily the best of the four DLCs, as it gives the player a sizeable exterior area to explore, with a number of interesting interior locations, including several optional areas. The tongue-in-cheek tone is a much better fit for Fallout: New Vegas than the tone of the other three DLCs.
 
Self-Ejected

unfairlight

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 20, 2017
Messages
4,092
I only played Honest Hearts, got one of the worst endings. I have maybe 250h in base game.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
None of them compare at all the main game IMO. I don't think I've replayed any of them. That said...

Old World Blues - Funny writing, but too much dialog. Especially when you first arrive you'll feel like you're just sitting there listening to talking for an hour, which is unbalanced. Roboscorpions are super tanky which was annoying for my "rogue" type build. They might be better at lower levels though, I think I did all the DLC at max level and it made me wish I chose the level cap perk. Other than these annoyances it's a fun open little section, but nothing amazing aside from the great (but too verbose) comedy writing.

Honest Hearts - Purely exploration ("walking sim!") based DLC. Story is light and not great, but if you want to wander around red rocks instead of tan rocks then go nuts. Wandering exploration is absolutely part of the appeal of these games for many and this is the DLC for that.

Dead Money - I remember having a love/hate relationship with this DLC because I don't like survival horror much at all and it has a lot of elements of that, but it's also well written and interesting. I haven't played it since release so memories are vague to some extent, but I remember being both happy to have experienced it but also feeling like I never wanted to do it again. I might give it a go next New Vegas replay though, since so many have grown to praise it.

Lonesome Road - I remember this being a piece of shit honestly. One long linear endless battle, and combat is the least interesting part of the game. Ulysses or whatever his name was is treated like some epic character but you never met him before and don't care.

As with most games I think the core experience is best done alone.
 

Ventidius

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Messages
552
Old World Blues is probably the best of the bunch. Quite a few interesting new enemy variants and pieces of equipment that were quite distinct and grounded on the setting. Great atmosphere plus solid story, exploration and level design.

Dead Money is great as a storyfag affair, but the gameplay often ranges from awkward to outright gimmicky and annoying in some parts. You are treated to some great atmosphere, quests, CnC, world-building, and characters if you can stomach its more obnoxious sections.

Lonesome Road was supposed to be some kind of "dungeon crawler" but it suffered from an excessive linearity that made the level design rather bland. Still, the combat is solid, with some fun encounters thrown in, plus a pretty cool new enemy type (Tunnelers) and a "megaboss"(Rawr). The story and main antagonist were awful but some of the background lore of the area was pretty good. Those who consider New Vegas's combat a chore would probably think it a slog.

Honest Hearts had decent exploration somewhat marred by a bland setting, a fact not helped at all by its art direction. The combat and story elements were nothing remarkable but Joshua Graham was pretty badass.

IMO OWB is the only truly essential one, but if you are the kind of person who can tolerate some annoying gameplay for the sake of a good story, DM can be fun. That said, I personally enjoy NV's gameplay and even think the combat can be pretty solid when the content is at its best, thus I didn't see any real reason not to play all of them, and I often still do so on replays.

It is more content after all, and even though the game has plenty of it, the DLCs are often the only parts of the game that remain engaging at the higher levels. Apart from that, most of the scenarios have some interesting loot - some of it very handy for some builds - which expands on the base game's already excellent itemization.
 
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Joined
Sep 16, 2016
Messages
296
I loved Dead Money (Hi, I'm a storyfag who enjoys survival horror games) and then hated what I played of Honest Hearts so much that I never got around to actually finishing it or the subsequent two releases. I've been thinking about playing FNV again, and if I do I'd certainly give the DLC another shot.

But holy crap did I find Honest Hearts boring. Nothing about it caught my interest, from the setting to the characters to the area design and general gameplay. It felt like a smaller, crappier version of the base game. That being said, I've seen a few people mention positive things about it despite its problems, here on the 'dex and elsewhere, so I might give it another go.
 

Neanderthal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2015
Messages
3,626
Location
Granbretan
Dead Money. Better than the base game, each mechanic is fused with narrative, the survival elements make for a tense experience and edge of the seat minute to minute gameplay. Later enemies of a particular type in a large area make for a rather repetitious and frustrating later game, but apart from that it's excellent.
 

agentorange

Arcane
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Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
5,256
Location
rpghq (cant read codex pms cuz of fag 2fa)
Codex 2012
Honest Hearts is the most memorable to me and I think my favorite. I am somewhat biased though because one reason I like it so much is that I've been to Mt. Zion and it was a real pleasure to see the area recreated in New Vegas. That's one of my favorite aspects of NV as a whole, the amount of detail and care put into recreating real life locations and really making the Mojave feel like a lived in environment. I think that's one reason I don' care for the other DLCs as much either, the areas in them all feel a bit too fantastical, which plays against what I like about the Fallout setting. Also HH has the Survivalist and Joshua Graham.

Dead Money is fine but the kind of immensely high praise for it I see around here makes me think I missed out on something all the times I played it. Yeah it's difficult for the first half an hour maybe, but very quickly you find enough gear that it becomes a cakewalk.
 

PsychoFox

Educated
Joined
Mar 27, 2019
Messages
293
Location
(P___q)
Liked every single one a great deal. Each has its own merits and does something unique. Writing-wise all of them are pretty stellar.
 

Wunderbar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 15, 2015
Messages
8,809
The bear and the bull, the bear and the bull, the bear and the bull...
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
Honest Heart is relaxing, like a safari hunt after the dusty desert full of trash.

Dead Money is actually like a puzzle. You need to know the methods to deal with challenges throw your way. DM need players at level 12-16 with plenty of perks (repair guns, make ammo). I dont care much about its story but I do like its gameplay (scavenging for scarce resources)

Old World Blue is high level. I like it less than the previous two, mostly because of the hi-tech ruins~

Lonesome Road is dusty desert. If I want dusty desert I would stay in main game.
 

Tweed

Professional Kobold
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Joined
Sep 27, 2018
Messages
2,839
Location
harsh circumstances
Pathfinder: Wrath
Dead Money had the best gameplay as long as you aren't some kind of sissy. Honest Hearts had the best writing, but it was way too damn short.
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,944
OWB is the best.
In before people circlejerk over dead money but forget all the technical issues that ruin it

As oppose to all the technical issues that ruin OWB?

I liekd both, but OWB's issues annoyed me far more.

I liked Honest Hearts for a bit of break.

Honest Hearts is the most memorable to me and I think my favorite. I am somewhat biased though because one reason I like it so much is that I've been to Mt. Zion and it was a real pleasure to see the area recreated in New Vegas.

I appreciated the feel of care put into the setting. You could tell it was a bit of a passion project for Josh. That made me want to go along with it, and given what I'd been doing beforehand in the game, I liked it for being a bit of a break to slow down and enjoy.

Dead Money is fine but the kind of immensely high praise for it I see around here makes me think I missed out on something all the times I played it. Yeah it's difficult for the first half an hour maybe, but very quickly you find enough gear that it becomes a cakewalk.

I'd say it's major issue is that the survival difficulty eases up later, but I guess you can only do so much with the basic structure of a game in the Bethesda mold.

The big odd thing that's never sat well with me about it though is the overarching threat being presented. If the player fails we're expected to believe the world would be overrun with invincible holograms? It doesn't sit right with me, especially given my eye to dislike miraculous tech that is then never used again in the world. If such invincible holograms could be developed at one time, they can be again, and that doesn't sound like a neat thing to add to the Fallout universe.
 
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Beggar

Cipher
Joined
Dec 7, 2014
Messages
718
Pretty much shit. All of them. Use them to get unique weapons and level up
 

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