Welcome to the review of Fallout: New Vegas' first DLC, Dead Money!
In the age of dull and short DLC this is a refreshing and wonderful change of pace. Obsidian once again has made a wonderful story for a massive universe that is Fallout. The DLC beings when you you pick up a transmission from the Sierra Madre, a pre-war casino that never opened. Things look odd when you get to the source of the signal in the Mojave Desert and it is a abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker. When you step in you are greeted with graffiti on the walls about the Sierra Madre and a beheaded body.
This for me sent a feeling of wrongness all over. As you head down the stairs there is just a radio, which is on, and illuminated by a single light in a otherwise fairly barren room. And as you walk towards it... you get knocked out while hearing about beginning again at the Sierra Madre. When you come to you are presented with a view of the Sierra Madre engulfed in a blood red cloud looking promising but cruel, evil, and decrepit. Then you get contacted by Father Elijah, who has captured you and attached a explosive collar to your neck and tells you to do as he says or die. Thus begins the surprisingly difficult and scary adventure, fight, and running away from things that will not stay dead!
It starts here...
Gameplay:
It follows the basic set up of Fallout New Vegas with how everything works, which makes sense as it is DLC. Now one thing this DLC adds is something that is rather frightening. You start out with just the Holorifle which is a strong Energy Weapon but the ammo is rather rare tell later in the DLC. You are tasked with assembling a team and set out to find and release 'Dog' this is where you encounter the citizens of The Cloud. Not only do the citizens of the Villa want you dead but the place itself tries to kill you with The Cloud, which is denoted by a blood red mist. As soon as you enter it your health will start to drop, stimpaks help slow or stop the loose of health but only for a time. The Cloud will be the method of denial to areas in this DLC, no invisible walls only The Cloud and Father Elijah. You will quickly find that on Hardcore it is going to be a cruel mission to go through this place, it will tack on a few hours and only twice is there a point where you can rest.
Most other needs are taken care of and can easily be dealt with. As you progress through this new location you quickly find that you can't just head shot everything, you need to use your head and move quickly. Worst of all are The Ghost People, they come in three types, the Trapper with a bear claw fist, the Seekers who have Gas Bombs and Knife Spears, then lastly the Harvesters who have Throwing Knife Spears and Knife Spears. The ghost people are not hard to knock down, but quickly you realize just dropping them to zero health will do nothing other than stun them, you must dismember them. I would suggest the cosmetic knife in any of its forms because it is fast and hard hitting. There are vending machines all around that run off of the Sierra Madre Casino chips, which means through out the time you are there you will be gathering as many as you can, as a bonus since they are currency they weigh nothing.
The Sierra Madre.
As the game goes on you quickly find yourself falling into a pattern in how to take down The Ghost People and how to get past traps and holograms. Yes holograms are here and they will mess you up if you turn them red. Surprisingly lenient and helpful as the holograms are they will kill you if you are spotted heading into a restricted area. The best way to take them out is finding the blue holo-projector and destroying it. Another helpful thing is that you can tell what they are doing by their color, blue is safe and passive, yellow is caution, and red is ready to repel offenders.
At this point we get to break down the DLC into parts on what you are doing, there are three parts, first is the gathering of the team which is pretty easy and lets you get used to dealing with Ghost People and the tactics you need to survive. Second part is moving each team member to a location designated by Father Elijah, this part you learn more about the Villa and its problems, and the pasts of your new companions. The last part forces the player to go to a bell tower and kick off the Gala Event which was to be the grand opening ceremony for the Sierra Madra but was stopped by the Great War. At this point Ghost People all get up and start hunting the player, and they must get back to the entrance of the Villa and head up to the Sierra Madra. Once into the Sierra the player must go and 'deal' with each of the companions taking care of their past connections to Elijah or the Sierra itself. In the end the player unlocks the vault for Elijah and the final fight for escape begins as the Sierra Madre does not like to let go.
Balance:
Very balanced and a very nice difficulty curve, but it is recommended in game and by me to do this at a high level (level 25+) any lower and you will die from the cloud quickly and not have the needed skills for many points in the quests. Exploration is hard but very rewarding, keep your eye out for anything you can pick up.
AI:
I feel that the AI and the animations for the enemies are amazing. While playing you get the feeling that you are fighting something that only resembles humanity thanks to the suit it wears. The way they move about and act is just unnerving and inhuman. They walk and move like shambling corpses at time and then will suddenly start moving quickly and hoping about like a monkey. As a matter of fact the Ghost People will actually die, then get back up unless dismembered, which is quite disturbing.
Protected by ancient HAZMAT suits the Ghost people can survive the cloud, and a lot of punishment.
Replayablity:
I feel that it is replayable, but, large amounts of time must be between playthroughs as it is very memorable and rather linear. However it is still very good on its own right.
Final Verdict:
For ten dollars you are getting about ten hours of new content and a good story. Lots of decent bits of lore are in this DLC and it is a nice refreshing change of pace from wondering the beautiful and deadly Mojave desert. The motif has been said to horror and I feel they hit it quite nicely, it gives a resident evil feel, classic resident evil that is. (I have only played RE2 and RE3.) Also what is nice is that the DLC gets its own little slide presentation ending like New Vegas, and it actually feels like a complete and whole tale all on its own. A very good start to DLC for Fallout New Vegas and I hope that Obsidian can keep up with making this level of story and game play for the rest.
Begin again or die trying.
As always go to the album on my Photobucket account for more screenshots.
No comments:
Post a Comment