I can say with perfect honesty that Fallout New Vegas is my favorite game. Maybe it will one day change, but for right now, for me, it is the perfect video game.
That being said, we have had our fair share of trouble.
For completely inexplicable (to me, at least) reasons after several hundreds of hours of game time, FNV stopped loving me. Suddenly I was getting "disc scratched or damaged" messages, the inability to go more than a half hour before the game froze or blacked out or generally rebelled against my playing, and the complete and utter lockout from all DLC. New copies of the game and clearing the cache yielded no results, and deleting and re-downloading extra content was fruitless. It seemed I was never going to get to experience the content to a game I so adored.
As a last ditch effort before I gave up on this Obsidian masterpiece, I bought a fancy new console and a Game of the Year edition copy with all the DLC included. Economical? Hell no. I was paying for the fourth copy of the game and a costly console just to play a two year old game that I have logged over a hundred hours on. But dammit, I wanted to play it!
All of that is to explain why I am writing about DLC that is considered old news in the gaming world. Because this is the first time that I have gotten to experience it.
"Old World Blues" takes the Courier--in my case, a sweet southern soldier named Calley--to the former technology hub Big Mountain where you discover yourself subjected to the science experiments of the Think Tank.
My first impression was not a strongly positive one, for though I love the game, I am inherently distrustful of any changes, and unfortunately this one started out quite wordy. The problem with DLC is that it feels like a separate game within a game which means that the introduction has to capture you, make you interested enough to keep going. OWB has the traditional narrated Fallout opening sequence, then it drops you in a big room with a group of chatty scientists who drag out the conversation into tedium. I hate skipping dialogue but I was half falling asleep waiting for the action to start.
The other issue I had was that because of my general disinterest in reading every word, I glazed over a lot of explanation as to where I was, why I was there, and what I was supposed to be doing. Like a trained monkey, I can follow the compass to my next objective, but it wasn't until nearly the end of the story line that I started picking up on what I was doing in the first place. I was just so antsy to get out there and explore, see what new creatures and weapons this world had to offer over the traditional game that I was missing important points.
That being said, of course the writing was well done and the characters were intriguing and entertaining. There was a lot of character at Big Mountain and I had fun playing it.
First, The Sink:
Even with an obnoxious compulsive disorder, my teeny sentry-bot pal Muggy was damned endearing. I actually enjoyed the Sink, the temporary home provided by the Think Tank while I traipsed about Big Mt. The catty light switches, the homicidal toaster, the smooth-talking seed machine made for the best player-owned home in the game. It was spacious with lots of storage for the many things I gathered on my journey, but best of all it utilized all that useless crap that littered the wasteland. I found myself bogging my inventory down not with valuable, sellable items, but coffee mugs, clipboards, and toasters just to make my neurotic appliances happy at home.
Add that to the only in-home store and repair shop the game offers, as well as an auto-doc complete with implants, cosmetic surgery, and psychiatric eval, and you are looking at the perfect hideaway in the wasteland.
Not all things are rosy here though. The Sink's store starts off with more available caps than most vendors, but does not ever receive an influx of supplies. The 8 stimpacks I was able to buy from him were the only ones available for purchase in Big Mountain, and if I needed healing I would have to tromp all the way back to my auto-doc.
All the functions of your home electronics have to be sought out in the form of holotapes and activated before the personality subroutines can be implemented, which would be fine if this was a home that you would be able to make your base for more than just the DLC. Once you leave here, I am given the impression that you can come back, but as it is not as accessible as say the Lucky 38 presidential suite or the hotel room in Novac, I can't imagine that it could be a long-term lodging.
Finally, the implants offered by the auto-doc are costly even for implants and offer little incentive to purchase them. For example, there is a 20,000 cap implant that increases the HP/AP bonus from consuming food. We are talking a massive investment for a benefit that you will only truly feel if you are playing in hardcore mode, and even then it won't be significant. Generally speaking, a stimpack will cost you between 100 and 125 caps, which means that for the same amount of money you can get between 160 and 200 stimpacks. There just is no logical sense.
New Enemies
One of the best parts of DLC is fighting off the new monstrosities in creation. Airing my (minor) complaint first--though I entered the world as merely a level 18, only one enemy posed a significant challenge and he was something I had seen before. In that aspect, it was mildly disappointing; in a much bigger way, it made me feel like a badass, and it really helped me rely on the weapons provided that were custom-made for fighting these enemies. My instinct is to fall back on my two favorites--the Weathered 10mm from the pre-order bonus pack, or the Ranger Sequoia obtained by killing an NCR ranger. Those felt out of place in this high-tech, robot-infested world, and I found myself opening up to the unusual weaponry available.
But I will save that for the weapons section. On to the bad guys!
Lobotomites are crazed, psychiatric patients armed with everything from a hatchet to a caravan shotgun. As I said, they are relatively easy to take down, if you are being observant--they blend in well with their surroundings, and they never travel alone.
Robo-Scorpions look straight out of Stark Technology, but are devilly little suckers to kill. They too are usually found in groups, and once you kill them, back the hell off--they have a concussive explosion moments after death that can kill.
Fucking cazadores.
I hate those things. I think the developers were aware of that fact, as they grant you resistance to the poison via perk while you are here, and they break up the groupings a bit more. In the standard game, you will be walking along and one of these bastards will sting you, sending a health-damaging poison coursing through your veins while you try to fight off a dozen more of his venomous buddies.
Seriously, fuck cazadores.
Other than those, you will find cyberdogs, the full gamut of robot enemies, and nightstalkers. Nothing particularly daunting, but in greater numbers than typically found in the wasteland.
The Weapons
As I mentioned earlier, I am more of a one-gun kinda gal. Sure, some of my characters will favor the plasma energy weapons over traditional small guns, but for the most part I find what I like and I stick with it. For the majority of your purposes, the Weathered 10mm is going to treat you just right. The ammo is plentiful, parts for repairs are in abundance, and it can take on most enemies.
And in Old World Blues, you might as well leave it at home.
My pet gun felt surprisingly impotent here considering my early testament to the weakness of the enemies, but to be frank, the weapons the world provides are much more suited for the tech-based baddies of Big Mt.
The Sonic Emitter is a gun given to you by the Think Tank in the onset of the game. The frequency can be changed (if you gather the appropriate holotapes) to alter its effects, but overall I did not personally use it much until it was upgraded.
If you pass a gun skills check with Dr. Klein, he will offer you the k9000 cyberdog gun, a machine gun with a dog's brain that uses .357 ammo. If you don't pass the speech check, you will find another one somewhere in the world. While a novelty, the whimpering whenever you unequip it sweet, I did not find myself gravitating towards it much as it felt too big, too bulky, and too underpowered for its size.
My personal favorite, however, was the proton ax.
First of all, it just looks cool. Its style is tomahawk (throwing) or battleaxe (regular ax) with electrical force field for the blade. Beyond that, it does significant damage to all enemies but particularly tech-based ones, and there are enough in the world to keep yours in tip-top shape.
I am far from a melee character. As I generally play girls, my strength tends to stay modest while my skills center more around persuasion and perception. The consistent feature they all share is that brute strength is not their strong suit, so shooting usually takes precedence over beating away my attackers.
This proton ax really changed my mind on that front. I justified it away by saying the force behind my hits is not the swing, but rather from the electrical current it sends shooting through the robot. It does not break my character to refocus my skills onto melee if I am able to justify it away.
All in all, I did enjoy myself. To the point that I was surprised I was so nearing the end. That may have been because this DLC felt custom-made for my Calley. She has a high perception, speech, and science, all of which play an important role in success here. I can't imagine how it would have played out had I a higher agility or explosives, but I am curious to see how I would have fared given different circumstances. Were there things I would change? Absolutely. No game is perfect, even one as awesome as New Vegas, but I enjoyed the diversion while I had it.
--Andie--
