The first Fallout: New Vegas DLC, “Dead Money” came out on the 21st. I played it (sunk at least 10+ hours into, in fact), finished it, and greatly enjoyed the story of it. Unfortunately, by the end of it, while I liked the Ghost People as enemies, I fucking hated the other gameplay mechanics it had included. They started off interesting and challenging but quickly turned annoying. I also wish the gameplay had been a little more balanced — it definitely seemed to favor stealthy characters with high unarmed/melee and survival stats, and while the police pistol and holorifle were both fairly effective, there were multiple instances where the sheer number of Ghost People to fight exhausted most of my ammo. My only other gripes are the lack of non-melee/unarmed unique weapons (the automatic rifle, police pistol and holorifle vs. the cosmic knife, cosmic knife clean, cosmic knife super-heated, knife spear, knife spear clean, throwing knife spear, and the bear trap fist — you can argue that the clean and super-heated versions shouldn’t count, but it still shows that melee/unarmed characters were more greatly rewarded by the DLC) and having one of the final quests turn out in a way that displeased me (this is, of course, a personal gripe, and not a problem with the DLC itself — I now believe I know how to finish said quest in a satisfactory way, I just have no way to test it at the moment). Regardless, I loved the information for the next DLC, though it got quite heavy-handed at the end. I’m excited to see how it’s all going to play out, and I hope that the next DLC meets my expectations better than Dead Money did. Overall, I enjoyed Dead Money and it was worth the 800MSP, even though it disappointed me in some ways, and is a DLC I will never attempt on my hardcore file. I’m sure I’ll have a much better time with Dead Money when my melee/unarmed character is at an appropriate level. Until then, my now-level 35 character will enjoy the one item from the DLC she still uses: the wonderful reinforced Sierra Madre armor.

The first Fallout: New Vegas DLC, “Dead Money” came out on the 21st. I played it (sunk at least 10+ hours into, in fact), finished it, and greatly enjoyed the story of it.

Unfortunately, by the end of it, while I liked the Ghost People as enemies, I fucking hated the other gameplay mechanics it had included. They started off interesting and challenging but quickly turned annoying.

I also wish the gameplay had been a little more balanced — it definitely seemed to favor stealthy characters with high unarmed/melee and survival stats, and while the police pistol and holorifle were both fairly effective, there were multiple instances where the sheer number of Ghost People to fight exhausted most of my ammo.

My only other gripes are the lack of non-melee/unarmed unique weapons (the automatic rifle, police pistol and holorifle vs. the cosmic knife, cosmic knife clean, cosmic knife super-heated, knife spear, knife spear clean, throwing knife spear, and the bear trap fist — you can argue that the clean and super-heated versions shouldn’t count, but it still shows that melee/unarmed characters were more greatly rewarded by the DLC) and having one of the final quests turn out in a way that displeased me (this is, of course, a personal gripe, and not a problem with the DLC itself — I now believe I know how to finish said quest in a satisfactory way, I just have no way to test it at the moment).

Regardless, I loved the information for the next DLC, though it got quite heavy-handed at the end. I’m excited to see how it’s all going to play out, and I hope that the next DLC meets my expectations better than Dead Money did.

Overall, I enjoyed Dead Money and it was worth the 800MSP, even though it disappointed me in some ways, and is a DLC I will never attempt on my hardcore file. I’m sure I’ll have a much better time with Dead Money when my melee/unarmed character is at an appropriate level. Until then, my now-level 35 character will enjoy the one item from the DLC she still uses: the wonderful reinforced Sierra Madre armor.

12.23.10
dropshadow
A