Dead Money

So the first bit of Fallout: New Vegas DLC game out a little while back. What, 2 weeks? Whatever.
I paid 10 bucks, and got about 10 hours of gameplay (I just managed to beat it in one day). When you think of that on terms of other entertainment to dollar ratios it's really worth the money. A movie is like 8 bucks, and will barely give you 2 hours of fun. A book is rarely 10 hours of reading AND under 10 bucks. That being said, I have a lot of complaints with this DLC. I have noticed that I have more complaints with the new Fallout games than most any other game I've played. I see this as a good thing though. When you really use something, really love it, you start to see areas that you'd change and tweak. Not to make the game "good", because it already is, but to make it flow more to your tastes.


So first thing is first. If you have already played the Dead Money DLC, this paragraph will be mostly boringness, and thus should be skipped (unless you really like reading). Dead Money takes place before the end of the game. It raises the level cap by 5, and adds a few new perks. It also adds a whole new area to the game, but a very small one. After the DLC is loaded you get a radio broadcast that points to a pre-war casino out in the über-boonies. You walk into the abandon BoS bunker (finally I figure out what it's for. It was really driving me nuts), get knocked out and lose EVERYTHING just like in The Pitt DLC from Fallout 3. Unlike the Pitt, you'll not see any of that gear until you leave. You wake up to a hologram that tells you that you must gather up a team to break into the casino. If you don't work together, he'll set off the bomb collar around your neck and find new people to do it.

The character I used was my level 30 character. The one I had been using to collect everything I could and go everywhere I could. So I was kinda pissed that I couldn't use my cool weapons. But I understand that the DLC would be "boring" if you walked into it with a million stem-packs and more ammo than you could ever use. This DLC played pretty much nothing like New Vegas did. I loved it! But I also love New Vegas. It's kinda hard to explain but it was a really fun little add on. So the area is set up like a European town. tiny cobbled roads (too small for cars), lots of tile and fountains. It's really quite beautiful. But of course, nothing in the wasteland looks like it did 200+ years ago, and this is no exception. There are new monsters that are a real pain (mostly because you have limited health without your mass of stem packs and lack of ammo caches worthy of a third world country) and this pollution that slowly drains your health while in it. And by slowly I mean "At level 30, I couldn't stand in the shit for a minute without dieing." There is nothing you can do about this. Hazmat suits are apparently destroyed by the stuff (the metal fittings at least. Trapping the wearer inside, at best) so, even if you had one, it wouldn't help. The monsters are humanoid, and wear some form of chemical suit that seems to either protect them, or protected them enough to let them built up an immunity to the crap. To kill these enemies, you need to break of a limb. If you deplete their health, they fall down dead for about 20 seconds, and then stand back up with full health and attack again. So you either target their limbs in vats, or knock them down and blow their head off with a shotgun when they finally go down. Their weapons aren't too bad to deal with at least. They have throwing spears, stabbing spears, bear trap fists and gas bombs. The gas bombs are kind of a pain, but they don't do too much damage and aren't used all that much.

I'd go more into detail about this DLC, but I'm not here to review games, I'm here to talk about the random crap that happens to me while playing them. So lets go do that!

First off there is a radio broadcast that will set off your bomb collar. So you have to do things like turn of ham radios (FINALLY! They get used for something. They kinda were in Fallout 3 I guess, but still. I've been turning them on for ever simply because I can) or shooting radios on the wall (feels like playing Metal Gear Solid at times). Oh and turning off the radio broadcasts via computer terminals (because some radios are bullet proof, or something). The first time you have to worry about this is when you go to pick up DOG. He is a super mutant (Nightkin) sitting in a cage in the police station. The second you walk in Elijah talks to you through your pipboy (he was the hologram dude). I didn't hear all of what he said the first time (I was busy playing a Frank Sinatra CD in the real world, because this place lacks the music stations. And because Frank Sinatra is awesome like that) and it proved to be pretty annoying to figure out what he meant. I see DOG sitting in a cage, crying or something, and start walking to him. My collar starts beeping. "Oh cool. It has like a tracking system in it or something" is exactly what I think to myself just before it blows my head off. Turns out I had to run up to the ham radios and turn them off. Or blow up the radios on the desks etc. Once I figured that out the police station became a very fun place. Suddenly I was faced with an enemy that could kill me in one hit, period. So I had to really think before I went anywhere. Maybe this is why I had such fun with the DLC. I was fighting a lot more than just something with a huge gun or claws.

Before you make it into the casino, health is hard to come by. You can't sleep anywhere so that's out as a way to heal up. In the hospital the auto-docs can only heal your limbs. Which is huge, but it's not healing health. So things like food became more important than they'd ever been for me. I played most of that section of the game at about half health. There are no bottle caps, but there are these casino chips that can be used in vending machines to buy things. I chose to save them for ammo etc rather than spend them on food. Unless I really REALLY needed it. This really did add to the stress factor of the DLC, but that was really a good thing. If it wasn't for that, it would have been fairly boring (and much shorter). Once you make it into the casino you can use beds, and you can drink from water sources. Thus food goes back to something you ditch when cooler stuff comes along to be looted. And the combat changes more to a MGS style. Now there are holograms that patrol. You get caught by them, and they shoot you with some laser beam thing (and you can't hurt them at all). They don't do too much damage though so it isn't too frustrating.

So I'm sure you get an idea of what the DLC is like, more or less. You can find videos all over I'm sure. They added the coolest gun ever (the BAR. .308 light machine gun, more or less. Makes for a really fun gun to use) and gave some good enjoyable play time. I have but one complaint. One thing that really keeps me from loving this DLC. I feel like it was more fun than the Mothership Zeta addon from Fallout 3, but with a lot less content. It should not have been 10 bucks. So what is this complaint? It doesn't allow you play after beating the game, but I didn't really expect it to so that wasn't it. You can't go back, ever. You go there, build up all kinds of cool stuff and then once you leave, you can never go back. It just feels like a total bitch slap. I paid 10 bucks and I can't ever go back and play around in that place!? I want to go have fun in the Villa now that I've got Stem-packs and ammo out the wazoo again! I want to teach those fucking monsters what an upgraded hunting shotgun to the face is like. Give me a little revenge. But no. As you activate the gate it tells you "you're sure you'll never be able to find your way back to this place" and then you leave. Like that Pipboy on my wrist wouldn't be able to help me get back there. You get to see the Fallout style slide show ending, telling you what each person you encountered will do etc. And it's a really cool ending (at least for my actions). It hints heavily at the next DLC. Which, to me, sounds like DLC that will let you play after the ending. According to The Vault (The fallout Wiki) it has been stated that no DLC will let you play after the ending. I real hope this is not the case as I know there could be a lot of awesome new quests added. Or at the least have you play after the ending, but making you travel to California for whatever reason. But anyway, it really makes me wish I had New Vegas on the computer (and that the DLC was on more than just the 360 right now) so I could hack and go back there.