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Has anyone played any of the NV DLC? If so how was it?

I have not played Old World Blues yet, but Honest Hearts was pretty incredible. Dead Money is skippable unless you really enjoy the western aspect of the setting (as this definitely accentuates it).

I picked up Honest Hearts and Dead Money for six dollars total off the summer Steam sale. Honest Hearts is pretty invaluable (at the very least, it gives you five more levels with perks to go with it), but Dead Money is hit or miss depending on your preferences

It gives you 5 more levels too y'know.

Dead Money and Honest Hearts are both awesome. I haven't played Old World Blues but it seems fun.

Dead money at least was a massive bug fest.

I'm a bit split really. I freely admit I think Bethesda really dropped the ball with the Fallout series - they took an excellent backstory and canon and made it, kind of 'meh'. I really can't express it any more eloquently really, other than I think they failed to capture the 'essence' of Fallout. I mean, vending machines with stuff in them after 200 years? Edible food still in stores and homes? People still living in crap shacks with dirty clothes? It just doesn't quite jibe. In Fallout 2, you could see a progression from the first game as the story evolved; you could see society beginning to coalesce again - with FO3 it just seems they took FO1's premise and jumped 200 years in the future just so they had a 'clean' timeline to work with free of existing canon.

Anyway, the DLC - Dead Money I thought was a pretty good story, albeit ruined by a dreary setting. I mean, poison fog - in no way to mask the fact that they couldn't be arsed to code textures and backgrounds properly? But the premise was pretty good and in keeping with the FO universe.

Honest Hearts - I thought it was pretty rubbish. Boring setting, dreary canyons and dull tribals as well as a pretty short series of missions. The only thing I liked about it was the survivalist story - a nice touch of pathos I thought (plus the groovy desert ranger armour).

Old World Blues - This is supposed to bring the humour back to FO but to be honest, I don't really think the humour fits. The humour in the original games was very dark, black humour where Old World Blues just strikes me as stupid. Just something about the whole DLC just doesn't jibe with me. That being said, it was entertaining enough, even though you can blast right through it pretty quickly and it doesn't really offer anything mind blowing in terms of tech or weaponry.

@filbert so if I only get one DLC it should be Dead Money?

Yup that one is the best.

I'm probably not the best person to ask since I think Fallout 3 & New Vegas suck compared to the old games. I really hate what Bethesda have done to the setting and the franchise. That being said, I think Dead Money entertained me the most out of the current crop of DLC. I am hoping Lonesome Road lives up to billing.

Hated dead money, nothing enjoyable about that at all...

I Downloaded Dead Money, but the first game I made I had to trek a good ten minutes there and it froze up on me twice before I actually got to play it, so I said feth this and didn't try again.

I have played all of them and I really enjoyed Dead Money and Honest Hearts. Big Empty was tough because I was so high level but was great for an energy weapons charachter. I think that it set up the last DLC really well and made some good references to Dead Money. I also heared that playine Big MT first unlocked some unique dialouge for Dead Money but I haven't done them in that order (yet!) Plus I like some of the new perks/traits and the new radio staion.

filbert wrote:I'm probably not the best person to ask since I think Fallout 3 & New Vegas suck compared to the old games. I really hate what Bethesda have done to the setting and the franchise.

You know New Vegas wasn't made by Bethesda, right? It just used a modified version of their engine, and was created by a team at Obsidian that included, and was led by, people who worked on the original games.

On topic, I've got all the DLC, but haven't gotten around to actually doing any of the missions yet.

I was wondering about the increase to the level cap.

I have Dead Money and the +5 increase to a max of 35 as far as levels are concerned, but I understand that Honest Hearts also adds +5 to the level cap as well.

Are these cumulative, or is the increase a one off so that level 35 is the max even with both DLCs?

They stack AFAIK.

And I agree bethesda ruined it, yes, obsidian worked on NV, but they were still bound to bethesda's version of Fallout.

This is madness: I'm making a poll.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

filbert wrote:I'm probably not the best person to ask since I think Fallout 3 & New Vegas suck compared to the old games. I really hate what Bethesda have done to the setting and the franchise. That being said, I think Dead Money entertained me the most out of the current crop of DLC. I am hoping Lonesome Road lives up to billing.

I certainly can't agree. The reason I like FO3 so much is because it was so Fallout. I thought it was a great translation into 3D. Just like When they did Metroid for N64. What do you feel they've "done" to the series?...y'know other than make it awesome.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

filbert wrote:I'm probably not the best person to ask since I think Fallout 3 & New Vegas suck compared to the old games. I really hate what Bethesda have done to the setting and the franchise. That being said, I think Dead Money entertained me the most out of the current crop of DLC. I am hoping Lonesome Road lives up to billing.

I certainly can't agree. The reason I like FO3 so much is because it was so Fallout. I thought it was a great translation into 3D. Just like When they did Metroid for N64. What do you feel they've "done" to the series?...y'know other than make it awesome.

For me, its a combination of lots of seemingly small things - death from a thousand cuts. FO (and FO2) to a lesser extent were set fairly close after the war. That gave you a feeling that when you stepped out of the vault in the first game, you really were venturing into a post apocalyptic world. However, Bethesda chose to set FO3 some 200 years after the war (as I said earlier, probably to give themselves a 'clear' timeline free from existing canon) but the result ends up with it being a horological mess. Some examples:

1) No sense of functioning society - do you seriously expect to believe that 200 years after a nuclear war with most tech and a certain degree of infrastructure still present, that people would still be living in half ruined buildings, exposed to the elements and with no real sense of a coalesced or organised society? Furthermore, would you expect the same people to be sleeping on dirty, dingy mattresses and with unwashed clothing?

2) Fully functioning (and in some cases) seemingly still powered vending machines with stuff still in them. Likewise the food that veritably fills so-called 'abandoned' and looted stores/shops etc.

3) Computer terminals that seem to be powered by their own magic power supply for hundreds of years.

4) In Washington DC, it seems the only concession to a new society is some random bloke living in a half-ruined building broadcasting a radio station. So after 200 years people still haven't organised workable communities? How does Megaton grow its food? Or presumably it scavenges from the never ending supplies of pre-war food mentioned earlier?

At least in FO2 you had lots of smaller communities like San Francisco, the Den, NCR etc where you got a sense of society beginning to come together once more. In FO3 there is no sense of this at all, aside from a pretty small town like Megaton, there isn't really anything else - just a random collection of strangers and odd characters living in crap shacks in the middle of nowhere.


Don't get me wrong - I think graphically, clearly FO3 succeeds - the vista when you first step out the vault and see the Capital Wasteland for the first time is stunning, I just think they really didn't think through lots of other things through properly. In totality, I just don't think it jibes with me - I don't get the same feeling I get from it as I did FO1/2. I'm not explaining myself particularly well because so much of it is the feeling and impression you get from the setting - I'm sure others can explain much more eloquently than I. FO3 and New Vegas are by no means bad games; they are both enjoyable and I still play them myself (even though NV melted my graphics card a couple of days ago) but I just wish the original FO team had been allowed to pursue their own vision and update the series rather than having to pick up from where Bethesda 'told them' there series was, as they have had to do with NV.

In short, they should have made Van Buren.

Soladrin wrote:They stack AFAIK.

They definitely stack as I just pinged level 45 this morning

I'm enjoying all of the NV expansions, more than the FO3 ones anyway, but I can understand Filbert's concerns about civilisation not restarting properly in the 200 year advancement.

The Stealth suit from the latest game is good fun, though I will probably switch back to power armour when I return to the main storyline as I like a bit of protection. The new axe is also pretty good if you're going up against robots... but who takes on robots in close combat?! I think my favourite new addition from any of the dlc is the rifle you get from Dead Money; the acid effect is really nice. There are some nice extra perks in the latest one too, though I've no idea what happens when you go back to the wastes yet.

I never got to finish Fallout 2 thanks to a major bug in the game that corrupted my game near the end. One day I need to find copies of the originals so I can go back and replay them all.

To anyone thinking of playing the original games - I would highly recommend the 'fan' patches that fix the major game breaking bugs. There is also a Fallout restoration project that restores a hell of a lot of new NPCs, locations and content to FO2 that was originally cut from the release. Highly recommended.

Edit: All the mods / patches etc are hosted on the No Mutants Allowed site.

filbert wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

filbert wrote:I'm probably not the best person to ask since I think Fallout 3 & New Vegas suck compared to the old games. I really hate what Bethesda have done to the setting and the franchise. That being said, I think Dead Money entertained me the most out of the current crop of DLC. I am hoping Lonesome Road lives up to billing.

I certainly can't agree. The reason I like FO3 so much is because it was so Fallout. I thought it was a great translation into 3D. Just like When they did Metroid for N64. What do you feel they've "done" to the series?...y'know other than make it awesome.

For me, its a combination of lots of seemingly small things - death from a thousand cuts. FO (and FO2) to a lesser extent were set fairly close after the war. That gave you a feeling that when you stepped out of the vault in the first game, you really were venturing into a post apocalyptic world. However, Bethesda chose to set FO3 some 200 years after the war (as I said earlier, probably to give themselves a 'clear' timeline free from existing canon) but the result ends up with it being a horological mess. Some examples:

Both FO3 and New Vegas take place less than forty years after FO2, half the time between FO1 and FO2, and FO1 took place 84 years after the war. Honestly, none of them should have been truly post-apocalyptic, and any trace of the radiation from the bombs would have already been long gone sixty years before the first game, so we're already dealing with a setting where things happen inordinately slow and nuclear fallout is confused with significantly larger quantities of spent reactor fuel.

1) No sense of functioning society - do you seriously expect to believe that 200 years after a nuclear war with most tech and a certain degree of infrastructure still present, that people would still be living in half ruined buildings, exposed to the elements and with no real sense of a coalesced or organised society? Furthermore, would you expect the same people to be sleeping on dirty, dingy mattresses and with unwashed clothing?

I'll grant that for the Capital Wasteland, and its in-game justification of "something something super mutants something something no one bothered trying". The Mojave actually makes sense, in that society is well under reconstruction, and the Mojave just happens to be a frontier where a low-intensity war is being played out by the two major regional players.

2) Fully functioning (and in some cases) seemingly still powered vending machines with stuff still in them. Likewise the food that veritably fills so-called 'abandoned' and looted stores/shops etc.

3) Computer terminals that seem to be powered by their own magic power supply for hundreds of years.

Concessions for gameplay purposes, since "explore this dead wasteland with nothing of interest to find" would make a rather terrible game.

4) In Washington DC, it seems the only concession to a new society is some random bloke living in a half-ruined building broadcasting a radio station. So after 200 years people still haven't organised workable communities? How does Megaton grow its food? Or presumably it scavenges from the never ending supplies of pre-war food mentioned earlier?

The Capital Wasteland is a jumbled mess when though about rationally, but it makes a good game setting. It's like the generic DnD setting of post-apocalyptic games.

filbert wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

filbert wrote:I'm probably not the best person to ask since I think Fallout 3 & New Vegas suck compared to the old games. I really hate what Bethesda have done to the setting and the franchise. That being said, I think Dead Money entertained me the most out of the current crop of DLC. I am hoping Lonesome Road lives up to billing.

I certainly can't agree. The reason I like FO3 so much is because it was so Fallout. I thought it was a great translation into 3D. Just like When they did Metroid for N64. What do you feel they've "done" to the series?...y'know other than make it awesome.

For me, its a combination of lots of seemingly small things - death from a thousand cuts. FO (and FO2) to a lesser extent were set fairly close after the war. That gave you a feeling that when you stepped out of the vault in the first game, you really were venturing into a post apocalyptic world. However, Bethesda chose to set FO3 some 200 years after the war (as I said earlier, probably to give themselves a 'clear' timeline free from existing canon) but the result ends up with it being a horological mess. Some examples:

1) No sense of functioning society - do you seriously expect to believe that 200 years after a nuclear war with most tech and a certain degree of infrastructure still present, that people would still be living in half ruined buildings, exposed to the elements and with no real sense of a coalesced or organised society? Furthermore, would you expect the same people to be sleeping on dirty, dingy mattresses and with unwashed clothing?

2) Fully functioning (and in some cases) seemingly still powered vending machines with stuff still in them. Likewise the food that veritably fills so-called 'abandoned' and looted stores/shops etc.

3) Computer terminals that seem to be powered by their own magic power supply for hundreds of years.

4) In Washington DC, it seems the only concession to a new society is some random bloke living in a half-ruined building broadcasting a radio station. So after 200 years people still haven't organised workable communities? How does Megaton grow its food? Or presumably it scavenges from the never ending supplies of pre-war food mentioned earlier?

At least in FO2 you had lots of smaller communities like San Francisco, the Den, NCR etc where you got a sense of society beginning to come together once more. In FO3 there is no sense of this at all, aside from a pretty small town like Megaton, there isn't really anything else - just a random collection of strangers and odd characters living in crap shacks in the middle of nowhere.


Don't get me wrong - I think graphically, clearly FO3 succeeds - the vista when you first step out the vault and see the Capital Wasteland for the first time is stunning, I just think they really didn't think through lots of other things through properly. In totality, I just don't think it jibes with me - I don't get the same feeling I get from it as I did FO1/2. I'm not explaining myself particularly well because so much of it is the feeling and impression you get from the setting - I'm sure others can explain much more eloquently than I. FO3 and New Vegas are by no means bad games; they are both enjoyable and I still play them myself (even though NV melted my graphics card a couple of days ago) but I just wish the original FO team had been allowed to pursue their own vision and update the series rather than having to pick up from where Bethesda 'told them' there series was, as they have had to do with NV.

In short, they should have made Van Buren.

Seems to me all of those are the same problem. You're not willing to make, imo, very small leaps of faith. Especially since you probably have at least a passing familiarity with the 40k setting too. Eating a 200 year old can of radioative beans while sitting in front of a nuclear powered computer that seems to run on DOS is awesome and very much in the spirit of Fallout. Your issue about about the post-apocalyptic wasteland being too post-apocalyptic and wastlandey, well I guess that's a matter of taste. I like my post-apocalytic wasteland as post-apocalytic and wasted as possible - that's why I played the game in the first place. It makes sense that DC would be the hardest hit and a lack of fresh water is going to cause societal strife and slow progress. If you like the other way then try New Vegas it's one of the problems I have with it: not wastelandish enough. Anyways, to each his own but I find people's impression of old games is often better because they're looking at them through the rear view mirror of nostalgia.

Old World Blues is the best reviewed one so far.

I just played through Honest Hearts, and found it extremely lackluster. The area it adds is just large enough to be annoying to traverse, especially with all the sneaking tribals and swarms of gekkos around, but too small to be entertaining in its own right. The story is dull, and I'm at a loss to find a good justification as to why the Courier, in the middle of an ostensibly urgent sequence of much better paying tasks, would sign onto a low budget caravan alone and poorly equipped for 25 caps a day.