So I’ve finally finished the last DLC offering and here’s what I’ve got. I should also note that I really wanted to try out all the new perks so I installed the Perk Every Level Mod and the Sprint Mod for good measure. This was my third or fourth character and I started out with melee and explosives, but by the end of Lonesome Road I had enough skill points to be 100 in everything but barter and survival.

Dead Money:

I played this one months ago so everything’s a little bit fuzzy. Here’s what I do remember.

I actually kind of liked this one. The main complaint everyone seemed to have was the hologram stealth parts and finding the instant death radios, but I counted a total of 5 holograms and I thought running into a room, taking a quick look around, and running back before my head exploded was a good break and kept things tense. I also didn’t mind losing all of my stuff at the beginning of the quest and actually started storing all of my gear before heading into the other DLCs, just to make things fair and try out all the new guns.

Anyway, this one has you running through a dead city filled with poison gas, tons of traps, and reanimated spooky men with gas masks who you need to dismember to kill. The story is that Veronica’s old mentor went batshit and started kidnapping people to help him break into Charlie Kane’s private vault full of technology and heavy ass gold bars you can sell for 10000 caps (which you’ll need for the other DLCs). The new weapons are pretty basic, except for a holo rifle that’s pretty sweet, but I didn’t have enough energy skill to mess around with it so I stuck to my bear trap gauntlet so I could rip guys up.

Like I said, I liked the whole spooky survival horror thing they tried on with this one and I enjoyed the whole stealth and frantic collar beeping. I loved the new characters and thought Elijah was a great crazy villain. They also managed to make the city a huge confusing maze that completely negates your little compass friend and lets you feel like you’re really exploring. My only complaints are that you can’t go back after you finish and the final part is a bit bugged (can’t sneak out with a stealth boy, have to take the long way around no matter what). Other than that, great add-on, but like I said lots of people hated this one.

Honest Hearts:

Ugh. Boring as shit. The story is Caesar’s old bloodthirsty general and some other pacifist Mormon are babysitting two tribes and trying to deal with a third tribe of assholes. This one mainly adds tons of recipes and brings in tommy guns (yes!). Other than that, you’ll be exploring a barren park killing geckos, bears, and assholes. If you were ever really interested when people from the regular game would talk about the Burned Man or wanted to learn more about how Caesar came to power then go ahead. Other than that, I can’t really recommend this one. The end is pretty cool, but I feel like they did this just to add tribals and give themselves some cred.

Old World Blues:

Hell yes. Even if you hate the idea of DLC and everything it stands for, this is just something you have to try out. It’s heavy on the dialogue (It has Doctor Venture as a disembodied brain! Walking eyes!), but it is all gold. The entire quest is just a giant, campy sci-fi map with science gone amok. The weapons are all amazing (A minigun with a dog’s brain that barks and growls when enemies are near! A super stealth suit that auto-injects med-x and increases your sneak speed! Energy axe that freezes robots!), there’s some sweet bosses, tons of mini bosses and places to explore, and the characters are great. It also ties into Dead Money and Lonesome Road a little bit, so you can pick up Elijah’s super powered laser rifle and go to town on reanimated medical suits and robot laser scorpions.

You get kidnapped (again) and have your brain, spine, and heart removed and replaced. It’s your job to gather the tech to get you into the FORBIDDEN ZONE so you can smash the evil doctor and save your brain. Like I said, the story is campy and ridiculous and is probably the only time this game really got me to laugh.

Lonesome Road:

A little bit weird. This one actually gives your character (and ED-E) a backstory and all the stuff that should have been included in the game in the first place. Another courier named Ulysses wants you to see how you fucked up his life before he kills you. It’s not BAD but it’s just a little too late to be telling me exactly who my character is after I’ve already conquered Nevada. There’s a fun little mini-quest where you need to find a bunch of warheads to explode with your laser pointer to open up secret areas and kill crazed legion/ncr and a lot of room to explore and check corners for special items.

There’s not that many new weapons, but they are awesome. There’s a sweet rapid fire rocket launcher the game almost forces you to use by shoving ammo in your face, a copy of Legate’s sword, an insanely strong deathclaw gauntlet called Fist of the North Rawr (hell yes) that just ruins everything, and auto-stims. By now I was level 49, so I spent most of the time throwing mines everywhere and sniping people with rockets (it was awesome, but having 20 explosions on screen makes it almost impossible to aim after you start shooting). ED-E also gets some amazing upgrades (free 50% weapon repair once a day, free ammo once a day, anywhere workbench/ammo loader) and they do their best to make him adorable.

The quest ends with a pretty sweet boss fight and then opens up 3 optional full on combat areas (one of them has about 10 deathclaws and 20 underlings that all rush you and your rockets). It’s a pretty good DLC and feels way more satisfying than the Hoover Dam battle, but it’s still a slap in the face for the game to start telling me who my character is all of a sudden.

Quick Summary:

Dead Money – Positive
Broken Hearts – Negative
Old World Blues – Positive!!!
Lonesome Road – Positive