My biggest problem with Dead Money stems from a gameplay perspective. New Vegas is already not the pinnacle regarding the first/third-person shooter mechanics it has; This is just something I can acknowledge. I can look past it most of the time, thanks to exploring the various locales or roleplaying with the different narrative pieces. I cannot do that in Dead Money.
This stems from two significant things: The enemies (and their design) and the setting. The Ghost People and, eventually, the Holograms are the only types of enemies you'll be facing for the 6~8 hours of playtime you'll experience in the DLC. Both enemies are not so terrifying as they are annoying to deal with, especially in the case of the Ghost People and their broken Perception stat. Both require extra work to kill entirely; in some issues with the holograms, killing isn't an option.
Now I understand that Dead Money was meant to be like a survival horror. In that respect, making enemies that can be virtually impossible to kill and difficult to deal with is a respectable concept; it falls flat on its face when you realize that if you get enough Sierra Madre Chips, you can just buy over 100 stimpacks and completely negate the entire challenge; This is what I did this playthrough. I found the Sierra Madre Snowglobe (which is very easy to obtain) and automatically got 2000 Chips on top of what I already had. Even then, chip collection can be as easy as talking to Christine and getting the perk to make your own using Fission Batteries and Scrap Metal or looking in every container.
So what? Ultimately, we're left with only two enemy types for an entire 6~8 hour duration, which visually and mechanically gets very stale relatively quickly.
Then there's the setting; by that, I mean I do not care for the Villa. Unlike the DLCs that came after (barring Lonesome Road, which is the worst one), Dead Money's Villa focuses on being a very narrow, linear experience through and through. Exploration, while encouraged for survival, is not nearly as satisfying as in the main game.
This isn't helped by the sameness of every location, having that Spanish architecture and dark red smokey color palette. And yes, I know that it is all intentional, but I still find it to get really mundane quickly, and eventually, areas start to blur. I prefer the far more varied environments you can find in the base game despite that mainly being desert.
Despite my complaints, Dead Money easily has the best narrative and thematic resonance of any DLC without being pretentious and preachy like Lonesome Road. Every character you encounter is incredibly well-developed, and the performances are stellar across the board.
However, some of it is undercut by the pacing. You spend so much time gathering the team, sending them to their specific places, and then activating the Gala event that it feels bizarre when you enter the Casino and everything starts ending.
To summarize, this is my second least favorite of the New Vegas DLC, but it still has charm.
However, the PC Version must be incredibly unstable because I have dealt with more crashes, specifically in this playthrough of Dead Money than I have with any other part of the game (and this is with the anti-crash files installed).
PS I snuck out with all the gold and trapped Elijah in the vault like a boss; now I shall break the Mojave Economy.
This stems from two significant things: The enemies (and their design) and the setting. The Ghost People and, eventually, the Holograms are the only types of enemies you'll be facing for the 6~8 hours of playtime you'll experience in the DLC. Both enemies are not so terrifying as they are annoying to deal with, especially in the case of the Ghost People and their broken Perception stat. Both require extra work to kill entirely; in some issues with the holograms, killing isn't an option.
Now I understand that Dead Money was meant to be like a survival horror. In that respect, making enemies that can be virtually impossible to kill and difficult to deal with is a respectable concept; it falls flat on its face when you realize that if you get enough Sierra Madre Chips, you can just buy over 100 stimpacks and completely negate the entire challenge; This is what I did this playthrough. I found the Sierra Madre Snowglobe (which is very easy to obtain) and automatically got 2000 Chips on top of what I already had. Even then, chip collection can be as easy as talking to Christine and getting the perk to make your own using Fission Batteries and Scrap Metal or looking in every container.
So what? Ultimately, we're left with only two enemy types for an entire 6~8 hour duration, which visually and mechanically gets very stale relatively quickly.
Then there's the setting; by that, I mean I do not care for the Villa. Unlike the DLCs that came after (barring Lonesome Road, which is the worst one), Dead Money's Villa focuses on being a very narrow, linear experience through and through. Exploration, while encouraged for survival, is not nearly as satisfying as in the main game.
This isn't helped by the sameness of every location, having that Spanish architecture and dark red smokey color palette. And yes, I know that it is all intentional, but I still find it to get really mundane quickly, and eventually, areas start to blur. I prefer the far more varied environments you can find in the base game despite that mainly being desert.
Despite my complaints, Dead Money easily has the best narrative and thematic resonance of any DLC without being pretentious and preachy like Lonesome Road. Every character you encounter is incredibly well-developed, and the performances are stellar across the board.
However, some of it is undercut by the pacing. You spend so much time gathering the team, sending them to their specific places, and then activating the Gala event that it feels bizarre when you enter the Casino and everything starts ending.
To summarize, this is my second least favorite of the New Vegas DLC, but it still has charm.
However, the PC Version must be incredibly unstable because I have dealt with more crashes, specifically in this playthrough of Dead Money than I have with any other part of the game (and this is with the anti-crash files installed).
PS I snuck out with all the gold and trapped Elijah in the vault like a boss; now I shall break the Mojave Economy.